He was very tall though slightly bent
In his eighties I would put his age,
A handsome man he must have been
Judging by the remnants at this stage.
He walked with the aid of a cane
I suspect it was more as a precaution,
The fact it barely touched the ground
Totally held my attention.
I heard he’d already made the century
That was really hard to believe,
I heard he’d met the Governor General
From whom a visit he had also received.
How long past the century I could not tell
But at that age he looked exceedingly well,
He was full of verve with an appealing wit
And an infectious laughter it was hard to quell.
Bald on top buy grey at the temples
An encyclopedia of knowledge was he,
Especially as it pertained to Barbados
Its development and early history.
Back to the early sixteen hundreds
When this country became a colony
He told of the many plantation owners
Whose gains were made through slavery.
He told of his very own ancestors
Whom he traced right back to that time,
Of his
fore-parents: one white and one black
A beautiful black girl the Massa did find.
Such that clearly from his complexion
One could still see the evidence
That he was a mulatto of such origins
The egg of a black girl and a Massa’s intent.
He appeared proud of his origin
The fact he was both Negro and Caucasian,
He could speak at length about either
Which he did on every occasion.
He was proud to be a bajan
Perhaps the reason they called him baje,
He knew so much about this country
The called him the national sage.
They say he never went to university
And didn’t have a single certificate,
Seventh standard was his highest education
But about Barbados he could educate.
University historians had nothing on him
He was Barbados epitomized,
And don’t try to put this country down
For a rasping tongue would materialize.
He spoke of Samuel Jackman Prescod
And of Bussa the freedom fighting slave,
He spoke of Charles Duncan O’Neal
One of the heroes on our money engraved.
He highlighted the abolition of slavery
And the challenge it posed for the slaves,
How the Massa made them work for little
And called them good for nothing knaves.
“Not all Massas were bad,” he said
“A few of them were really good
Their slaves were really granted their freedom
And treated like a human being should.”
He talked much about adult suffrage
How the blacks were given power to vote,
How they had a say in the running of the country
He thought this was of the highest note.
He spoke like the erudite professor
He elaborated on the minutest details,
A panoramic view of Barbadian history
And the various challenges we assailed.
He gave a lengthy discourse on 1937
He talked about Adams and Clement Payne
He spoke of the event as an eyewitness
And the resulting developmental change.
He came right through to Independence
At which his eyes brightly lit up,
“Barbados had come to age,” he said,
“No longer was she Britain’s colonial pup.”
She had won the fight for self-rule
The right to determine her trading partners,
The right to set up her charter and direction
Without having to assent to what Britain preferred.
He spoke of the significance of the Barbados flag
Its three panels and the broken trident,
He recited the words of the national anthem
As he recounted that first Independence event.
Then a brisk walk through fifty-one years
Of successes and failures, falls and spills,
Of politics, elections and change of Governments
Of economic recessions, development and thrills.
From Barrow to Adams to Barrow again
St. John in between before Sandiford would reign,
Arthur took over then in came Thompson
Presently there is Stuart seven years holding strain.
Seamless takeovers with little or no fuss
This is the Barbados heritage in which we trust,
Quite a lot of talk during an election campaign
But as the electorate we do what we must.
Finally baje would chat about the outlook
Regarding the next ten to fifty years or so,
“We could do a lot better,” he would always say
“But we must make the effort to put our best on show.”
“We have come a long way,” in reflecting, he’d say
With that far away look in his eye,
“And with God’s help we will always get by.”
And with that he would look towards the sky.
Stewart Russell © November 2017
