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.
Flashback to Old Barbados
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…
84 responses to “Flashback to Old Barbados”
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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.
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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
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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?
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TheO,
Still not picturing the ass head? Just try it and see!
Where is your sense of humour?
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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.
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Artax,
Professor Donkey knows EVERYTHING! Yuh better doan tek he on, yuh!
Murdaaaah!
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
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Nah, Donna, I won’t take him on. Domps wisdom far exceeds mine.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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@ Artax
So true those activities were. All we can do now is sit back and smile while saying we had boy days. Lol
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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.
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@ 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.
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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?
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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
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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.
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Ok John2 …. he is probably the same fellow because he used to take the bus back then to the country…
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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.
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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 ShowThese 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!
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Correction – HAS a natural blush
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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.
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@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.
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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.
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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
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