FOR THE PAST TEN YEARS, I’ve been trying to get folks in the media, the police, talk radio and elsewhere to refer to that stretch of road from the Darcy Scott Roundabout at Warrens, St Michael, to Mile-and-a-Quarter, St Peter, as the Ronald Mapp Highway.
We no longer board planes out of Seawell Airport, drive across the Victoria Bridge, attend meetings at Sherbourne Conference Centre or go to school at West St Joseph, yet we continue to refer to Highway 2A, renamed for the late Member of Parliament Sir Ronald Mapp over two decades ago.
This is disrespect.
Back in 2007, I sent a letter to the editor and said, inter alia: “There is a good reason for naming roads, buildings, lecture series, currency notes, schools, bridges, airports, etcetera, after people who have made contributions in varying degrees to the development of their societies.
The idea is to refresh your memory – if for no more than a few seconds, that that person’s contribution is worthy of remembrance – so that when you circle or are stuck in traffic at the Nita Barrow Roundabout, you reflect on that great Barbadian lady’s contribution as our first and only female Governor General, and her outstanding role as a world citizen.
Recall exploits
When you drive past the Gully Hill playing field in Carrington’s Village and you see a sign on a pavilion marked The Victor “Gas” Clarke Sports Facility, you recall the exploits of that outstanding national footballer, or you will be moved to ask someone about him.
And similarly with the Right Excellent Charles Duncan O’Neal, Frank Collymore, Rudolph Goodridge, John Bovell, Lester Vaughan, Clennell Wickham, the Right Excellent Sir Grantley Adams, the Right Excellent Errol Barrow, Sir Everton Weekes, Sir Clyde Walcott, Sir Frank Worrell, the Right Excellent Sir Garfield Sobers, Dame Elsie Payne, Jackie Opel, Herman Griffith, Lawrence Johnson, Don Norville, Patsy Callender, Louis Lynch, the Right Excellent Clement Payne, and many others.”
I wrote my first letter on this matter on August 20, 2007 – almost ten years ago – when I soon managed to get the affable Sergeant Siebert Johnson to desist from referring to “Highway 2A”.
He seems unable to help his junior colleague, Constable Alleyne, to get it right after all these years.
I give up.
– CARL MOORE
