BOY, YOU, we old time people was foolish! We had to rely on common sense and trial and error. So we stuck with what worked rather than what the intellectuals said was supposed to work.
Take housing. We invented the Bajan chattel house. You could load it on a truck and move it anywhere. Add on as the family increased. The high roof made it wind-resistant and cool. And flaps in the windows let in the breeze.
Modern experts replaced them with barely sloping roofs just right for high winds to lift. And glass windows which shut tight at night so everybody sweats. Progress!
The unique Bajan cane hole trapped water for the canes. Ox and mule manure flourished the fields. Today it’s chemical fertilisers and furrows which take the water, and the soil, into the road. We hit, I think, 200 000 tons of sugar.
Nowadays they’re lucky to reach 15 000. One year DaCosta’s paid six months bonus out of sugar money. Politicians took windfall sugar profits to build the hospital and everything else.
You’re missing the point. Those things don’t matter. What’s important is that we now have Dr Disbody and De Next running things. Not old fogies like Victor Weekes, Geoffrey Armstrong, Roy Ward and Johnny Hutson.
By the way, I’m not talking ancient history. Mr Johnny used to plough fields at Pickerings with oxes. Just a few years back he confided: “Rich, ah still doing a little thing, but not too regular!” Keep ploughing, my brother!
Our police vans didn’t have no nicey-nicey message about “serve, protect and reassure”. Their motto was: “To frighten the (bad word) out of you so you don’t break the law!”
We didn’t even know capital punishment wasn’t a deterrent to murder. Kill somebody, neck pop. Good luck for us, would-be murderers didn’t know that hanging wasn’t a deterrent either. So when they saw what would happen if they went that route, they backed off in a hurry from any “gallows bait” situation.
Peaceful, simple times. Lizard soup was the remedy for asthma. Nobody had asthma. Castor oil cured all. You could get your iron fixed at Wilkinson and Haynes for a few dollars.
I could go on and on. But an article by Rennette Dimmott, forensic psychologist, on the Nigerian students’ “ordeal” of food and conditions really brought home how backward we were. She contends that students “expect to be treated with respect and dignity and to live, study and function in an environment that fosters peace, tranquillity and happiness”. Anything less and they can become “disgruntled, unhappy, uncomfortable, angry, aggressive, emotional, hurt and disillusioned”.
Why didn’t somebody tell UWI that in the early ’60s? Our registrar Giannetti was feared like the Gestapo. Big men would scatter from liming on West Block steps on a Sunday afternoon if G’s car did but appear!
Fear of “going home” was the ever-present motivator. We were greeted by the former year’s results on the notice board. Five passed out of 20, three were referred, the rest expelled. “Please don’t talk about me when I’m gone” became everyone’s theme song after exams.
White rice and potatoes for lunch and dinner nearly every day. Once a student posted a picture of our fresh hostel bread left on full garbage cans in a rat-infested area. We dumped our toast next day in protest. The T&T Press didn’t even mention it.
And no pootie in your room. We had to recuse ourselves, a serious logistics challenge in Canada Hall where the rooms had no washbasins.
Rough, totally unDimmotty conditions. Yet that Class of ’65 produced international FAO experts, World Bank and CDB heavies, two MPs, including a minister, big name vets and lecturers, living legend Dr Karl Wellington of Jamaica, Dr Winston Small, top man in agriculture, Cedric Archer, ditto, MTW, Jeff Garvey, Neville Taylor, Bizzy Williams, Bjorn Bjerkhamn, many more. Only one failure in the whole crowd – a goat farmer. Amazing!
Note 1: don’t miss David Commission and his African bruthahs dancing at Laff-it-Off!
Note 2: a friend getting married wanted to erect a tent on the beach. NCC informed that prior permission must be sought for any erection on the beach. And you will be charged depending on the size of the erection and how long it stays up. Brother-in-law Paddy, be warned!
Richard Hoad is a farmer and social commentator. Email porkhoad@gmail.com