It is important for Barbadians to remember our history. The pictures in the BU gallery were captured from the Facebook Timeline of Dolores Grandison. The pictures vividly demonstrate the progress we have made on many fronts. The struggle is how do we continue to advance change in our little country that is positive and respect the struggle of our forefathers.
Barbados Underground
Bringing News and Opinions to the People
@ David,
Those videos of Janet should be shown to every 5th form student in Barbados.
@Hants
The housing stock in 1955 was poor especially compared to today. However may are of the view- including Grenville Phillips the engineerengineer- our current housing stock would be severely tested if we were to suffer a CAT 2 or greater.
forget 5th form child every builder what is with people building eaves on houses how soon they forget
Many of the old poor housing stock on props in the hills of St.Andrew survived,whereas then newer houses built with money sent back from the UK or Curacao in the same area with the new fangled idea of flatter roofs did not survive Janet……..we do not learn.
@ David,
” Low income” housing built by Government should be Cat 2 resistant.
Poor people who build wooden “chattel” houses generally cannot afford to build a “wall house”. Unfortunately they are at risk during a hurricane.
However Barbados has been lucky not to have a direct hit.
This is a very enlightening video. I was born and raised in Lodge Road, Christ Chur. I was 5 years at the time. All I remember is the howling of the wind. My mother and my sister who was 3 years at the time left our home after the roof was blown off. My mother was planning to go by a relative further up the street who owned a stone house along with a shop. We never reached there since the wind was so ferocious. We ended up at the next door neighbour. Her house was a four-roofed house with a very tall cellar. We stayed in the cellar. I think we stayed there for a few days. I am sure if my mother had perservered the three of us would be killed. I don’t remember where my father and my brothers were.
As I grew older I then heard about the loss of life that occured in Lodge Road, Christ Church where the Wesleyan Holiness church had collasped and a number of people killed. My mother’s relative house was a short distance from the Wesleyan Holiness church
From what I heard from my mother and aunts and others hurricane Janet left a lasting impact on the people. One day my father was talking about the hurricane and he said that a lady from Parish Land who left her house to go for shelter lost her infant girl when the wind blew her out of her mother’s hand and the child ended up in a pond.
Watching this video showed me that apart from the devastation of the housing stock, the after effects of disease was just as bad. I believe all Barbadians young and old should view this video.
There are some things that happened ten years ago and I cannot remember them, but that day when I was five is etched in my memory as my mother held my hand and lifted my sister in her arms. Every day I thank God for saving our lives. Fortunately none of my relatives were injured. I think we need to reflect on our lives and realise that an incident can occur that can change our lives for ever.
@ David
Just to make a correction.
The photo of the yellow, green and red coloured bus, registration number H3312, subtitled “Old time bus,” is actually a “Creole Bus” owned by Grenada Helvellyn Tours.
Thanks Artax, will make the correction.
I was looking at some old photographs of Bridgetown and saw this BU blog about old Barbados.
The way how some bloggers does romanticize the old time days and make you feel that those were the best days, I was surprise that it only got 10 comments.
I rode in one of those buses with my mother as a boy of 5 years old, and what I distinctively remember is when the rain fell the conductress, would rolled down the canvas that had been rolled up on the side of the bus with rope. Talk about air condition ….it was hot like pepper in the bus back then….
“The way how some bloggers does romanticize the old time days and make you feel that those were the best days, I was surprise that it only got 10 comments.”🤣🤣😂😂😜
Wura
They were not for some women because compliance from women were gained through the everyday beatings. So let us call it as it were back then …. men ruled with iron hands then, and I meant that in the literal sense of the word.
I bet some so called men (spineless) miss those “good old days.” where women were the only human beings they could “rule with an iron fist.”..not much has changed, they still can’t rule anyone else, they are still cowards, now selling out to the highest bidder.
Wura
In what sense are men weak because they fight all the wars, and caused all the mayhem and destruction on the earth?
Wura
In the book of Genesis, it is said that the Serpent tempted the woman Eve because she was the weaker vessel, but that hypothesis falls flat on its face, when you start to examine the history of human behaviour as it relates to men.
There are things about those good ole days that can be romancized in the mind
Children playing games outdoor in the villages
Day time or late evenings gatherings in the street
Children raised in a village where the words of its takes a village to raise a child were true and help in the development of a child character and moral values
Where retired teachers felt a need of urgency to provide after school classes in their homes for children which made sense of the words ” no child left behind
Where poverty did not stop or hinder a family from achieving
Where a community spirit was devoid of the word independent and selfishness
Where church was the staple that brought people near and far together with summer excursions
Where school was exemplified as a place parents wanted their children to attend
Today the romance is missing
I’m referring to the first photo with the buses parked on one side and the ladies selling pottery on the other.
Does anyone on BU know the name of location?
It looks like Trafalgar Square or Probyn Street.
@ angela cox May 13, 2021 6:24 PM
Excellent contribution.
If there is one lesson that I can come away with from my childhood, and that is that it has thought me the principle of self-sufficiency and how to be self-reliant.
Fishing at the pond is an experiences I hold the dearest to my heart; of all of the things I’ve done during my childhood .
This is an experience my children would probably never get to experience because moderation has all but destroyed the ecosystem and fragmented the biodiversity.
Looking back one has to ask with all the material things we have today is our life really better?
Many of us pursue the material things in life with the hope it will make us happy, but in the end all it does it put several of us in unnecessary debt.
I remember when there was no TV and then CBC came along with channel 8. We had No Internet, no cell phones and no electronic distractions yet we survived. We talked read and socialised face to face, with something called a redifusion going in the background. If you were dating a young thing, you had to call on a rotary phone with 5 digits. If it was busy then call back, as dem was no call waiting or voice messages either! Plus you dam well not call at lunch time, dinner time or in the week after 7pm nor on a Sunday. Her parents would ask her if “he get raise in de gully.” LOL. Fast food meant cooking something quickly. Never locked a door or knew what wrought iron grills or burglar alarms were and people spent weekends with their families, as few businesses even opened on Saturday far less Sunday.
So the question is do we live a better quality of life today, or do we simply just own more material “things” to keep us entertained? Also how does one measure the quality of life, is it based on the car we own or the house we live in? Should we maybe value our life instead or the freedom we have to live it instead? In other words is the man that can take a day off in the week and go to Bath for a picnic with his family in a 7 year old Nissan, richer than the man who works 70 hours a week, but drives a BMW with a 7 year car loan he struggles to pay?
Just food for thought I guess.
@ John A
I remember when the telephone numbers were four digits, for example, 3810. A zero (0) was subsequently added, 03810. The zero was replaced by 4 (43810) and a few years later 42 was added (424-3810).
I also remember people from my great-grand mother’s neighbourhood, peering through her front window to watch television. She never used to turn off the Rediffusion. I loved that radio station, it broadcasted a variety of programmes that catered to all listeners. I listened to its final sign-off broadcast by Alfred Pragnell and Olga Lopes-Seale, on Sunday, November 30, 1997.
Nowadays you can hear dub, rap, disco and calypso being played on Sundays on the radio stations, something that was frowned upon ‘back in the day.’ Sundays were highly respected in those days. The older folk would say they “don’t want nuh banja playing in de house.”
The things is, as time changes, people change with the times.
John A
Some fifty or so years from now, when you and I are in the Great Beyond, our children will probably be saying the same thing to their children. so I don’t know if it is fair and well founded to compare today with yesterday?
John A
Think about it, had we our own way we would probably be still studying under candle and lamp, so as I said again: I am not quite sure if we can make such a comparison, because that life we lift behind was for that time, so learn how to accept and appreciate what God has inspired man to created to make our human existence, a little more comfortable.
John A
“Sundays were highly respected in those days”
Can you hazard an educated guess why it isn’t today?
The world is becoming more and more atheistic because Man thinks that he no long needs God, because he feels he can do it all by himself.
But I hear God said in Amos 8:11: that the days are coming, when I the Lord God will pour out a famine on the Earth, but not a famine of Bread and thirst of Water, but the hearing of the Word of God.
@ Dompey
@Artax
I will tell you when I was in my 40’s I thought it was good to have so much choice in life in terms of what we could buy. Thing is though as I got older I started looking at life differently.
So let’s say I had a chance on a gorgeous summer day, to work for a few extra dollars or go diving. My friend I gone diving! Five years prior to that I would never of passed up on the extra money so I could buy something I really didn’t need.
I think we just don’t take enough time to enjoy the outdoors and what is around us. Check the young ones now on a nice day where are they? Probable in front a computer or bolted to whatsapp. We all just too busy to do what we all enjoyed doing when we were younger and for what, so we could buy a 60 inch TV and not keep the 48 we got that working perfect?
I think for all the education we got that the old people didn’t, they were all smarter than us in many areas.
John A
Each generation tries to out do the next, and the disrespect that the young people are showing the elders today, is unimaginable or rather inconceivable because just yesterday, my daughter asked me to go to the store to get her some head phones …actually the wireless ones, and she asked me if I knew what they were. And probably, I may have been a little too sensitive in my reaction to her comment, but I took that as an affront of my intelligence.
@ Dompey
Don’t get me wrong I am not saying the developments like the Internet etc aren’t great and we shouldn’t enjoy them, my point is that too far north is south. Also what price do we place on having them?
Balance is the key to everything. We don’t want to go back to no Tv and cold water showers, but we also don’t want to sacrifice the quality time we enjoyed when we were younger with our families today. Plus look at where our consumption practices have led us as a people and a nation? High credit card debt, houses way bigger than we need and a day pass for Chefette drive thru.
John A
I disagree because I believing in having balance life, such as making time for the kids and myself, the wife, Church, exercise, work and travel etc …. I consider these artifacts a life of equilibrium …or balance.
Also some people would argue that the simpler things of life that you have mentioned above, are worthless without a faith in God and the anticipation of the afterlife.
@Dompey
I accept your opinion but 2 things I don’t discuss is politics and religion. Every body got their right to believe and by the same token the right not to believe, if that is their wish.
John A
I respect your position, but I do not see anything wrong with discussing Politics or Religion…..
Artefacts??????????
Donna
I am beginning to wonder lady, if whether or not you aren’t in the beginning stages of mental insufficiency because for an adult your behavior leaves must to be desired? Moreover, it is the highest level of psychotherapy, for someone to believe that a fallible human being isn’t capable of making a honest mistake.
Donna
Act your age Lady ….. Oh sorry you are acting you age …..
Says the man who nitpicked the use of “was” and “were” INCORRECTLY.
BOTTOM’S UP!
I mean Nick Bottom is up, of course. Ass head in place .Another performance for me to enjoy!
“The raging rocks
And shivering shocks
Shall break the locks of prison’s gates”
Oops! I made a mistake, Bottom, in your lines! Let’s see if you can correct it!
Donna
You sure you want to take on Dompey? Yah betta ask Bush Tea bout Dompey before yah decide to put yah foot en de hot wata gal friend…
Donna
Gal yah all over Dompey sah early dis mornin …gal wat yah had fah breakfast … Bitch flakes?
@ John A
I understand the points you’re making. I agree with you that people do not want to go back to the days of cold showers, no television, electricity and having to read with a lamp, cooking on ‘wood fire’ or ‘bringing water from de stand pipe’ or sleeping on grass beds.
But, as time changes, people change with the times.
That’s one of the reasons why each generation will seek to make life better for their off-spring and would embrace the changes in technology to achieve their objective.
From childhood I loved Friday, Saturday and Sunday. But, I have always preferred Sunday, from dawn to sunset……sunny, bright and breezy or rainy……. it’s my favourite day. The day’s beauty is enhanced as evening and dusk approaches. I can actually enjoy the day itself……. the breeze, sun, sky, clouds, how the day looks when the clouds cover the sun, trees, hills, valleys…… just enjoying the day and the fact you’re alive to experience its natural beauty.
I remember as a young boy, my father taking me with him and as we drove through any village, the scent of dry peas and rice, baked pork or chicken filled the air. Nowadays, Sunday lunch is Chefette or KFC.
I also remember Rediffusion used to play the type of music to suit the changing moods of early and mid morning, afternoon, evening, dusk and night.
Unfortunately, in our quest to achieve material possessions, we distance ourselves from relatives and good friends. Or, we believe our achievements place us in a ‘higher bracket’ than our peers, so we look for ‘new friends’ who we deem to be compatible with our ‘new status.’
Forgetting the childhood days we spent growing up with our neighbourhood mates or at school with schoolmates, until we drift so far apart that only the sad occasions of funerals may reunite us.
Sometimes we could take time out to plan some sort of event that would allow us to spend a day with relatives or good friends….. and let it be known how much we appreciate each other, because there will eventually come a time when we will be unable to do so.
It’s only when we become sick or acknowledge age has crept upon us and we’re in the ‘departure lounge’ that we realize ‘life is short.’
There is good in being nostalgic sometimes. Good memories help to create a happy mind space as we continue with our everyday lifes.
Please, don’t take him on.
Have a great day, Barbados.
@ David
Yes, it does. We don’t have to ‘discuss’ politics on EVERY blog.
Unfortunately, the usual suspects will ‘say’ you’re attempting to distract from the political issues of the day.
I think the memories of the way things used to be are woven into a period in our childhood, where we felt the love of family and friends, but more importantly, we were protected from the tension of life and dirt of reality. And moreover, some of us will spend our entire life trying to regain this elusive acadia because for many of us, these memories of childhood are woven into theory of life and a world of tranquility and innocence, which we once knew as kids.
And I would further add that these cherished memories of childhood, are fossilized, idealized, eternalized in our collective mind, and protected from the processes of growth and becoming because this is way we find our mental solace, in a complex and disturbed human existence.
@ Dompey
What exactly are you ‘talking’ about and how does it apply to the substantive topic?
There are no Barbadians in Boogiewonderland
There are people of the sun from Africa
There are people of the ice from Europe
There are some people from Asia and Middle East
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbpIyn70t8c
@Artax
The blogmaster has been at this long enough to understand the agendas. You may have picked up the blogmaster has been less motivated of late becauseâ¦
Actually I love this!!
Takes me back to warm and fuzzy time when morals and respect took precedent
Oh how my mind long for those warm and fuzzy days
Neighbour’s helping each other (other than a neighbor bowl passed over the fence a warm friendly greeting was enough to suffice a verbal thank you
Oh what lovely memories which technology cannot reinvent in the mind
Hopscotch
Bat and ball
Rounders
Hiddy bitty
Games galore not costing a dime children happy and full of contentment to be involved in those aspects of life that called for great imagination and an ability to share without quarrels and noises
Yes parents did not spare the rod when things got out of control
Today society has (changed )moral values are frowned upon
Parents are no longer the head but have become the tail end of the headhoushold
Oh how I wish the days of moral values would return
Artax
My comment speaks to a reality we do not seem to consider when we reminisce about the utopian memories of our childhood. However, the fact of the matter is, our childhood or way of life weren’t as perfect as we seem to idealized it to be, and I really do not care to go into the reasons as to why, even though I would admit that they are things of that way of life that I truly missed today.
Barbados is a little island in the sun full up of people carried away to the Caribbean and is a Culturistic Continuous Play DJ Mix like this in the dance
Can anyone remember who was the first batman to start wearing a helmet? Gary and Nurses look to sweet bareheaded and chest opened . No protection but the pair of pads. Either the bowler of those days were very slow or its just class is class?
TheO,
Still not picturing the ass head? Just try it and see!
Where is your sense of humour?
The problem with you Domps is, your read or Google information and apply it ‘across’ the board, when it is not applicable to every circumstance.
You’re the type of guy, for example, who would read and acquaint yourself with the symptoms of a heart attack. If someone exhibit those symptoms, you would immediately conclude they’re having a heart attack, ignoring a person with heartburn will display similar symptoms.
Although some of what you ‘said’ may be true, it cannot be applicable to everyone. What exactly do you mean by “the utopian memories of our childhood?” How can our childhood memories be ‘ideally perfect?’
It seems as though you like psychology, but, you’re attempting to convince BU you have knowledge of a discipline for which it’s clear you do not have the requisite training. Some things go beyond reading and regurgitating what you read.
Artax,
Professor Donkey knows EVERYTHING! Yuh better doan tek he on, yuh!
Murdaaaah!
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Nah, Donna, I won’t take him on. Domps wisdom far exceeds mine.
Artax
You are so wrong about me because I have never gotten anything that I have written on BU from Google, and by the way, I know and have worked with patients who have suffered heart attacks, so I know and understanding the signs and symptoms of a heart attacks versus heartburn Sir, so come again.
And added to the above information, this year makes it 33 years that I have been working in the Healthcare Industry, 5 of which I’ve worked in the (ER) Emergency Room, as well as the Psychiatric Unit and the Drug and Alcohol Units. So cease and desist from insulting my intelligence because you characterization of who you think that I am, is blatantly incorrect Sir.
Artax
I do in fact have a pretty good understanding of psychology, since I have worked with people who suffers with an array of psychiatric and behavioural issues.
And an excellent knowledge of the antipsychotics medications that treats the behavioural and emotional issues associated with these psychotic issues.
Hate to see this area of the blog slide into the deep end of attacks
on how others thought process relates to their version of realities
People minds acts and behaves differently
We all have been given the ability to see things in different perspective
I relish the thoughts of my yester years for me there are times when I reminisce with laughter and smiles
For others it might be different far for me to physcho -analysis what each person thinks of their yester years
I love my yesterday years
No ifs ands or but
No I was not born into privilege
But surrounding by a loving family and a neighborhood of people who cared
Artax
Just to give you a little background on who I am, to clear up your misunderstanding of me Sir. As a teenager I spent many years in the Reference Section of the Bridgetown Library, reading any and everything I gotten my hands on. And during the early 80s when I attended the Skills Training Program, I spent my lunch time reading any and everything, I had gotten my hands on at the very small Library in speightstown st. Peter. And when my four kids were quite young, I spent years traveling from library to library with my kids, reading any and everything I had gotten my hands on. So Sir, this is how I managed to build my knowledge and expansive vocabulary during the years, so rewind and come again Skippa.
Artax
I now spend my time working with the intellectual disability population who suffers with autism or Autistic Spectrum Disorder, and it is very challenging.
You are in good company Dompey. You are dyslexic and your patients are autistic. In the land of the blind, the one eyed is king.
@ Artax
So true those activities were. All we can do now is sit back and smile while saying we had boy days. Lol
angela cox May 14, 2021 12:47 PM
I agree with you 100%.
And that was the point I was trying to make. People’s personal experiences will obviously vary. Two people may have grown up in the same neighbourhood, attend the same schools and church, share the same friends and similar experiences, but have completely different perspectives of their individual experiences.
For someone to analyse our experiences and come to a ‘broad, generalized’ conclusion that “the fact of the matter is, our childhood or way of life weren’t (wasn’t) as perfect as we seem to idealized it to be,” is ludicrous.
Time could have been better served if they shared their experiences with the forum.
@ Dompey
You read, yet you do not understand what you read.
Why do you have to make EVERY BLOG about YOU? And then, you go on and on and on…… ad infinitum…. ad nauseam. You just don’t know when to quit, as evidenced yesterday when you ‘nauseated’ the forum by ‘glamourising’ the molestation of under aged females by policemen.
The amount of history you’re giving us about yourself, perhaps David should rename it “Flashback to Old Dompey.”
Why not stick to the substantive topic.
Dompy u need to settle down and relax and allow the blog to flow with a potpourri of expressions about the past
Not all issues should be goaded by expressions of one upmanship
I am quite sure some here is going to remember the fellow who transversed Roebuck Street on his two hands in the 70s? This fellow I believed was paralyzed from the bottom part of his body, so he used to used his hands to pushed himself around Roebuck Street, so I wonder if any or all here remember this character?
Air travel is back
I have not seen it so busy in the airports for over a year
Dopey
They us to be a guy like that in St. John by my aunt. Charlie is what they use to call him. He had a wheelchair that he use pedal it with his hands
As a kid who used to going to the cinema every weekend, I distinctively remember the Older Heads selling bread from their Bread carts, in front of the Empire Cinema back in the day, and it was a sight to see as a kid because not too many people remember the Old Bread Carts the Older Heads used to pushed around Bridgetown, selling their Bread.
Ok John2 …. he is probably the same fellow because he used to take the bus back then to the country…
I don’t know how many here are aware of the fact that the original Prison in Barbados, was located on Powder Road Bank Hall St. Michael and not too far from where St. Hill Funeral Home was once located.
As a matter of fact, as kids we used to play in the old prison which actually bordered the back of District A Police Mounted Stables, and Powder Road. Nevertheless, those were the fun days of childhood, because we had to transversed the wooded area just behind the Mounted Stables to get to the Old Prison, and after we got into the Prison, it felt like the Spirits of the prisoners that were held there haunted the place, because every section of that Prison felt spooky to me.
Another important memory of my childhood was the self-sufficiency of the neighborhood: we had Mr. White who repaired the Bicycles; Miss Green, Mr. Clark and Mr. Rollins who owned the grocery Stores; Rochie who kept and killed livestock; Mr. Holly who kept cows and supplied the neighborhood with milk; Hilda and Mrs Smith who made the black pudding and souse on Saturdays; Mr. Miller who sold the Newspaper on Sundays; Archie who was the carpenter; Mr. Sparky who was the Mason; Anne who fixed the motor vehicles; Andy Forde who had his body building gym; the St. lucians people who owned the drug store; and many of the older people sold the Sugar Cakes. Those memories of childhood I will continue to cherish because these people contributed in some infinitesimal respect to the person I have become today.
Four important events of childhood I will continue to cherish because they fixed events of childhood:
(1) The Police Children Christmas Party
(2) The Police Tattoo
(3) The White Barbadian Horse Jumping show
(4) The White Barbadian Dog Show
These four event were held at the District A Police Paddock annually, and it availed my friends and myself the opportunity to associated with White Barbadians of our own age, and this experienced thought us that racism is a learnt behaviour because as kids of the 1970s, we could wait to meet our White Bajans friends every years during these events.
And I particularly remember a White Bajan girl name Rachel Deans, whom I learnt later in life that her father Mr. Dean, was a wealthy White Bajan who owned quite a few race horse.
But the things about Rachel Dean is the fact that during the annual Horse Jumping Show because Rachel rode Jumping horses and a particular one called Nugget, she would looked forward to playing with the Black Bajan boys and girls every year.
And I founded Rachel Dean to be a wonderful human being who through the eyes of a child only wanted to play.
Rachel Deane is indeed a genuinely non-racist Barbadian though she cannot be categorised as white. Her skin is a beautiful olive shade even if her cheek had a natural blush.
Indeed, she has absolutely no airs about her. One would never think she is rich. Lovely person.
But my guess is that she is related to John Knox.
Ah well, she can’t be blamed for that!
Correction – HAS a natural blush
A lot of Barbadians believe that the Mark Young, Buddy Brathwaite, Sand Fly, Hall, Harding, Oliver, and Bradshaw were Barbados most violent and notorious Criminals, and I understand that there is a book called Barbados Most Wanted which depicts the criminal career of these of these notorious criminals.
But one man stood aloof of these notorious criminals and his name was Dr Rat, a man who I believed was born on the island of St. Vincent, but died in a hail of bullets on a boat headed for St.Vincent.
One afternoon in the early 70s or it might have been the late 60s, I was walking about minding my owned business in the District A because there were we played as kids, and I suddenly saw several police officers running to the blue police jeep with their LSR rifles in hand because they had spotted Doctor Rat somewhere on the island, and that particular day, I saw Jesper Watson and I believed Tracksuit Top, who was a new police officer at the time, jumped into the jeep, on the hunt for Doctor Rat.
And about an hour or or so later, I saw the Blue Police Jeep returned to District A riddled with bullets, and I heard later on that Doctor Rat had shot Jesper Watson and several Police officer that day. Doctor Rat, was subsequently spotted and corned on a boat heading back to St.Vincent and the Royal Barbados Police Force called upon its best shot, Rat Brown aka Rap Brown, whom he and other officers engaged in a gun battle with Doctor Rat, who was shot dead on a boat headed back to St. Vincent.
My “village” is still the same. Only thing missing is the shoe repair man.
Everything and every skill is available a stone’s throw away except for the shoe repairman. I do not have to go outside of my area unless I choose to. And then only as far as Six Rds. I have more than once walked even there just as a spontaneous challenge to myself. I like mini adventures sometimes. You get to actually SEE the surroundings that whirl by in a vehicle. And you soak up the atmosphere and feel the vibe of the place. You are present in the place.
@angela cox May 14, 2021 12:47 PM “I love my yesterday years, no ifs ands or buts, no I was not born into privilege, but surrounding by a loving family and a neighborhood of people who cared.”
I agree.
And add hopscotch, skipping, tree climbing, eating fruit both wild and farmed, pick-ups, jacks, and hide and [w]hoop hiding in the trash heaps [made of sweet smelling dried cane sugar cane leaves] to my rural Barbados childhood. All this with many sisters and the cousins and other children in the gap. And of course playing outside on moon light nights. Nowadays we are in and may not even recognize that it is full moon. Last night I sat outside with the grands and we admired the not so new new moon. New moon was actually on Tuesday but I did not notice until Friday. When we were children, there were no streetlights so we always noticed the phases of the moon and on first sighting the new moon we always said “God Bless my eye sight.”
I must admit that I loved the smell of a new grass bed, stuffed with dried sour grass, and washed and dried khus-khus grass roots, the bed smelled so sweet, that going to bed was a pleasure. My modern bed is clean but it has the artificial smell of detergent/fabric softener, not the sweet smell of natural khus-khus. Maybe somebody can find a way to add khus-khus aroma to fabric softener and detergent.
I’ve still never eaten a Sunday lunch/dinner at a fast food place. Will season some pork chops soon with herbs from my own garden. Got the pork from a farmer in my natal village. He produces the sweetest port. I have some bonavist in the freezer, so maybe tomorrow baked pork chops and bonavist and brown rice. Some of my own beans too and maybe some imported carrots.And if the ice cream truck passes I may do a little business with Bico.
Mention of Sunday dinners was for me and family a highlight one more time before the holidays to eat pork or lamb
Our yard was home for many different livestock a way for family to earn little money and grocery saving and feed ourselves
Yes Sunday I remember set aside for family visits and get together after 11am church service
In our home church service was a must rainfall or sunshine
Afternoon for the young was set aside for Sunday school which all of us never mind because it came with a payoff of great delight going to the park for those who could afford bicycles it meant showing off their bicycles
Also a treat of Bico icream came as an additional treat if school grades and conduct was exceptional
All in my mind as a child felt like living in a fantasy world yet so real that it felt like a world of beyond sweetness
As an adult what I draw and was able to take away from those years while observing today and it’s differences is that community spirit is the heart and soul that drives ..energizes and develop us the people that we are today
Another reason why we yearn for those good times of yesteryear
DonnaMay 15, 2021 6:20 AM
My “village” is still the same. Only thing missing is the shoe repair man
Cxcccccc
The shoe repairman one bright spot and saving grace in every village
I remember how much i loved the smell of the shoe polish when I had a repair done to my school shoes
And yes this guy was very appreciative of his customers and did whatever necessary to make the customer satisfied
When he said the repair would be ready without doubt it was ready
These little but very important businesses help to build this 166 sq miles
I do not have a selective memory. I remember everything – the good and the bad. I would say our lifestyle has lost more than it has gained over the fifty years I have lived here.
We have gained materially and lost in almost every other way. What we have lost is entirely within our controll to regain.
The penpal era
First signs that technology was beginning to make a foot print into our lives
I also loved the concept of having a friend from a,different land or culture
This idea was a steeping stone to what is now know as fb building bridges across the miles making friends with people we might never would have known