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Oct 05, 2014 News
COUNTRYMAN – Stories about life, in and out of Guyana, from a Guyanese perspective
By Dennis A. Nichols
For many, the internet is an enigma. While surfing it, you may feel uplifted, degraded,
or simply inclined to reflection, depending on the extent to which you allow yourself to be drawn into its web. It can sell contemporary news, propaganda, predictions, and historical trivia, or explore the highs and lows of the human condition, from titillating pornography to sublime artistry. For me, one of its biggest allures is access to historical information in the form of what I refer to as ‘human-interest notes’ or anecdotes, not necessarily facts and statistics. And when it offers glimpses into local history and the lives of Guyanese (ordinary or otherwise) I am hooked.
I search for these vignettes as the screen of history is drawn back to reveal words and images intertwined in our nation’s fabric. These can be as contrasting as an Amerindian hunter poised to unleash an arrow into a Rupununi stream, a British soldier standing at-arms outside State House in Georgetown, or a political harangue.
A few days ago I ‘discovered’ a series of film reels, (clips with no audio) of events and everyday life in British Guiana, covering a roughly 40-year period, from the 1920s to the mid-sixties. And I saw and read about, for the first time, images and accounts of things that I had only heard about from my parents and from other adults who lived during that period. I think some of these are worth sharing, especially with younger Guyanese caught up in the technological tangle of life in the 21st century.
How many young people have heard of trams, or tramcars? Maybe in San Francisco in the United States, but in Guyana? Yes, on Water Street, Georgetown, in a 1924 clip you can see this single-carriage passenger ‘train’ zipping along on rail lines in the middle of the road, trailed by a pair of pedestrian donkey carts, with Stabroek Market barely visible in the background. Then there are the cars, box-like, open-sided contraptions that rival the trams for a top speed of maybe 20 miles an hour, and elegantly-wrought horse-drawn carriages, steered by drivers in top hats. And of course bicycles, complete with headlamps, generators, bells, carriers and licence plates. Oh, what glory there was back then in these magnificent modes of transportation!
Speaking of vehicles, the fire trucks and their equipment in that era deserve an entire paragraph. And because words fail me in doing justice to their description, I wouldn’t try, except to say that one of them looks like a cross between a cannon with a carrier and a giant catapult with a ladder, attached to a small lorry.
In the film, the wheeled ladder section is disconnected from the rest of the vehicle and pushed aside while the work of connecting a large hose to a water hydrant is undertaken. The helmeted firemen appear to have been well-trained for the job at hand, a reassuring trend in our ‘wooden’ fire-prone city.
The colonials, it seems, took to their outdoor sports with an air of British conservativeness and restraint that appears comically out-of-place, whether it was cricket, tennis, or golf, which was evidently very popular nearly a century ago.
Maybe this attitude was because of the tropical heat, but then again you can see a golfer fully attired and jacketed swinging his iron with some abandon, cricketers playing in rolled-up long sleeves and racquet-wielders similarly-dressed, including trousers, knocking the ball around with shots that would no doubt cause today’s players to wonder if they were under the influence of some sort of narcotic. Serena and Rafael would be tickled.
Guyanese who are intrigued by politics and politicians would undoubtedly be drawn to the clips showing some of the ‘happenings’ of more than half a century ago. Two of them depict scenes and cameos of one of the most significant years in our political history – 1953. In one you can see B.G’s two youthful leaders, Forbes Burnham and Cheddi Jagan, arriving at the Atkinson Air base, where they are greeted by supporters (I assume) before boarding a plane. Burnham arrives first and exits a car with an almost boyish smile on his face, followed by a dapper Jagan, whose young wife, Janet, and son, Joey, remain behind. (This may have been after they were released from detention following the PPP election victory that year, and the suspension of the constitution, amidst fears of a communist takeover)
Another 1953 clip which purports to show tension in the country reveals for the most part some rather relaxed-looking individuals, including a boy staring at what appears to be a British warship anchored midstream in the Demerara River. A group of armed British soldiers leisurely patrols the streets in a PWD (Public Works Department) truck, but a few officers seem more agitated. Some men are seen removing documents from the PPP headquarters, and shortly after a visit is made to what appears to be the home of Dr. Jagan, where he and his wife meet with a man on the steps of the building, with notes being taken by both parties.
Skip now to a 1966 clip, bypassing some of the darkest days in our past, including the political and social chaos of the early nineteen-sixties. It is the year of independence, and of the visit by Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth ll, just a few months before the watershed May 26th transition. The queen and her husband, Prince Philip, disembark from the royal yacht, Britannia, and are greeted by Governor Sir Richard Luyt. Throngs of Georgetowners greet the couple as they make their way to the public buildings, and later to the Promenade Gardens. The charm and cleanliness of the city are in striking contrast to what has obtained with the passage of time.
The next day, the royal couple, accompanied by Prime Minister Burnham, travel by train up the east coast of Demerara, and on their way down, stop at Plaisance. There, as they enjoy the tinkling tones of a steel band, a young girl in virginal white presents a bouquet to the queen and curtsies daintily as she steps back. A few months ago that girl, now a woman of 57, is heinously murdered, strangled in her Plaisance home, allegedly by a young man with a grudge. These two events, separated by 48 years of questionable progress, capture just a bit of the paradox that Guyana has become – the beauty and the brutality of a country defined to a large extent, by its image, its people, and its history.
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