The 1949 Barbados flood; there's something crawling on me

     The devastating January 2011 Queensland floods have brought back the memory of a flood in Bridgetown, Barbados, on 31 August 1949. I remember it for one undesirable personal experience and the upsetting news of another.

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     My grandmother's small dwelling was constructed almost entirely of timber. The bedrooms, front gallery and drawing room were supported on a stone foundation about two feet off the ground level. Some of the pitch pine floorboards showed narrow gaps where dust and small items could disappear through to the shallow cellar, but which also gave entry to insects.

     My bedroom, shared with Wendy, my sister, was next door to Mum and Dad's room. Across the passageway slept my Grandmother and Aunt Jean.

     I awoke with a start during the storm. There was something with prickly feet crawling on my legs and under my pyjama pants. At six and a half years old the only solution was to stand up on the bed and scream as loudly as I could while tugging at the pyjamas. This worked well. The entire household, now fully awake, came running into the bedroom, the light was switched on, and my pyjama pants dragged off to find out what was so alarming me.

     There it was, a large, brown cockroach, with its hairy, scratchy legs, running all over my now bare body, bent on preserving its life and escaping the slapping, the electric light and rolled up the newspaper. A cursory glance by the adults probably found a few more around the house, having been driven in by the sustained, heavy rainfall. They had been flushed out of their crevases and hiding places.

     I was a very quiet little girl who knew how to be invisible when the adults chatted among themselves. I learned at an early age not to interrupt or ask questions as that would reveal my presence and close attention to their conversations; this is how I learned of Miss Fenty's demise.

     Newspapers the following day told of houses being washed off their foundations to sail away on the swollen rivers. Daddy came home with news which became firmly locked into my memory of that time. Mummy, Granny and Aunt Jean gathered around to hear him tell of the finding of bodies washed away while they slept or tried to escape the torrent of the Constitution river. Of particular interest to them was the finding of the drowned body of Miss Fenty, clad in her corsets. She was known to them as a laundress who had performed this service for the household at some time in the past.

The photo below shows Daddy with one of his early cars, taken about 1943. It also shows Granny's timber home with its shingled sides and stone foundation as described above. 

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     Today, the Constitution river, which used to flow through Bridgetown, emptying into the careenage and flow under the pair of bridges, is a narrow, concreted open drain; the swamps and mangroves which grew nearby were cleared centuries ago. In their place is a busy, un-beautiful city. Pockets of its old picturesque beauty remain, but much of it is ordinary and not particularly charming.