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.

A Crashing Tale

As poor as my parents were, they were never so poverty stricken as to be unable to afford home help. Lower middle class families earned enough to be able to employ the services of a house maid, a laundress and the occasional tradesman. Servants' wages were paltry, with a fulltime servant being paid a mere $2 or $3 per week, including their meals. This helped both parties, although there was some exploitation involved in the arrangement.

Maids, always from the black underclass of Barbados society, needed the few extra dollars to help with their own expenses. What a grueling day it must have been for them. Their homes had no running water or electricity, neither was there enough space around their chattel houses on their tenant holdings to cultivate much of a vegetable garden. If lucky, they had a fruit bearing tree such as breadfruit, golden apple, sugar apple, ackee or paw paw, producing, seasonally, enough to sell the surplus for a few extra dollars. My parents and grandmother were not mean and shared produce when they could. But this chapter is not about these poor, unfortunate people except where they became a part of my family life for a while.

My grandmother recounted a story of an unfortunate encounter with a maid, long before I was born and when my father was a child. Granny was poor by any standards except that of the majority - black and coloured people. She used her only skill to earn enough to feed, school and clothe her eight children - she baked cakes and pastries, make jams, jellies and preserves which had a ready market through the Women's Self Help on Broad Street and some well-off individuals in grand homes. But, in order to do her baking, boiling and delivering, as well as providing household help, she needed to hire a servant - someone who might have been in even more dire straights than she was.

Centrally located on Lower Bay Street the rented home, in the middle one of the trio known as The Three Sisters, she employed a young woman to turn up early every morning, to have the freshly baked cakes carefully packed into a large basket for delivery. The fragile goods were counted to her so that there would be no opportunity for theft. Into the large cane basket went tins of various cup cakes, we called puddings; slices known as Rich Cakes; sponge fingers and cakes, small meringues we called kisses, and sometimes jars of guava jelly or tasty morsels of guava cheese or shaddock rind were included. A small delivery book was also provided for the customer to sign, for both deliveries and returns of items unsold from the previous day.

As the weeks passed, Granny became convinced that the maid was stealing groceries. The small amounts that went missing were not enough to be noticed in most households today, but with eight children to feed and a business to run, she noticed the discrepancies. She had to do something about it. First of all she needed to discover if her suspicions were correct and her constantly hungry children had been eliminated from the suspect list. So she laid a trap for the servant.

Pay day was on Saturday at the end of the half day. Having decided that it would be better to wait until it was time hand over the week's wages, the maid, with purse in hand, would be asked to run just one more errand - a visit to a nearby shop. Off went the maid with the money for the errand in her hand, but her handbag left behind in the kitchen. Once the unsuspecting girl was out of sight, Granny lifted the handbag from it's resting place and emptied it onto the kitchen table. There it was - the evidence of her pilfering. A few matches, a couple of tablespoons of sugar wrapped in paper, a similar amount of rice, a little salt, a couple of teaspoons of tea, some lard and margarine, a few ounces of flour, a sliver of blue soap and a candle. The quantities so small that they could not be purchases legally made. No, it was loot. A little extra to supplement her meager wage. This would add up to a considerable quantity over a week; it caused a shortage in the carefully calculated and limited rations.

Granny replaced items that belonged to the maid but left the pilfered items on the table. This stealing could not be tolerated and summary dismissal was the only thing left to do now.

The stolen items in full view, Granny allowed the girl to retrieve her handbag. She paid her for her week's work and told her that she was terminating her employment. With that, the guilty maid ran up the passage to the front door, passing the chiffonier on the way. Having a good head-start and knowing that she could not be caught, she put out her arm and swept every glass, cup, saucer, plate and bowl from the top shelf onto the floor where it landed in shards. Down the steps she ran and away, along the road, pursued by shouts of surprise and anger, as Granny viewed the devastation to her best glassware and fine china.

After that experience, all future dismissals were made with the servant standing outside the back door where there would be no opportunity for such revenge.

I loved hearing that story and over the years wondered, when I employed my own servants, if they would also be thieves.

First Years at School

A little private school in Strathclyde was school for me for about three or four years. The school was owned and taught by three spinsters, the misses Phillips.

Miss Phil the youngest was pink and plump and pinafored. She taught the first year pupils. Her classroom was on the verandah of the large, two storied, colonial home. The young pupils sat on wooden benches and wrote on slates. I really don't remember much of those days, learning to write and read, to add, subtract and divide. We also had to recite our times tables from two to twelve. Our playground was the driveway and small garden that bordered it.

The eldest Miss Phil taught the 'big' school across the road. It was so called, not because of it's size, but because the older children were taught there. Wooden benches were again our seats, but we also had wooden desks and used proper lined exercise books. We were sometimes allowed to use pens. In those days the pens were commonly those that needed to be dipped regularly into the ink. Some lucky children possessed fountain pens with its own reservoir which could be refilled from the same ink bottle used for the dipping type, but they were messy in the clumsy fists of the under nines. Mummy bought me a ball point pen that needed neither to be refilled or dipped. I was the envy of my fellow students as it was the only one in the school at the time. Royal blue plastic with the same colour, sticky ink that leaked on everything - my fingers, blotches on the paper, clothing, my pencil case and book bag - causing a huge mess.

The third Miss Phil was the housekeeper and cook. She didn't teach us but made fudge and 'kisses' (small meringues) every Friday. We were reminded on Thursdays to bring our pennies to school on Friday so that we could purchase a piece of fudge and a kiss. Really, for me it was like carrying coals to Newcastle as Granny Richardson made much nicer ones. Miss Phil's tended to be chewy like caramel, while Granny's were crisp outside and soft inside and melted away in the mouth. Chocolate and plain were the choices for the squares of fudge and pink or white or apple green for the kisses. I didn't always remember to bring the money or was not given any. I seem to remember some sort of low barricade to keep the pupils from venturing into the area of the verandah onto which the kitchen opened. That was where the third Miss Phil worked and sat and ate her lunch together with one or other of her sisters. It was also where the pupils lined up on Friday to purchase their goodies. Like being in a real shop.

Miss Phil the younger would allow us to go to the toilet on our own. It was at the top of the stairs in a largish room that opened immediately opposite the top of the long polished mahogany staircase. There was a small wooden step in front of the pan for us to use to climb onto the seat. I hated going there as the interior of the house was dark and furnished with old, heavy, mahogany furniture. There was nothing much to see upstairs, but I had a dread of ghosts and was convinced that there would be one up there to either grab me or haunt me in some unspeakable way. The bedrooms must have been up there, but the doors were always kept closed.

I don't know if my memory serves me correctly, but there was a fourth Miss Phil who spent her time in a room upstairs in the care of a nurse as she was in some way either crazy or handicapped. Or perhaps it was my vivid imagination that created her.

While in the lower school I was unkindly given the name "Miss Nosey". It was not known that I had myopia (extremely short sighted), so in order to be able to examine the many pretty or interesting ornaments the Misses Phillips kept on tables and cabinets, I needed to pick them up and bring them close to my face. All thoughts of parental instructions of 'don't touch' completely escaped me. So "Miss Nosey" it was. Most children are curious about things around them, so it was me obeying my natural instincts. The adults never considered that it was a vision problem; just that I was disobedient, naughty and nosey.

When I moved to the 'big' school across the road, the toilet there was not much better. It was down the corridor and up a few steps. By then the pupils were mostly taller and I don't remember there being a step to help us get onto the toilet seat.

However, ghosts were alive and well there too. At the end of the corridor and next to the few steps up to the toilet and bedrooms, was a set of dark, dusty, grey wooden steps down into the kitchen area. It was always dark down there as the windows and doors were never opened and were protected by shutters to keep out the light. Nobody lived there. A draught wafted up from the darkness smelling of cobwebs and damp; a very scary place for a little girl with a vivid imagination. Sometimes, the boys and braver girls than I would tiptoe down to the kitchen, but never got very far before screaming and rushing back upstairs with a few more timid students on the steps behind them, screaming at they knew not what!

The journey to Strathclyde was always by foot. Sometimes Aunt Jean or Mummy or the maid, Thelma, would walk me to school. Wendy would come along for the outing, usually in a pram or sitting on the cross bar of a bicycle. Everybody loved to see Wendy. She had a head of brown shiny curls and blue-green eyes. She was not at all shy, or so it seemed to me at the time. For a year the two of us were at school there, me in the 'big' school and Wendy on the verandah with Miss Phil the youngest, the pink one.

I don't recall whether it was Wendy's first day of school, or just one of her outings to deliver me safely, but she had on new underwear. On her arrival she lifted up her skirt and said to the assembled onlookers "Look at my pretty panties". This story has been related within the family many times over as worthy of repeating.

The distance from King Street to Strathclyde was about one and a half miles. We walked to the end of King Street and turned right onto Baxter's Road, soon coming to a very large cross roads. The one on the left was Westbury Road and the one straight ahead, the one we took, was Barbarees Hill. Many fine old homes populated the hill. One family we knew, and I'm not sure how we met them or knew about them, was the Blanchettes. They had three children of about my age - Monica, Victor and Richard. They lived in a two storied stone building, painted in pink, on the left hand side going up. I always made sure that I checked with my dodgy eyes for any sign of child life in or around the home. Mr Stanley Blanchette eventually became the Governor General in Barbados and before that was the general manager of his family business, Barbados Hardware on Swan Street. Daddy knew Puffoot, as Mr Blanchette was nicknamed, from his school days at Combermere School.

Continuing along Barbarees Hill I passed the long driveway going to Dr Harry Bailey, Granny Richardson's trusted and well liked doctor. That was also on the left and not too far from the entrance to Strathclyde on the right hand side.

The two school houses were on both sides of the road in the Strathclyde subdivision, but the residence of the Misses Phillips and the first school I went to was on the left hand side on the corner of Strathclyde Crescent and Strathclyde Drive. The home had in and out driveways and still stands, although the 'big' school on the other side has been demolished.

My promotion to the 'big' school changed things for me. Probably not for the better, as it gave me a further indication of my own stupidity. Sign number one was the fact that I could not see things pointed to that everybody else could see, but also, at the 'big' school we had rankings in class and every test, end of term report or quiz saw me come third in a class of three pupils. The bottom. The dunce. The entirely stupid girl. I cannot entirely blame me eyesight for this. It could be that the two other students were smarter than I was. And I have no idea if my marks were all good ones; the fact remained I was bottom of the class. When I left that school and enrolled at the Ursuline Convent, Prep 2, I was ranked in the top 5 out of 20 or more students. Nevertheless I enjoyed being at Miss Phils' school - all, except for the boys who teased me in the playground by chasing me, and the other girls, with snails.

One playtime I found some little lizard eggs under a hedge. I put them in my dress pocket and was horrified to feel something moving. I put my hand in to feel if the eggs were rolling around, only to have a tiny lizard jump onto and run up my hand and out of my pocket. I never collected eggs in my pocket again after that scare.

At the 'big' school Miss Phil the elder played the violin every morning before classes began. She must have been the gardener at weekends as I remember her as being tanned. I never liked the look of the violin because Miss Phil the eldest had large jowls which spread out over the chin rest of the instrument as she played. The ugly jowls surely, I thought, were caused by the violin.

The morning ritual was to sing the National Anthem - God Save the King. Two students were chosen to hold two large flags on poles while facing each other. The students faced each other with the flags crossed. At the end of the anthem they tapped the poles together and we all saluted. The flags were then rolled up and put away. The older students, usually a girl, was given the very responsible job of putting away the violin and bow in it's case, along with the small cake of gum which was used on the bow strings. On our birthdays we were allowed, as a very special treat, to hold one of the flags. I may have been there for one year only as I can remember only having this privilege once only.

Some of the subjects we studied at the 'big' school were, besides arithmetic, reading and writing, geography, french language and 'meaning spelling'. I loved it all. I was looking forward to doing the geography as I had heard the older children reading out loud from the text book and I just loved the sound of the big words they read. The one word that has fascinated and remained with me all my life is 'hemisphere'. I so wanted to learn geography so that I could say that word out loud in class. I had no idea what it meant, but it sounded important. It was like music to me. The text went something like this:

"The earth is divided into two hemispheres. The northern hemisphere and the southern hemisphere. These hemispheres are divided by the equator"

I cannot remember the name of the text book, but would love to read it once more.

French was another popular subject with me and I can remember to this day the french words that I learned during that short period. I loved the idea of speaking a foreign language. La plume de ma tante. My aunt's pen. la fenetre, the window, la porte, the door.

In another chapter I will write about going to church, both with the Misses Phillips and with my Mother.

Pudding 'n Souse on Saturday

Saturday was the only day that the well loved delicacy of 'puddin 'n souse' was available.

Animals were slaughtered on Friday for sale by the many butchers around Bridgetown and country villages. The Sunday roast joint was bought freshly then and refrigerated or kept in ice boxes until the housewife was ready to roast it. There were other parts of cows, pigs, sheep and goats that were not popular and so were sold cheaply - the offal - except the intestines and blood of the pig. Pudding 'n souse was made from these. Predictably, the pudding casing was the intestine of the pig, the black pudding was coloured by the pig's blood and the souse was created from the head and feet.

By the age of eight I was responsible enough to be given the job of walking the length of King Street to the corner shop where the conditions were considered to be 'clean'. I am not sure how this was established except that the food seldom caused tummy upsets.

After lunch on Saturday and after the dishes had all been washed up and put away, the grownups went to bed for a customary nap. Children are usually difficult to keep quiet and rest, so I was sent off around 2:00 pm in charge of my sister, Wendy, to buy the Bajan delicacy for the 4:00 pm meal.

Mummy would give me a basket containing a couple of empty Pyrex dishes with lids and a kitchen towel to cover them. I was also given just enough money for the order which was written on a little note to give to the creator of the delicacy.

I was sent off with the weekly instructions of "Walk at the side of the road", "Watch out for the traffic", "Hold your sister's hand", "Come straight back home", "Don't drop the money", "Don't drop the basket", "Hold the basket carefully", "Don't run", "Don't let them give you too much bone" and so on - a litany of don'ts.

While on my way along King Street I could hear radios playing in the houses as I passed. Most homes subscribed to the closed circuit Redifusion. The Saturday afternoon scheduled program was music by saxophonist, Ace Cannon. The gravelly sounds of his popular tunes serenaded me on my way to buy Pudding 'n Souse; to this day I think of that walk along King Street whenever I hear his style of saxophone music.

Along the way I passed the Daily Meal school on the left, the entrance to King's Village on the right. The house on the corner of the village entrance had a huge acky tree and on the other corner was an unsightly rubbish dump where the villagers disposed of their household refuse. Stray dogs always hung around the dump for lean pickings, scattering the stuff in a wide, messy circle. Plastic was not in use then, so the debris was not only smelly, but open for all to see. The poor villagers' rubbish contained no plastic or wood, but mostly rotting vegetable matter, paper and rags.

A few houses along on the left lived the Guy family who had children from older to younger than me. Barbara and Michael were my playmates. David and Joan were many years older and Peter was too young to be any fun. A hopeful stare at their windows seldom generated their presence to wave to. They may have been having an enforced rest.

Along a little further, on the right, lived Granny's dressmaker, Miss Douglas, in a tall wooden house. In fact, nearly all of the houses were of wooden construction with jalousie windows and doors like ours. The 'ground sills' were of limestone.

Moving on down the street we passed Miss Carter's house on the left and Manning's house a little further on. He was a carpenter/joiner who did the odd repair job for Daddy. Miss Carter was the family laundress who collected the dirty linen and took it away, returning it washed, starched and ironed, rolled up or folded on a large wooden tray balanced upon her head. On the left we crossed a small street which led over to Chapman Street parallel to King Street. Beyond this I did not know the occupants of the houses which got smaller and poorer in appearance as I moved down to my destination. Yet Ace Cannon's sultry notes could be heard from their radios.

On arriving at the end of King Street and the shop on the right, I tightly held on to my sister's hand and the basket and crossed the street on the run. The shop side entrance door was open and about 12 inches up from the ground with a large limestone block as a step. There was no flooring inside. It must have rotted away or been eaten by termites or wood worms, so to enter one had to mount the stone block, step over the threshold onto another block and down onto the earthen floor where there were tables with clean cloths covering large pots and dishes of black and white puddings and the souse. It was dark with the only light coming from the door and a couple of small windows. Coal pots were the means of gently boiling the coils of pudding which were apt to burst if treated roughly, either by hand or rapidly boiling water.

The purchase made, change sometimes collected, I started back home with sister and food. Most Saturday afternoon meals were accompanied by a hot drink of chocolate. The real stuff from St Vincent. It was made from the rolls of locally processed chocolate beans to which Mummy added milk and sugar. It was sweet and tasty unlike anything bought today in tins or blocks. Floating on the top would be the golden cocoa fat, said to prevent scarring if applied to the skin. I seem to remember that there would be a stick of cinnamon brewed with the cocoa. Every member of the family enjoyed this exceedingly rich and nutritious food drink.

Some weeks Mummy would make the white pudding herself, in a pyrex dish, without the benefit of the intestine casing. It would be slowly cooked in a bain marie. Arguably delicious, but somehow it lacked the flavour imparted by the real thing - pig's intestines.

The souse is not a beautiful dish and cannot be eaten without the sounds of sucking as every delicious drop of flavour is pulled out of every little metacarpal of the swine's trotters. It is certainly not a meal for the English, well mannered, meal table! Eating souse in the Caribbean is governed by a completely different set of good table manners. Vive la difference!

From the website http://www.best-barbados-vacation-packages.com/barbados-food.html

I copied this recipe for the traditional Pudding and Souse

• Intestines of a pig
• Salt
• Half limejuice and half water
• 2lbs. sweet potato
• Thyme
• Red pepper
• Sweet marjoram
• 4tbs. margarine
• Salt to taste

• 1 tbsp. sugar
• 2 minced shallotts
• dash of clove powder
• 1 pig’s head
• 11/2 cups water
• ½ tsp. salt
• ½ cup limejuice
• 1 onion, chipped
• 2 cucumbers, chipped
• Red peppers, sliced
• Parsley

Black Pudding

Thoroughly clean the intestine (turning skins inside out) with soap and water and then with salt water. Then soak in salt water and lime solution for an hour. Grate sweet potatoes in a bowl and add thyme, red pepper, sweet marjoram, margarine, salt to taste, sugar, minced shallots and a dash of clove powder. Add water to these ingredients to make mixture of a loose consistency

Fill the skins (do not pack tightly) with mixture, tie at each end and cook slowly on a rack over boiling water until potato is cooked and skins are firm. Before serving, cut in lengths and fry in oil.

Souse

Divide a pigs head into two parts, remove the brain, and boil the head in salted water until the flesh begins to leave the bones. Plunge it into cool salted water immediately to make the flesh crisp, and allow it to cool.

Then cut off the meat in slices and drop it into a large bowl of pickle made from salt water, limejuice, chipped cucumber, a few red peppers sliced. Let it sit for several hours. Garnish with parsley

Sanderson's Gap

On Whitepark Road, directly across from the top end of King Street, an old lady lived in a grand house, surrounded by gardens and with in and out driveways. The house had a ground floor, upper floor and a basement. The upstairs floor had sash windows with beautifully flared hoods to keep out the sun and rain, but still let in the air and light. Wide, ceramic tiled steps curved up to the front door. None of this interested me in the 1940s. Instead, the extensive grounds contained sturdy shrubs with branches strong enough to support small children. There were gardens and orchards, neglected then, but once well manicured. Hollows and mounds were places to hide and run around.

Mummy, Aunt Jean or the maid, Thelma, would take me across the busy road to play at "Sanderson's gap". Miss Sanderson was a spinster, the remaining one of two sisters, living in the Victorian mansion on her own. Her staff consisted of a grumpy watchman by the name of Martin and various servants who cleaned, cooked and took care of the inside and outside. Martin also kept cows in the grounds.

Lawns, fruit trees and shady trees with strong branches were our playground toys. There was no lawn or secret place to explore at 'Mayville'. Just a single, tall coconut tree. I was always happy to be given permission to go to 'Sanderson's gap' to play and try, always, to avoid being growled at by Martin, who disliked visiting children from helping themselves to the fruit. Barbados cherries and guavas were my favourites, picked and devoured when he was away.

Only once did I enter the house. It was with my mother who called on bed ridden Miss Sanderson. An aproned and capped maid let us in the front door to a gloomy interior, full of heavy, dark Victorian style furniture. We were led up the mahogany staircase to an airy and light filled bedroom where Miss Sanderson lay. All I remember about her is that she was old and white but happy to chat with Mummy. She must have been ill at the time.

Before the visit I was warned to sit still and "Don't touch anything". And "Remember your Ps and Qs". The curiosity I possessed as a child remains with me today, so the warnings and instructions were well deserved. I was able to look out through the open upstairs window to 'my' playground below. I felt like a bird sitting in a tall tree. Thereafter I wanted to live in an 'upstairs' house, but was never that lucky as a child.

That was the only time that I can remember seeing Miss Sanderson. I expect that when she passed away the property changed hands, but not before it fell into disrepair and the grounds became overgrown. Today, it has been restored and added to as a commercial office building.

Note:

A search on the internet brought up a digitize copy of a British magazine from the 1920s with a contribution of ten British pounds by one Miss Muriel C B Sanderson of Unionville, Whitepark, Barbados, BWI. She was quoted, "We are pleased to see the progress the Fund is making, and although it has still a long way to go, yet we feel sure that it will not be so very long before the required sum is obtained". The magazine is Overseas, the monthly journal of the Overseas Club & Patriotic League and dated Vol V No59 December 1920.

My father also remembers that one of the Sanderson sisters was named Ethel.

Looking Out

A favourite pastime for Wendy and me was to look out of a front window of our home at the passing street scene. We were both very small, being under six years old, so used a chair to stand on. The gallery at the front of the house was protected by adjustable jalousies and windows each side of the central front door; they can be seen clearly in the photograph at the end of this blog. The four tall windows were held open by a long stick, though only the two facing the street were usually opened during the daytime. They offered protection from the sun and rain but were closed and latched at night for security. The moveable jalousies were pushed up and propped closed before going to bed, to prevent thieves from pushing wires through the slats to unhook the windows, thereby gaining entry to the home. The window sticks could also be used to hit intruders or pesky visitors.

The best loved happenings were funerals, weddings, hawkers of fish, vegetables, manure, ice and bread. Then there were people such as school children, rubbish collectors, the man who swept the gutters, workers, the postman and cyclists on their way somewhere.

A favourite procession was a funeral on its way to the cemetery. The size of the funeral was determined by the importance of the deceased or the wealth of the family. Most people attending would be in cars. Very seldom would there be walkers. First of all came the black hearse bearing the flower covered coffin seen through the glass windows along the length of the hearse. It always drove by very slowly. My task was to count the cars following the hearse. This kept me occupied and helped me, and my sister later on, to practice counting. Once the last car had driven by we would jump off our chairs and run inside to pass on to the grown ups this valuable information. I did not associate this event with sadness or loss, neither of which had touched my life so far.

In those days mourners wore black, white or lavender. The close family of the deceased would be in black, with black hat and fascinator. Friends, acquaintances and those paying their respects to the family, would sometimes wear lavender, but black was the preferred choice. Occasionally white would be worn.

Another similar procession, but one that was much harder to keep track of, was the wedding. The cars rushed by with horns blowing to announce the event. I sometimes lost track of the numbers due to distraction. The stylish hats and dresses glimpsed through the car windows had to be noted so that I could tell the grownups what wonderful clothes I had seen.

The bridal car was first in line. Unlike modern times it was never decorated. Then came the bridal attendants, parents, best man and ushers (now called groomsmen). Mummy, Granny and Aunt Jean loved the weddings as it gave them ideas of the current fashions, so they would be at the windows with us sometimes, enjoying the parade.

Watching school children pass was also of interest. All ages, in their uniforms, would stroll by. There were several schools within walking distance. Next door was the Daily Meal School for poor white children. They attended school in their own clothes. Across the road on the corner, in an old, grand residence, was the Seventh Day Adventist School. Their uniform was a maroon tunic with a golden yellow blouse and a red and gold striped tie. A hat and brown shoes with white socks completed the outfit. I don't know what they did for recreation as the house had only a small garden, not enough for play.

About half way along the street was a boy's school, Combermere School. Their uniform was khaki shorts and shirt with laced up shoes and socks. I cannot remember the colour of the shoes nor of any head wear, if any. I did not like it when the boys called out to me and some would blow kisses. This would definitely drive me off the chair in fright and embarrassment to run back inside to be in the safe company of the grownups.

The two top secondary schools in Barbados at the time were Queen's College for girls and Harrison's College for boys. They both had distinctive uniforms consisting of shorts, shirt and tie for the boys and royal blue tunic with white blouse for the girls. Both uniforms were complete with hats and the usual polished, laced up shoes and sock. Students attending these schools, which were about a mile or so away, would pass by on bicycles or on foot on their way to classes.

The distinctive squeak of the large wooden wheels would announce the arrival of the red J & R Bakeries cart long before it appeared. The bread man would blow a whistle outside the house just in case the occupants had not heard the squeak and rumble of his bread cart. He would open one sloping side at the top of the cart to display his stock. The shape of the cart was like a double gabled cottage. One side of the "roof" would be propped open with a stick to display the loaves below. The yeasty fragrance of fresh bread would be wafted into the house on the breeze. The sweet bread would normally be arranged in a tray at the top, supported by runners along which it could slide. The 'salt' bread was stored at the bottom.

Pan loaves, round corrugated bolsters and penny loaves were stock items. The penny loaves always had that name even as the price rose. I liked them the best for breakfast. The texture was fine and the flavour strong. There were two sizes of this type of loaf. One regular one which was a filling meal for one, or the larger one, about double in size, which could be sliced or shared. The smaller one formed the basis for 'cutters' when filled with ham, or fried fish, cheese, or sardines. The 'penny' loaves were fat and not quite round. They often had a sliver of coconut palm leaf embedded in the top which made the loaf split and stretch at that point. The dried leaf was about three or four inches long.

The sweet breads were usually items like coconut turnovers, coconut bread or cinnamon rolls. My favourite was the coconut turnover, a rare treat. Outside was light brown and painted with a sugary glaze, while inside was moist and filled with sweet grated coconut with little flecks of the coconut skin.

The clop of hooves and again, the squeak and rumble of wooden wheels, alerted me to the nearing of a donkey cart. The driver would sometimes shout commands to the beast, often accompanied by the stroke of a whip. The beast of burden was sometimes a mule. The rickety cart was never painted, but was shades of grey with age and mildew. They were probably made from recycled timber, constantly updated. They passed by regularly, moving slowly with their loads of sweet potatoes, yams and, occasionally, manure.

They sometimes sold 'shave ice'. I was never allowed to buy this delicacy as it could not be guaranteed that the previous contents of the cart was not manure! Nor could the hygiene of the vendor be vouched for. This treat was produced from a large block of ice, wrapped in layers of 'crocus bag' (hessian). The vendor would use some type of steel plane to shave the ice; this loose, shaved ice would be dropped into a paper cup and a flavoured syrup of your choice would be poured over it. A refreshing snack.

The hawkers on foot would be striding along with wooden trays or wicker baskets balanced on their heads. The load would be cushioned by a coiled length of cloth, forming a pad. They sold fish or vegetables such as tomatoes, lettuce, okras, shallots or cucumbers and several types of herbs. Sometimes they would have fresh eggs, individually wrapped in torn pieces of newspaper. They would shout as they walked along, letting the householders know what they had for sale. The voices calling "Flying fish, dolphin" stressing the last sylable, followed by "who calling, call!" If the fish were plentiful they would also announce the price, such as 15 for a dollar.

I particularly liked the road sweeper. He had no need to attract attention. He just got on with his work as quickly as he could. He would walk along the side of the road pushing the water and debris along with a stiff broom. Every few yards he would pull a small heap of rubbish out of the gutter and leave it by the side to drain. He had a rhythm to his sweeping and mounding. I wanted to help him as it looked like fun. During the week a van or truck would arrive with men walking behind to shovel up these little mounds and toss them into the van to be dumped, along with the household garbage.

Some passers by would say good morning or afternoon and enquire after one or all of the grown ups. I was taught to be polite and reply in kind. If it was someone with whom I was unfamiliar, I would smile shyly and run inside.

The photo below shows the front of my home on King Street, Bridgetown. Aunt Jean, in her red and white crepe dress and stylish shoes, poses in front of the entrance. The name of the cottage, "Mayville", was painted on a metal plaque which was nailed above the front door.

Earliest Memories

I think I remember when my sister was born. I was seven weeks from being three years old. I am not sure if it is real, or just my imagination. If imagination, where did it come from as it was too realistic for a three year old.

I am very little. The adults tower above me. I try to be invisible so as not to be chased out of my parents' bedroom where my mother lay. Daddy, Granny, Aunt Jean and others are crowded into the small bedroom along with the mahogany furniture. There is not much space left between the dressing table, double bed with head and foot boards and the large, mirrored wardrobe.

I am wearing a little dress and my feet are bare.

The baby is being held up by her little pinkish legs. She has been smacked on her bare bottom and there is a tube hanging down from her tummy. The tube is a bluish grey.

That is the total of my memory of this event. I may never know how it came to be written on my brain. I must try to find out where my sister was born as that will verify the truth or otherwise of this memory.

The second earliest memory is of a little pair of black, buckle up, leather shoes.

Mummy took me into her bedroom, to the wardrobe and lifted a pair of shoes out of a box. They terrified me and I started to scream and draw away from the footwear being offered for me to wear.

The frightening thing about them was the huge spider clinging to the front of both shoes. To this day I don't like spiders near to me, especially ones that are large and hairy.

What Mummy did not realise was that I was myopic and the spider shaped pattern of holes punched into the toe end of the shoes looked to me like spiders sitting there; there was just no way that I would let them near me. After all, who wants to walk around with two large spiders that may decide to run up my legs.

I do not know what happened afterwards as there are photographs of me wearing shoes that look like the spider shoes. I am pictured above with my cousin, Pat Clarke, and my doll, Patsy, in the driveway of our home on King Street, Bridgetown, Barbados.

My third early memory is that of a 'boyfriend'. Imagine! I was not yet attending school but I liked the face of a boy who used to attend the Daily Meal School for poor white children. He had blonde hair and blue eyes and would wave to me when school was out as he walked past our house. His name was Leonard.

He wrote me a note one day and that is how I discovered his name. I could not read so had to have Aunt Jean read it for me. I was teased about my 'boyfriend' thereafter. The note accused me of being vexed with him as I had not waved the previous day. I guess he was too far away for my myopic vision to see his friendly communication.

In the photograph above, the playground of the Daily Meal School is behind the fence to the left of the picture. My sister and I liked to watch the children at play and enjoyed gazing at them as they walked by on their way home after school.

To read more about the Daily Meal School, visit the Barbados Museum web site at http://www.docstoc.com/docs/15922691/Museum-Book-3