tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-286131892024-03-05T16:55:08.349+00:00Small DaysMemories of Guyana: a long flat coastland and a smokeless wooden townSharon Maashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17242218167706605535noreply@blogger.comBlogger47125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28613189.post-58413081891424896022022-11-30T12:01:00.011+00:002023-01-12T09:24:29.978+00:00Tulasa, 12 years old. Sold into prostitution in Bombay.<p><b> Interview with Dr Gilada</b></p><p class="MsoNormal">
by <b>Sharon Maas</b><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b>This interview was conducted in 2004, in conjunction with the publication of my novel Peacocks Dancing (later republished as Lost Daughter of India.)<br />An old story that never grows old. How can men do this?<br /><br /></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuEvPT6vsbse8mKr1XmHQp_hlEXWHCOiIFElBPTVKrvkM04QlCUwjPZS1m1bP9dW6o74GaCMQ8EVrujpAHY_kwht-D006ER6ax2hXHFYeeCynSwUrxyZjUjHR2PeKX7JLIzXtmoylARvkLNSYKc7iMHl9Ar6U-TiDaOZO4bF7gjihaaMkwaA/s2140/tulasa.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2140" data-original-width="1422" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuEvPT6vsbse8mKr1XmHQp_hlEXWHCOiIFElBPTVKrvkM04QlCUwjPZS1m1bP9dW6o74GaCMQ8EVrujpAHY_kwht-D006ER6ax2hXHFYeeCynSwUrxyZjUjHR2PeKX7JLIzXtmoylARvkLNSYKc7iMHl9Ar6U-TiDaOZO4bF7gjihaaMkwaA/w266-h400/tulasa.jpg" width="266" /></a></div><b>Dr Ishwarprasad Gilada,</b> founder, General-Secretary and
driving force behind the People’s Health Organisation in India, has been
fighting against the horrors of the Bombay sex trade for the last two decades.<p></p><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>Sharon:</b> Your crusade against child prostitution in India
began with the rescue of Tulasa in 1982; back then, the story made front page
headlines in India and Nepal, and opened a viper’s nest of horrors. Who was
Tulasa?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>Dr I.G.:</b> Tulasa was a 12 year old Nepali girl who in
1982 was kidnapped from her village and sold into prostitution in Bombay. She
was systematically raped to make her fit for the trade and then forced to
entertain an average of 8 clients a day. I met her 10 months later in the
Bombay hospital where I was working at the time. Her tiny body –the body of a
child – was completely broken. She was suffering from three types of sexually
transmitted diseases (STDs), genital warts and brain tuberculosis which left
her spastic and wheelchair-bound, and finally killed her. The story she told
was horrific. The People’s Health Organisation embarked on a full-fledged “Save
Tulasa” campaign, and with the support of the media managed to rescue her. We
located her father – her mother had died shortly after her disappearance – and
sent her home.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>Sharon:</b> You say with the support of the media. Didn’t
the police help in the rescue campaign?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>Dr. I.G.:</b> Police collusion with the flesh trade was a
high point of Tulasa’s revelations. Even today the police and the politicians
are in collaboration with the pimp – the profit is huge. Back then, the uproar
generated by her story forced the police into action, and in no time 32 persons
involved were arrested, including the three brothel owners Tulasa had worked
for. The police knew exactly what was going on, and only stepped in when forced
to do so. It took them 18 months to ascertain her age and three years to file a
charge. And only last January, 18 years later, did the case finally to come to
trial. The police were given a month to produce her in court. Only then did we
receive a message that Tulasa died two years ago. Meanwhile, her abusers have
been running free.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>Sharon:</b> After her rescue didn’t she find peace in
Nepal?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>Dr I.G.:</b> No. At first there had been an outpouring of
sympathy for her – offers of adoption and marriage, an invitation to
Switzerland, gifts of money and medicine. None of it came to much. Tulasa was
rejected by her father’s second wife, and moved into a home. Her father avoided
her to keep the family peace. She was in constant pain, but worst of all was
the feeling that nobody loved her, that she had been used and abused and
finally discarded like a piece of rubbish.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>Sharon:</b> Is Tulasa’s story typical of child
prostitutes in India’s megacities?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>Dr I.G.:</b> Yes. Soon after Tulasa’s rescue the air was
abuzz with innumerable stories of girls who were caged and treated like animals
in Kamathipura, Bombay’s infamous red-light district. They narrated harrowing
tales of torture and abuse. The PHO has rescued more than 130 girls to date
directly, and more than 3000 indirectly. The youngest girl we rescued was only
eight years old.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>Sharon:</b> Has the trafficking with children in Bombay
improved since Tulasa’s rescue?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>Dr I.G.:</b> Horrifying as it is, Tulasa’s case has had
some positive fallout. The episode threw light on the appalling practice
of child prostitution - the public outcry was tremendous. As a result, the
governments of India and Nepal signed a treaty for the rescue and repatriation
of Nepali girls from Indian brothels. In India the sentence for trafficking
with minors has been hiked from 7 to 13 years. Child prostitution has been
reduced by about 40%.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>Sharon:</b> How do children end up as prostitutes in
India?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>Dr I.G.:</b> About 40% of all child prostitutes have been
abducted from villages all over India and Nepal. They are lured away on some
pretext or the other: going to movies, cities, temples, making them film stars,
lucrative job opportunities, marriage. Another major source of child prostitutes
is the Devadasi system. Every year thousands of girls are ceremoniously
dedicated to the Goddess „Yellamma”. They are sold to the highest bidder and
after a brief period of concubinage turned over to the urban brothels. The
system is officially banned but continues to operate clandestinely,
contributing up to 20% of urban child prostitutes.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">A small proportion of child prostitutes come to the trade
after being raped. Others run away from incestuous relationships with family
members. Yet others are daughters of prostitutes, who have no other option than
to follow their mothers’ profession.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>Sharon:</b> What are their living conditions in the
brothels?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>Dr I.G.:</b> The girls live in unimaginable squalor,
usually about 10-12 girls in a small room. The brothels are foul, stinking
holes, often overrun with rats and vermin. They eat from filthy cafeterias or
vendors, and have to pay twice the price for their food and other necessary
commodities. Most of them are forced to abuse drugs, alcohol and nicotine. 75
to 80 percent of the girls suffer from STDs. More than half of the girls are
HIV infected.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>Sharon</b>:. What is the PHO doing to deal with the
situation?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>Dr I.G.:</b> The prevention of child prostitution and the
containment of AIDS are two of our main aims. We have a Mobile Clinic – donated
by a German organisation - and go out into red-light districts several times a
week with a team consisting of health workers, social workers, and
ex-sex-workers. We distribute free condoms, and provide medical check-ups and
counselling on specific health or social problems. In many of the brothels
there are prostitutes working for us, helping to educate others so as to
prevent the spread of AIDS. We have had considerable success in this area.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>Sharon:</b> What success have you had with your other
main aim, the prevention of child prostitution? Is it possible to rehabilitate
the children you rescue from the brothels?<o:p></o:p></p>
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Dr I.G.:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"> At the moment, the emphasis is on prevention rather than rescue. The
problem is, where can they go after they have been rescued, or when they
contract AIDS and are thrown out of the brothels? They are often rejected by
heir communities and families and cannot return home, and we simply do not have
the facilities to look after these girls. We have a 25 acre plot of land on the
Bombay-Goa highway, where we had planned to build a home for rescued children,
a training centre and a school – but we simply don’t have the funds to carry
on. The PHO operates on a shoestring.</span>Sharon Maashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17242218167706605535noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28613189.post-40729266984123236582022-06-18T08:22:00.021+01:002022-06-19T11:47:09.148+01:00Jonestown: Drinking the KoolAid<p><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 6pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">19 November 1978</b>: It was my French
teacher at the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Alliance Française</i> in
Paris who first broke the news. “Something terrible has happened in your
country,” said Mr Beaulieu at the start of the class, but he didn’t say what. I
found out later, like everyone else who read about the almost ghoulish events
of the night of the 18th.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 6pt;">Suddenly, Guyana
was on the world map. Every Guyanese who has travelled abroad knows the
annoying response of foreigners when they first hear the name of your country:
“Oh, I’d love to go to Africa!” or some other sentence placing it in the wrong
continent. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 6pt;">But now, in
November 1978, the whole world knew where and what we were: a little backwater South American country covered in jungle, so remote from modern civilisation that this "bunch
of crazies" – and a huge bunch it was too, a thousand all told! – had chosen it
to recreate paradise, a paradise that had turned to hell. The photos of hundreds
of dead bodies steaming in the rainforest shocked the world.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 6pt;">Jonestown became a
code word for every movement that goes off-track; in this case, lethally so. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was the world’s first mass suicide. In reality
it was a massacre; a slow one, created by systematic brainwashing. <o:p></o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs5e4ddLA2GdQ0fXyPZY0cjsEyNtsnZxjX3w3pRgbEivkCVZ71toelr1JjqL6ym2utPaSMTQVyfNl2oA6xt4ggdg_XVvv3dr0q3pD7lfviKPW_OBQp6F6b4OV_eplG0Mbvd2ZdGciVmsuj1fonHpQHSw-WgED-xjisvou_XceCNO1fNAbFNA/s1200/jonestown.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="601" data-original-width="1200" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs5e4ddLA2GdQ0fXyPZY0cjsEyNtsnZxjX3w3pRgbEivkCVZ71toelr1JjqL6ym2utPaSMTQVyfNl2oA6xt4ggdg_XVvv3dr0q3pD7lfviKPW_OBQp6F6b4OV_eplG0Mbvd2ZdGciVmsuj1fonHpQHSw-WgED-xjisvou_XceCNO1fNAbFNA/w400-h200/jonestown.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 6pt;"><i>They must have been crazy,</i> the world
thought, and the world’s media dissected the story and analysed it and probed
into the reasons and the motives and the background trying to explain it to themselves and everyone
else, and after all of the cogitation, the only answer they could
come up with at the time was the same they had started with: they were a bunch
of crazies. Nothing else explained it. Over the years, more and more truths
have emerged, though, and we can look at the tragedy with a little more
discernment.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 6pt;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 6pt;">Like everyone else
I was fascinated, but even more so: this had happened in my own country, not far from where I too, with a bunch of drop-out friends, had started a
commune in the middle of nowhere a few years previously. My friends, in fact,
still lived on the farm we had founded. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">What
if?</i> What if I’d still been there and had known these people, these
Americans; met them in the early days, before things went so very wrong? After
all, we all had the same idea, didn’t we? Escape from a civilisation which, in
our eyes, was going so very wrong? When Jonestown's White Night, the night of death, happened, I tried to
understand.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 6pt;">Though I’ll never
understand how mothers could poison their own children, I did understand how a
beloved leader could turn from saviour to mass murderer. Because to me it was,
finally, no longer mass suicide but mass murder. My own background and
experience made it all perfectly logical: right up to the final fiasco. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 6pt;">You see, I know first-hand
what, in the beginning, drove people to Jim Jones. Everything I have read on
the subject suggests to me that Jones started off as a true humanitarian, a
charismatic leader, a man of caring and goodwill, a friend of and fighter for the
poor and downtrodden. And I, as a young adult, was a seeker, in quest of just
such a leader. Someone who could show me a way out of my misery, guide me to
a better, more wholesome life. There is nothing wrong with such a longing. It
is a healthy need, a natural hunger.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 6pt;">I grew up in
Guyana. As a child of divorced middle-class parents, I had a muddled if
basically happy childhood. Guyana was a wonderful place to grow up in back
then, as anyone who shared that background will agree: Georgetown, an overgrown
village, lush and green, a tree-shaded haven where everyone knew everyone else,
or at least everyone else’s aunty or second cousin. The Interior was untouched
nature, mysterious and vast. Guyana would have been paradise, if not for the
political turbulences. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 6pt;">My parents were
political, progressive, liberal, leftist. My father, indeed, was a Marxist, for
many years Press Secretary to the controversial Opposition Leader Cheddi Jagan.
My mother was a leading feminist during feminism’s dawn, an icon of Progress. I
grew up with all the “right” ideas on social progress. But something was
missing.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 6pt;">My parents were
also atheist, and I was raised to be the same; but in the contrary way of 18-year-old youth, I turned away from atheism and embarked on my own spiritual
quest. It was a desperate and genuine search, for the political and social
theories I’d been raised on could not quench the hunger I felt deep inside: that was spiritual, and could not be satisfied with intellectual explanations. Had
Jim Jones come along at the time not only with his social reforms but also
showing me a path to God, who knows: I might have been his, heart and soul. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 6pt;">I was luckier than
those who did fall for his charisma. My spiritual interests eventual led me
along a different path, one that led eastwards, to India and Yoga and the
teachings known as <a href="https://www.yogapedia.com/definition/6240/sanatana-dharma"><b>Sanatana Dharma</b></a>. I lived in India for a while, in a place
steeped in genuine <b><a href="https://vedanta.org/what-is-vedanta/">Vedantic</a> </b>spirituality and wisdom, and there I found the key
to the missing Factor X of my life. It had been inside me all the time, and the
practice of meditation, taught by reputable teachers, brought me the inner
stability and confidence that had thrown me again and again in my younger days.
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 6pt;">Over the years my
personal bullshit-detector developed nicely; I can now tell the wheat from the
chaff, the Pied Piper teachers (and there are hundreds of them!) from the genuine ones almost at the moment they open their
mouths. But how different it could have been had I, as a young, eager, naïve and spiritually hungry teenager, stumbled across the wrong
teacher! One driven not by the selfless need to lift up others, but by a power-hungry ego? One out to make a fortune? One who seduces his devotees, especially young, pretty, female ones? Would I, in my youthful naivety, have noticed that moment when things began to go
wrong? Or would I have been drawn into the web of deceit, manipulation and
control that surrounds such teachers? When I hear some of these stories I often
think<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">, there but for the Grace of God, go
I.</i> I’m not at all certain I could have peeled myself away in time.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 6pt;">
<br />
And that’s why “the bunch of crazies” label used to describe the Jonestown
victims has never sat well with me. These were hungry people desperate for real
food, hungry for spiritual nourishment -- just as I had once been. Along came a charismatic leader, wrapping them
with affection and goodwill and giving them a sense of security and family; we
call it love-bombing for a reason. Love is addictive – and very easily faked. These
people were sponges for love, but were given a pseudo-deal, offered by a man who
used them to develop his own power and dominance over them -- as power-hungry men (and women) tend to do. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 6pt;">We are not trained
to tell the difference. We cannot see it, feel it, taste it. Fake meat, I’m
told, tastes very much like the real thing. There’s a huge market for fake cheese,
and to those who’ve never tasted a true Brie or Gr<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">u</span>y<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">è</span>re, developed a palate for the genuine thing, it
might even be delicious. And therein lies the danger. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 6pt;">Unless we can put
ourselves in their situation – not the situation in November 1978, but the
situation years before – we have no right to judge. These people were like the legendary
frog in slowly heating water; unable to jump when the water turned hot. It was
a case of slow brainwashing. The ability to discern comes only through experience
and the passing of time; the ability to stand back and say, <i>wait a minute.
Something’s wrong.</i> For most of the over 900 victims who died at Jim Jones’
bidding, it was like being slowly blinded with one veil after the other; their
sight for truth growing dimmer as time went on, so that in the end they were
completely blind.<br /><br />
Today we’d call it mass psychosis. There are many other examples: <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Waco-siege"><b>Branch Davidians (Waco)</b></a>, the
<a href="https://www.charlesmanson.com/manson-murders/"><b>Manson Murders</b></a>, the <a href="https://www.esquire.com/uk/culture/a40151990/the-true-story-of-keep-sweet-pray/"><b>Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints</b></a>. Jim Jones used
mental and physical abuse, blackmail, humiliation, and threats to break down
the members of his community to get them to do his bidding. He convinced them
that he and he alone was their redeemer. Peoples Temple was no longer a church;
it was a cult with Jim Jones at its helm as their saviour, with those who weren’t
persuaded simply too terrified to leave.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 6pt;">Even close family
members were told to spy on each other. Anyone expressing doubt or rebellion could
be denounced by friends or relatives. Extreme punishments were the order of the
day, such as electric shocks and being locked in an underground box. Many had
to sign blank power of attorney forms and false confessions to crimes,
including child molestation and abuse. Children were beaten and removed from their
parents. Jim Jones was their saviour who had to be obeyed absolutely. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 6pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA87Wq30TV20ZYXEa3cixx-HG_IrbVLynueWyMyWF09_oNtZaldp3I3A5E3_WlH75OSAN6Z7gCXTLX3GBS8aAbD1ravmEYihUmJMPEg4CEc9zD_33LuF65pEC10jC9P_18We1IhKNi_w9ftaXXleGvvc1EQkAusVTov65sDPNn4sOZw0QNKQ/s1080/Lifestyle%20The%20Girl%20from%20Jonestown.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA87Wq30TV20ZYXEa3cixx-HG_IrbVLynueWyMyWF09_oNtZaldp3I3A5E3_WlH75OSAN6Z7gCXTLX3GBS8aAbD1ravmEYihUmJMPEg4CEc9zD_33LuF65pEC10jC9P_18We1IhKNi_w9ftaXXleGvvc1EQkAusVTov65sDPNn4sOZw0QNKQ/s320/Lifestyle%20The%20Girl%20from%20Jonestown.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>This is the horrific
process I wanted to highlight in my novel, <i>The Girl from Jonestown. </i>I
wrote it many years ago under the title <i>White Night,</i> precisely with the
question in my mind: how could this happen? Could it have happened to me? For
fifteen years, I tried to get that book published, with varied results. One literary
agent from a major US agency loved it and even found an editor at a major
publisher who also loved it – but it was rejected at the critical sales and
marketing team meeting. Another top US agent asked for the manuscript after
reading the first few chapters – but in the end turned it down without ever reading
it: “after all, we know the outcome.”<br />
Yes, we do. But this novel is not about outcomes, (and anyway, the “mass
suicide” does not end the book). It’s about understanding. It’s about
compassion. It’s about being able to learn from what happened and then promise
ourselves: I will always keep my eyes open, always look to the messenger as
well as the message. Who is behind it all? Money, sex and power: one or more of
those three are always the motivating factors when it comes to cultish abuse. With
Jim Jones, it was all three.<o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 6pt;">And so we all need
to stay awake and aware. We need to be able to see through the inviting cult propaganda
to the naked and unpleasant truth beneath. It’s about self-preservation: waking
up in time to spot the rot. I hope this book will help a few people to open their eyes. To be aware.<br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <br /><br /></span><br /><o:p></o:p></p>Sharon Maashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17242218167706605535noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28613189.post-76844730432843643592022-04-24T08:21:00.019+01:002022-04-26T20:24:36.589+01:00Return to Gaschurn, Sixty Years Later. Part Two. Haus in der Sonne<p><b><a href="https://sharonmaas.blogspot.com/2022/04/return-to-gaschurn-sixty-years-later.html"> Continued from Return to Gaschurn, Part One</a></b></p><p><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Up, up, up along the winding road
into the mountains, and there we were. The village was nothing like I remembered
it; but then, I remembered very little, at the most those quaint solid-wood
chalets. I kept an eye out for </span><i style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Haus in der Sonne</i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> while driving
through, but as I'd suspected it was long gone; yes, I'd looked it up online
and no </span><i style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Pension</i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> of that name existed. The buildings in the
village centre were modern, of brick, with a few chalets in between and on the
hillside above. </span></p><p><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;">
<br />
I wasn't quite sure what I was doing in Gaschurn. Retracing my steps, yes; but
how? I didn't know a single person there, and I didn't have a plan. I needed a
plan. <i>Haus in der Sonne </i>had to be central to that plan.
I also needed a hook; how would I explain myself? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEils63ysqLVtDscZK9tsHCgTMZEn_XKN5ul8H0GgJgprIJ8rMdZ8yr1Q5jrvz17I2Qeuo4BpTYRvkaCkWqQ0D9LRNXWjbimdf02NWCSIy9ans__Aku-TpMD1cRfhNw4NrJcymuC2Ohuo0sVvSSSdW0dDQ3aFRWSfArMVhAgrlSA7dqFlKielw/s1280/gaschurn2.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="956" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEils63ysqLVtDscZK9tsHCgTMZEn_XKN5ul8H0GgJgprIJ8rMdZ8yr1Q5jrvz17I2Qeuo4BpTYRvkaCkWqQ0D9LRNXWjbimdf02NWCSIy9ans__Aku-TpMD1cRfhNw4NrJcymuC2Ohuo0sVvSSSdW0dDQ3aFRWSfArMVhAgrlSA7dqFlKielw/w478-h640/gaschurn2.JPG" width="478" /></a></div><p><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">On the way up it had all seemed pretty clear. My
plan would be to find someone, an older person who remembered </span><i style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Haus in der
Sonne</i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">, and to have a chat about the old days. The hook would be the
photograph. This one, found again after rummaging through a shoebox of old
photos.</span></p><p></p><p><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">I remember that pullover well: Mrs
Williamson had knitted it for me, and I loved it. Here I am, gazing up into the
mountains that so impressed me at the time. It can’t have been cold as I wasn’t
wearing a jacket, or gloves, or a cap. To my surprise, up there wasn’t very
cold at all.</span></p><p><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;">
<br /><br />
</span></p><p><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;">And so, armed with just a photo, I put my plan into motion. I needed to meet
someone, an older Gaschurner, but as we parked the car and stepped out into the
street it seemed a vain hope: the street was empty. Not a single person in
sight. And so my first reaction was disappointment. Had I come all this way in
vain?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;">I hadn't planned a 2022 return to
Gaschurn. It seemed that the stars had all aligned to bring the visit about
organically.</span></p><p><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;">
My son had been working on a farm just outside the Austrian town of Dornbirn,
which is the largest city in the Austrian state of Vorarlberg, close to the
Swiss border.<br />
Now, in March 2022, he had quit his job and needed to return home to Ireland;
which meant packing all his belongings into his car and driving back to Ireland
through Switzerland and France. He'd then take the Cherbourg-Dublin Ferry. A
very long and exhausting drive, and he'd been ill. Someone to drive back with
him, to take the wheel now and again, would be an enormous help.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;">It was the opportunity I'd been
waiting for...<br />
<br />
Vorarlberg. Yes, that memory popped up: crisp outline of white mountains
against a brilliant blue sky, snow glistening in the sunshine. My son loved
Vorarlberg. His reaction to the beauty of those mountains, that sunshine, that
sky, was similar to mine: a beauty so intense tears would come to his eyes.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsQK9-a_wJYnHRPJS7skKXt7GHU910YTIvLp8oFxJGP6XPd-Lr5sIK_ygPc87vaC0ykDYPge-VonshlveuvKpGY9Y8lvfyIuC38soqOLMfJctxtDMVxlDBXD9vAfNahpkQyBEOpPcRLiAYVB0LV5tO_idj85hOCc320NXWMYVMjJWVO56fIw/s1800/montafon.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="1800" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsQK9-a_wJYnHRPJS7skKXt7GHU910YTIvLp8oFxJGP6XPd-Lr5sIK_ygPc87vaC0ykDYPge-VonshlveuvKpGY9Y8lvfyIuC38soqOLMfJctxtDMVxlDBXD9vAfNahpkQyBEOpPcRLiAYVB0LV5tO_idj85hOCc320NXWMYVMjJWVO56fIw/w640-h160/montafon.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /><br /><span>Gaschurn was not even an hour's drive from Dornbirn. The time had come to
return. So one sunny morning we did; and here we were. I was back. <br />
<br />Now, as we left the car.
the village seemed deserted. We had parked in front of the Tourist Information
office, but even that was closed. We set off to meet someone, anyone.</span></span><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;">Walking along the empty main village
street: nobody. Not a soul in sight. I knew that in Germany and Austria the<i> Mittagspause</i>, midday
pause, is almost a holy thing: the shops close down as people take their
precious lunch break; lunch being the biggest meal of the day. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;">But there was nobody on the
street. Strange, I thought. Where is everyone? I thought this was a major tourist
resort these days?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;">Finally we did spot someone, a young man with a backpack. We spoke to him; it
turned out he was an English tourist. He pointed us in the direction of a
restaurant, down the road that led into the valley. 'That's also where you can
get the cable car up to the mountain,' he said. We parted company, and
made our way to the restaurant, a modern pizzeria. Perhaps there I'd meet the
"older person" who would answer my questions; questions I
hadn't properly formulated, not even to myself. As usual, I was in ‘play
it by ear’ mode, but by now slightly frustrated.<br />
<br />
We went into the restaurant and ordered drinks, and while doing so I addressed
the staff member behind the bar. 'Do you know of any older person from
Gaschurn?' I asked. 'Someone who has lived here a long time?'<br />
<br />
The barman, who turned out to be Albanian, pointed to a man sitting alone at a
table. 'Talk to him,' he said. So we sat down at that table.<br />
<br />
I pulled out my photo and showed it to him. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;">'Do you recognise the place where this
photo was taken?' I asked.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"> He looked at it for a
while, and then he said:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"> 'Yes. This was taken at
the Silvretta lake dam.’ He pointed to something in the photo: ‘See:
there's the dam wall.'</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0tYsTygbBFY-J6Lqlz4LvlI-fGlSkBnNsZBPcosRWjZc5dSMGBuYuu3bhPbUvM4cbLzrQiKo7FpwcGClwguStGFs6owk1Sh_pDJZl-JkYgHBxWzgdGoWoGu4H3VFaVvu3hIReLvwWspLYZO0v2-u4r0vuOeEfUqZqvOD3SsizHZaXIr7HtA/s474/stausee.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="316" data-original-width="474" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0tYsTygbBFY-J6Lqlz4LvlI-fGlSkBnNsZBPcosRWjZc5dSMGBuYuu3bhPbUvM4cbLzrQiKo7FpwcGClwguStGFs6owk1Sh_pDJZl-JkYgHBxWzgdGoWoGu4H3VFaVvu3hIReLvwWspLYZO0v2-u4r0vuOeEfUqZqvOD3SsizHZaXIr7HtA/w400-h266/stausee.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;">As soon as he said it, another
memory opened up. That word 'Silvretta': it rang a loud bell loud and
clear, and suddenly it all came back to me: yes, we had been up to the
Silvretta Lake, Mrs Williamson and I. That's where the photo had been
taken.<br />
<br />
So finally I had my older person; but he wasn’t quite old enough. ‘Do you know
of a <i>pension</i> called <i>Haus in der Sonne</i>?’ I asked. ‘That’s where we stayed in
1963.’<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;">‘Wait a moment,’ he said, and
whipped out his phone, dialled. ‘Can you come to the pizzeria?’ he said into
the phone, and then, ‘now. Right now.’<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;">Within minutes, another man
turned up at our table. The first man introduced us; his name was Mr Tschofen.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;">The first man told the second man
of our mission. ‘They are looking for someone who knows <i>Haus in der Sonne</i>!’
he said.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;">‘My parents used to own that
guest house!’ said Mr Tschofen, and my jaw dropped to the floor in the biggest Wow! of
the day, of the holiday. <br />
<br />
And so I had found my connection. Mr Tschofen could tell us all we wanted to know. His
parents had owned the building; before becoming a pension in the early 60s it had been a <i>Kindererholungsheim</i>, a health-restoration home for children
needing rest and recovery: Germanic culture is excellent at that sort of thing.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCBFyGN60pjflCP7WZlBxMzT0grouzsb1OtERlcLrfha80Ly4FFTd1wIhNMdMw3kMlZItW_3sahdUIyp8U5gAN9qr-NODrSOcHGmGG9QYcFfrhnQUGcxWxK_vAFSti_Xxlh9KvVPwQjgsU_-1o56ahdi01L17ml2T7ToU3LgmqQdHcpc12jg/s935/Haus%20in%20der%20Sonne%20Gaschurn%20(2).jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="603" data-original-width="935" height="206" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCBFyGN60pjflCP7WZlBxMzT0grouzsb1OtERlcLrfha80Ly4FFTd1wIhNMdMw3kMlZItW_3sahdUIyp8U5gAN9qr-NODrSOcHGmGG9QYcFfrhnQUGcxWxK_vAFSti_Xxlh9KvVPwQjgsU_-1o56ahdi01L17ml2T7ToU3LgmqQdHcpc12jg/s320/Haus%20in%20der%20Sonne%20Gaschurn%20(2).jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: medium;">Next, Mr Tschofen whipped out his own
phone and, opening his photos, showed us an album full of the pre-pension <i>Haus
in der Sonne</i>, complete with the children having their holiday. And so I made
the connection to the past. Mr Tschofen is younger than I am so he would not have
encountered me on that 1963 trip, but he had stories to tell and he turned out
to be the missing link I had come here for. The circle had closed.</span><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZZ-Nu3wcKztjnCE_BcrxQS5IUPOZ9uuJV7_phksE-cSRwyYeuuAbVBSlv7nh3BwNhS-6JWDihjBkd465lP9ASBTa1HihtL2PwiEoonrbzf6WDPta9p0C_4_vzDiwHYK3gM0hCmeKBARGMDX0MJNKXfUkjJzoGcsLeTcnB8nEhVkvthyNGig/s1556/Haus%20in%20der%20Sonne%202%20Sonnenkinder%20beim%20Spiel.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="953" data-original-width="1556" height="196" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZZ-Nu3wcKztjnCE_BcrxQS5IUPOZ9uuJV7_phksE-cSRwyYeuuAbVBSlv7nh3BwNhS-6JWDihjBkd465lP9ASBTa1HihtL2PwiEoonrbzf6WDPta9p0C_4_vzDiwHYK3gM0hCmeKBARGMDX0MJNKXfUkjJzoGcsLeTcnB8nEhVkvthyNGig/s320/Haus%20in%20der%20Sonne%202%20Sonnenkinder%20beim%20Spiel.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><p><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></p>There were photos of the children playing outside the house, and getting ready to ski<br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyoT3TXRLciPnW_uvWTNRpFVwnFz8GevCY6WqRjS8aKk9xell4ShZH1qG9WwbuDY0Np3dE-wNs0ntj1erQ4FZkpQW2hpb-RcKztd-UgFbwKe7LWaikKa-KhC4mtygp_1zrcsWo6mQo3w_x_G0Cc1WAv0xJ-EIpxXcLcoFCt0om0wKHh4M7hA/s1549/Haus%20in%20der%20Sonne1%20angetreten%20zum%20Skilauf.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="966" data-original-width="1549" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyoT3TXRLciPnW_uvWTNRpFVwnFz8GevCY6WqRjS8aKk9xell4ShZH1qG9WwbuDY0Np3dE-wNs0ntj1erQ4FZkpQW2hpb-RcKztd-UgFbwKe7LWaikKa-KhC4mtygp_1zrcsWo6mQo3w_x_G0Cc1WAv0xJ-EIpxXcLcoFCt0om0wKHh4M7hA/s320/Haus%20in%20der%20Sonne1%20angetreten%20zum%20Skilauf.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />Mr Tschofen’s photos of <i>Haus in der Sonne</i> brought it all back: yes! That was where we’d
stayed, Mrs Williamson and I. I remembered the rack for skis at the side of the
house. I remembered the lobby, the stairs, the massive wooden walls, the
wood-burning stove…</span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px;"><br /></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTwv5uBN7khdZaQUvE5xOfG3n1VTdOcPJz6yKto-ca9pUzWnHUhza_dNC5pb19R2ySbEc70ER7_n0rdyXJu23ma5Mu_r8pNDz5H4jeNKUpmo6lhaqnw7xsErBc1yffiozh0HBPUkJfAL1V0bfogGN9pm8fzd20xykxcZagY776qp4ev113cg/s1054/K%C3%BCche%20im%20Sonnenhaus%20anno%201934%20(Haus%20in%20der%20Sonne).jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="636" data-original-width="1054" height="193" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTwv5uBN7khdZaQUvE5xOfG3n1VTdOcPJz6yKto-ca9pUzWnHUhza_dNC5pb19R2ySbEc70ER7_n0rdyXJu23ma5Mu_r8pNDz5H4jeNKUpmo6lhaqnw7xsErBc1yffiozh0HBPUkJfAL1V0bfogGN9pm8fzd20xykxcZagY776qp4ev113cg/s320/K%C3%BCche%20im%20Sonnenhaus%20anno%201934%20(Haus%20in%20der%20Sonne).jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: 18px;"><p><span style="font-size: 18px;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px;"><br /></span></p>He even had a photo of the kitchen. It was all there!<br /></span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px;"><br /></span></p>
<p><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We sat and chatted with the two men for a
while and then, on their advice, walked down to the bottom of the valley and
that was where we found the people. Not only shops that were open– a supermarket,
a tourist shop, a ski-equipment shop – but the cable car office and, most
importantly, people, swarms of them, all in their winter-sport gear and many of
them carrying skis on their shoulders. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT5KNodbM_ieP-PgTpvZz5N3cW4RgTp3UCxCW01d8VgrH_8BzLa_wJe9GDxklp0v_6WpBTITLUpOVwFJaO7azKNGVRi6Adswpyu2FzDXzFLX1N1r9lwDGbtd5YbHlyPRxjrKiI9T5Ut0s3G4Lqrh2QD-h2o7PP7HnobNejRvl47zWyosq44w/s4128/20220309_143033.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3096" data-original-width="4128" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT5KNodbM_ieP-PgTpvZz5N3cW4RgTp3UCxCW01d8VgrH_8BzLa_wJe9GDxklp0v_6WpBTITLUpOVwFJaO7azKNGVRi6Adswpyu2FzDXzFLX1N1r9lwDGbtd5YbHlyPRxjrKiI9T5Ut0s3G4Lqrh2QD-h2o7PP7HnobNejRvl47zWyosq44w/s320/20220309_143033.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: medium;">We parked the car in a huge car-park
that was so full we had trouble finding an empty slot. We bought cable-car
tickets and rode the bubble up to the top of the </span><span style="color: black; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">mountain, a journey that
seemed endless. All around us snow-covered slopes, people skiing down them,
people on skis being dragged up in order to ski down again.</span></span><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><div><span style="clear: right; float: right; font-size: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3096" data-original-width="4128" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU-6wIb-u6siOhJcERpiOpm707HCLXszwHoMkUXSakVtEeG1qaiTP8pFvQ5_RcBzP0_CIt17Cb5q_AT0wEgMV9i3v_cZkFN6oqOo2xU1tRg406Va0DVtaJCCI2dPIrVrZz3qGI3pUv9dErhR8M2xMkoddFtgbANP-2mQdhha6j5eTso6THRg/s320/20220309_144402.jpg" width="320" /></span><span style="font-size: medium;">There at the top we found the people,
and the party. This was why the village was empty. There’s a </span><span style="font-size: large;"> restaurant up there; the outside tables were packed full and loudspeakers
blasted out loud, energetic music. The sun shone brilliantly </span><span style="font-size: large;">into a cloudless blue sky.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"> The view was spectacular: </span><span style="font-size: large; mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">miles of white fields undulating into the
distance, dotted with what looked like moving insects, but was actually people,
people on skis, people sidling up and sliding down the slopes.</span></div><div>
<p><span style="color: black; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">However, this wasn’t the Silvretta Lake;
it was Montafon, the skiing area just above Gaschurn. Silvretta, where I had
been as a child and where the photo had been taken, was further down the valley,
accessible with a different cable car. </span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg73CleqJQ5HyXMGiEWspyWrziiL81sz2-WkxwIohhP6cH62M6vMW1e9e_UDhdFlhYmjUufoehj_0gzBKBXzJC-PGco7hMNtiN1xvgqEW7qScNZgBLRmjVxLzThnUSnijaFXUwUWfHNG7l-78KFKO12nuDl6TWk4J53uUbIQ6eXwzpb1hUQNA/s4128/20220309_145508.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3096" data-original-width="4128" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg73CleqJQ5HyXMGiEWspyWrziiL81sz2-WkxwIohhP6cH62M6vMW1e9e_UDhdFlhYmjUufoehj_0gzBKBXzJC-PGco7hMNtiN1xvgqEW7qScNZgBLRmjVxLzThnUSnijaFXUwUWfHNG7l-78KFKO12nuDl6TWk4J53uUbIQ6eXwzpb1hUQNA/s320/20220309_145508.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"> We didn’t stay long up there. </span><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Not being a fan of
loud music, I had no inclination to join the partying guests at the restaurant.
I’d have preferred the silence of the mountains; after all, I had come to make
peace with the place, and peace is to</span><span style="font-size: large; mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">be
found in silence rather than noise. But I did have my photo taken:</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> Gaschurn, Sixty Years Later.</span></span></div><div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">But peace can also be found
within. Just being here, meeting two friendly men who could reconnect me with
the past, had done the trick. The ghosts of the past were finally dispelled. Who
cared what had happened in 1963? That was another time, another culture,
another era. This was now, and Gaschurn, the mountains that surrounded it, the
vast blue sky and the pristine white of the valley, had done their cleansing
work. I was free.</span></div><div><p><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;">As we drove away I saw the modern day <i>Haus in der Sonne</i>. It is at the entrance to the village, next to the police station. I would have stopped to take a photo, but my camera was out of charge. That seemed somehow right.<br />
<br />
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<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p></div></div></div></div>Sharon Maashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17242218167706605535noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28613189.post-4326486194606408242022-04-17T09:10:00.031+01:002022-04-26T20:10:31.590+01:00Return to Gaschurn, Sixty Years Later. Part One.<p><span style="font-family: times;">Many years ago -- 59 years to be exact -- my then guardian Mrs Williamson
asked me a crucial question. ‘Where shall we go, Jo?’ she asked. ‘Would you
like a summer or a winter holiday?’</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times;">(Why she called me Jo – well, that’s all part of my recently published childhood memoir, <a href="https://buff.ly/36UpgEx"><i><b>The Girl from Lamaha Street</b></i>)</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was, at the time, attending a girls’
boarding school in Harrogate; Mrs Williamson, who ran a riding school in the
north-west county of Cumberland, was the woman my mother, back in Guyana, had appointed
to look after me during the school holidays. Mum<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>had offered us both a holiday, and I could
choose the destination.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times;">The answer to that question was easy and obvious: ‘Winter!’
I replied immediately, without a second thought.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I hated winter. I
hated the cold and the icy wind and the sleet the grey skies. For two years
now, I’d longed for sunshine – proper, hot, sunshine, white beaches, blue skies
and aquamarine seas. I longed for the Caribbean, or if not the Caribbean, for the familiar warmth of the ambiance and the people of my own country Guyana: people
who looked and talked just like me, who knew what I was about. Yes, I was beginning to feel homesick.<br /><br /> So the shock was huge when, a few months later, Mrs
Williamson announced our destination: Austria, a skiing trip, in the
snow-covered mountains! She had misunderstood my choice of destination. She thought I wanted a
winter-sport holiday.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwvzFbvt7Odp65gCLMrHq37jbUoN253GPaKvwEznMN1mADozEM8oP7CMCMq1-GybWbJcOl0WNDKhvrJ3mvSKDrdSpFiIy9ymJIwpYHfRcDB1lWbNJBGDDMjQjebvmrU37n7Sgqc7CGuvH0SLAGiu0khafWYMjWhuMh7T7xYUfNQkxZvkfxzQ/s1800/gaschurn%20schnee.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1800" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwvzFbvt7Odp65gCLMrHq37jbUoN253GPaKvwEznMN1mADozEM8oP7CMCMq1-GybWbJcOl0WNDKhvrJ3mvSKDrdSpFiIy9ymJIwpYHfRcDB1lWbNJBGDDMjQjebvmrU37n7Sgqc7CGuvH0SLAGiu0khafWYMjWhuMh7T7xYUfNQkxZvkfxzQ/w400-h200/gaschurn%20schnee.jpg" title="Gaschurn" width="400" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: times;">Being the shy, introverted girl I was, I did not show my
shock, and did not object. I accepted her choice. And so December 1963 found us
both flying off to Basle airport in Switzerland. From Basle we took the train
and the bus to the quaint little village of Gaschurn, nestled into a valley in the eastern
Austrian province Vorarlberg. <o:p></o:p></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr2639SqQXvmgTqnL0XEccll5vh3vVBXSkV4c4_Bt7RnixXp7hnq-7058LKKAGtFpG8V3WcrlW_OZp8E9MPQYQj21el2QggySkTRi4K-FZdI4IfmsDiWWZ_6T3y2s-9DXrTUXsp-YRQV-iw08kC34vEiaeGL2pOEYiVu1_Hf1YAMx3N8h-_A/s900/gaschurn%20berge.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="900" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr2639SqQXvmgTqnL0XEccll5vh3vVBXSkV4c4_Bt7RnixXp7hnq-7058LKKAGtFpG8V3WcrlW_OZp8E9MPQYQj21el2QggySkTRi4K-FZdI4IfmsDiWWZ_6T3y2s-9DXrTUXsp-YRQV-iw08kC34vEiaeGL2pOEYiVu1_Hf1YAMx3N8h-_A/w400-h300/gaschurn%20berge.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /><br /><br /><br />I remember being dazzled by the glorious mountains that
surrounded us, jagged and white, etched against the brilliant blue of the sky,
the snow glistening and sparkling in brilliant sunshine. I remember thinking
this was the most beautiful place in the world; being overwhelmed by the
majesty and magnificence of the Alpine landscape. </span><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span><i><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr_mwHckMXdNsakAP_VJ5v8EbZ6KuUCy0SqNEhDXFUAiZLD6bWIOjeIk_7DukF5CqRMy_YT8YGu82F93I8y7dnfJBMxaSBnCIwzjJRGza5Kwlf0YwWpzPpZGn2VE5oxBUYIHhSGB_3esevNa7e6GxQeeQ8IgopXrGUeIQ7g5FwRyydFOuvEA/s1692/Gaschurn.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1692" data-original-width="1269" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr_mwHckMXdNsakAP_VJ5v8EbZ6KuUCy0SqNEhDXFUAiZLD6bWIOjeIk_7DukF5CqRMy_YT8YGu82F93I8y7dnfJBMxaSBnCIwzjJRGza5Kwlf0YwWpzPpZGn2VE5oxBUYIHhSGB_3esevNa7e6GxQeeQ8IgopXrGUeIQ7g5FwRyydFOuvEA/w480-h640/Gaschurn.jpg" width="480" /></a></div></i></div><div><p class="MsoNormal">At first everything was fine. Mrs Williamson and I, and another friend who had travelled with us, stayed in a <i>Pension</i> -- German for Bread-and-Breakfast – called <i>Haus in der Sonne</i> at the edge of the village. I loved it there. The house fascinated me mostly because it was all of wood: actual massive logs, not planks painted white as in my native Georgetown but in the typical traditional chalet style so prevalent not only in Austria but in the Alpine regions of Germany and Switzerland.<br /><br /><br />The chalet had a cosy atmosphere, with a wood-burning stove lending an sense of Gemütlichkeit<span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: times;">– </span></span>a wonderful and untranslatable German word which combines that very cosiness with warmth, relaxing with good friends or family, and a deep sense of spiritual wellbeing.</p></div><div><br /></div><div>I started to learn German; I had always loved learning new languages and this one fascinated me. I learned to ask for the translation dictionary in German, and to count to one hundred. I had made my peace with this unwanted holiday, with snow, with skiing, with having to wait a year or two for my yearned-for tropical beach.<br /><br /> I felt culturally integrated – a concept that had never concerned me back then. People, almost all adults, fellow guests at the Pension, were friendly and I was a part of it all.<br /><br />And yes, at first everything was fine. I began my children's skiing lessons.<br />I was in a children’s beginner group on the gentle slopes. I put away my original reluctant prejudice and applied myself to learning to ski: sidling up the slope, whooshing down again. To my surprise it all turned out to be quite enjoyable...<br /><br /><br /> It hadn’t really registered that I was in any way a foreigner, different. I was used to being the odd one out, skin-colour-wise, having lived in a very white England now for two years. Yes, I was, as the cover or my memoir hints, the only brown girl in an English boarding school. As one reviewer of my memoir puts it:<i><br /><br /> At this point the reader is conditioned to expect a tale of prejudice and discrimination but in fact Sharon was happy at the school and did well academically and socially, being accepted in spite of her colour. </i><br /><br /> But now, in Gaschurn I was to be given a rude awakening. <br /><br /><i>I hadn’t even realised I was different to everyone else. Or rather, I wasn’t different, but I looked different. The children of Gaschurn must have decided among themselves that I needed to be informed of how terrible it was to look different, because one afternoon, on my way home alone from the slopes, they gathered, about twenty of them – or maybe it just seemed like twenty or more, I didn’t count. I just know that I was suddenly the centre of a circle of children, all chanting: ‘Negerlein! Negerlein! Negerlein!’<br /><br />Once again, I didn’t need a translation. I already knew that the suffix -lein is a diminutive. So I was a little one of those N’s.</i></div><div>
<br /><br />I stood there in their midst, shocked to the core, and when they dispersed, I walked back to <i>Haus in der Sonne</i>, tears misting my eyes, trying to comprehend and make sense of what had just happened.<br /> <br /> I never forgot that incident; neither did I speak of it at first. I never told Mrs Williamson or my mother or any adult, for that matter, and it was years before I spoke of it to friends. I'm of the "sticks and stones might break my bones but words will never hurt me generation", and I tucked it away in my mind as just one of those things.</div><div><div><br /></div><div>But it <i>had</i> hurt. It <i>did</i> hurt. Yes, these kinds of wounds don't bleed, and nobody will see them and sympathise if you don't talk about them. If you don't tell others, they remain your own problem, the kind of wound that you need to address yourself, deal with yourself, heal yourself. And Mother Nature has generously gifted us all with the inner means to do so; that's how we develop resilience and inner strength. </div><div><br /></div><div>We have all heard anecdotes of people who went through horrendous childhood experiences who nevertheless grow up not only unscathed but strong; strong for having gone through hard times and come out the other side, mature and resilient, even without adult assistance. Even young children learn to do this, teach themselves to do this. I certainly had, and I was already pretty tough, and as far as bullying experiences go, this one was pretty mild.</div><div><br /></div><div> So yes: it <i>had</i> hurt. No, I hadn't been traumatised, as a friend once conjectured, but certainly my self-confidence, once so unassailable, had taken a pounding. And its remnants were still there, in the form of an ugly memory niggling at the back of my mind, a memory that left me with a feeling of coldness, being shut out, an alien, unwanted. </div><div><br /></div><div>Frozen out, when everything in me yearned for <i>belonging.</i></div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: black; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-themecolor: text1;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: black; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-themecolor: text1;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqz82HlWi6LAPCKO39uWzg5P37xGCVPoHPKdCR4Hv-T1D8L6HYt4DzmLRHhQNNvNfqDPjAHNB7gzYzlLBHpLsCLQ6cS8S_rfuGe2qQhGw54P574Hlvtq8cd39DMUXa3u14fQuKM-LAK7u_JNmm-IfbCIWAz7N0L-7DVkPj0o_wpUUENt48Wg/s500/austria.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="186" data-original-width="500" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqz82HlWi6LAPCKO39uWzg5P37xGCVPoHPKdCR4Hv-T1D8L6HYt4DzmLRHhQNNvNfqDPjAHNB7gzYzlLBHpLsCLQ6cS8S_rfuGe2qQhGw54P574Hlvtq8cd39DMUXa3u14fQuKM-LAK7u_JNmm-IfbCIWAz7N0L-7DVkPj0o_wpUUENt48Wg/w640-h238/austria.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div><br /><br />Years, decades, passed. I married a German citizen, a cellist from Frankfurt, and then, after divorce, another German. I became a German citizen. I lived in Germany for over forty years. I became fluent in German. </div><div><br />Over the years I visited neighbouring Austria several times, at first on holiday, later to visit my oldest granddaughter, who is Austrian. I was in her hometown Salzburg at her birth, and returned there year after year. </div><div><br /></div><div>In both Germany and Austria I navigated through many an incident which could be called racist, and learnt to deal with them, small, inconsequential things I could easily shrug off. But I never once encountered anything as blatant as what I later referred to as the <i>Negerlein</i> drama. And I never went back to the idyllic village of Gaschurn in Vorarlburg.</div><div><br /> But that drama gnawed at the back of my mind, and I always knew that one day Gaschurn would beckon me back. I needed closure.<br /><br /> <br /> Last March, I did return.</div><div><br /></div><div><b><a href="https://sharonmaas.blogspot.com/2022/04/return-to-gaschurn-part-two.html"><span style="font-size: medium;">Part 2: Return to Gaschurn 2022. </span></a></b></div>Sharon Maashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17242218167706605535noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28613189.post-69305925460398670022021-10-19T04:29:00.005+01:002021-10-23T15:27:56.678+01:00The British Guiana One Cent Magenta: so who, then, was E.D.W.?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b><span style="font-size: large;"></span></b><br /><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Update: This blog post was originally posted back in June 2014, after the last Sotheby's auction. This year, in June 2021, after a heated auction the stamp was won by Stanley Gibbons. It is now in the UK and will be on public display at a future date. <a href="https://www.stanleygibbons.com/collecting-stamps/one-cent-magenta">The Stanley Gibbons website has more about the stamp's history, here.</a> In the meantime, this is what I wrote back then.</span><br /> <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCDY4evo5MDZlyVihpQ32I7KSXefBj7mHCph5c3rVpkuScG5GEJxeiRN5tvbPBQyxXxImx2FdWeDBcdOr77RgxIW_QHmI07eNaBkxUm5-trRtwRyyydeUmJipc2aOWRmqScuC-/s1600/stamp.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="278" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCDY4evo5MDZlyVihpQ32I7KSXefBj7mHCph5c3rVpkuScG5GEJxeiRN5tvbPBQyxXxImx2FdWeDBcdOr77RgxIW_QHmI07eNaBkxUm5-trRtwRyyydeUmJipc2aOWRmqScuC-/s1600/stamp.jpeg" width="320" /></a>
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<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Back in 1856, my
great-great-grandfather, a postal clerk named Edmund Dalziel Wight, signed his
initials to a cheap little postage stamp in British Guiana, South America, a
measure taken to ensure its authenticity. Last Tuesday, over 150 years later,
that tiny scrap of paper with the innocuous “EDW” squiggle went under the
hammer at Sotheby’s, raising £5.6 million for its previous owner.</span></b></blockquote></blockquote><p> </p><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> Which, unfortunately, is not me.</span></b><b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">E.D.Wight turned out to have a Midas touch,
albeit unwittingly and posthumously. </span></b><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">That postage stamp, known as the British Guiana One Cent Black on Magenta (BoM), went
on to become the Holy Grail of postage stamps, to become not only the most
expensive stamp in the world but also, </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">by weight, the most expensive object ever made.</span></b><!--EndFragment--> </blockquote></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">But for philatelists the value of
the British Guiana One Cent Magenta is of a spiritual nature: it really is
one-of-a-kind, a freak, unlike any other stamp in any other collection. And
it’s quite literally the human touch, those initials, that creates this
uniqueness and breathes life into it. The story of E.D.Wight’s role in the
creation of the British Guiana One Cent Black on Magenta is a family legend. it fueled
my imagination and inspired me to write a novel around the most exclusive stamp
in the world.</span></b></blockquote>
</blockquote>
<!--EndFragment--><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">So who, then, was the man whose innocent initials, over a century later, upgraded the little stamp now worth a small fortune?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"></span>
</span>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTbfvMH2ErHUn7VxAsuAxYSy3jwwGun2qqAWDhAkZpShUrWHjZHc6_XEyy9sFWrqYKlvktuNgKKKplrG1onEb2fapcFeFqHySi-syaNsn85giN0Y8Xsz8XqZEF2Fatp4i6rj5l/s1600/greatgranny.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mary Elizabeth Wight with her son Carl</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Unfortunately, even we, his descendants, know very little about him, and no photo survives. According to the research of one of my far-flung cousins, Philip Wight, he was white, of Scottish ancestry; he married twice, and with and his second wife, Gertrude, had ten children. One of these was Edward Mar Wight, who married Mary Elizabeth, who was half Amerindian; we do have a photo of her.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br />
Edward and Mary Elizabeth had ten children: nine sons and one daughter, Miriam, known as Mirri. Mirri was my grandmother, the mother of my mother, <a href="http://www.kaieteurnewsonline.com/2010/03/14/matchless-consumer-advocate-eileen-cox-is-a-%E2%80%98special-person%E2%80%99/">Eileen Cox</a>, who became a legend in her own right in Guyana, more famous even than the great-grandfather known to the world as E.D.W., the signatory of the BG BoM.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">
Edward's other descendants spread out over the world; they live in Australia and Scotland, England, Germany and the USA, and one or two even remain in Guyana. For all of us, the story of the </span></span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">BG BoM</span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> lifts E.D.W. out of the anonymity of shadowy ancestry. He's our family legend. Even more far-flung are the descendants of Edmund, the originator of the Black on Magenta. Remember, Edward was just one of ten children! And just maybe this little scrap of paper worth so very much will bring some of us together.</span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br />
Very often as a child my mother told me the story of her great-grandfather signing the stamp that was to become the most famous in the world. He was Chief Clerk at the Georgetown Post Office, and, apparently, later ran our local branch at the corner of Lamaha and <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBJunsTsQFR8TsSiks8u9YcsCMgC4-tvnQ1IXW9dvKJOHdNEdiRB9mjdY-cvKnySrjd4l8BGH9P7_CaAIVue9DDIgA7mY3pobJde8nT7PQVrwCXhVSYSryy2cxYq67ZtJdFGD-/s1600/postoffice.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBJunsTsQFR8TsSiks8u9YcsCMgC4-tvnQ1IXW9dvKJOHdNEdiRB9mjdY-cvKnySrjd4l8BGH9P7_CaAIVue9DDIgA7mY3pobJde8nT7PQVrwCXhVSYSryy2cxYq67ZtJdFGD-/s1600/postoffice.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lamaha and Carmichael St Post Office</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Carmichael Streets—we lived just a block away in Lamaha St, and Mum would point out the building. Was it here that the stamp was signed? We don't know, and she can't remember. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br />
The story of the innocent signing of a stamp that would go on to earn a fortune has always fueled my imagination. What if another one of those stamps survived within the family, I asked myself; what if great-grandad Edmund had kept one as a souvenir, and it turned up in one of those drawers packed with old junk I used to burrow through as a child? Hardly likely. The following extract from Sotheby's website paints a picture of a man heartily indifferent to the stamp he made famous:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #073763; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><i>Wight had little tolerance for the philatelic celebrity achieved by British Guiana’s early stamps. In 1889, Edward Denny Bacon, one of the first philatelists to write about the stamps of the colony, reported that E. C. Luard had told him that “Mr. Wight is still alive and living in the colony but he is in his dotage and either cannot or will not remember anything about these old stamps except that he initialed them. He has been so pestered on the subject that the mention of old stamps to him is like a red rag to a bull.</i></span></blockquote>
</div>
<div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx3VK0__1RkaNJztyl7tJ_HgN0JqDG9l20CnDnTwqUG5Rsl29596NjRx2pqlc7hu_4VMkHEufMkzt5674y90xqh_ai2pxDroP2OgKk42vfawm1bngUOia6IPTtpU-Jst-CPLwU/s1600/postoffice2.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx3VK0__1RkaNJztyl7tJ_HgN0JqDG9l20CnDnTwqUG5Rsl29596NjRx2pqlc7hu_4VMkHEufMkzt5674y90xqh_ai2pxDroP2OgKk42vfawm1bngUOia6IPTtpU-Jst-CPLwU/s1600/postoffice2.jpg" width="226" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Georgetown Main Post Office in EDW's day</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">This makes him sound like my sort sort of man; down-to-earth and modest and not given to the kind of publicity-seeking attention-hunger we see so much of today. He saw no need to be famous just for the mundane act of signing an ordinary postage-stamp, and he wasn't interested in five minutes of fame, or, as history would have it, centuries of the same. He did not try to capitalise on the kerfuffle being made of that "old stamp"; in fact, it annoyed him. He probably wasn't impressed with the huge amounts on money spent on a little scrap of paper (think of the starving children those millions could feed!) </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">And very likely he wasn't "in his dotage" at all; after all, he had married his second wife Gertrude just five years previously, so it was probably more a case of "will not" remember rather than "cannot remember".</span><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfmv0Wfpn-3BgNv-cMyKkK-x7sIkORNjMwZ3ohSKAKMEcrQg5SlefvtB3Ng6OgiStaBXWG29NAdawn3r0O-JtAYEfqr-KlM9pokCYf34fC0ASNYRCwvx_2evtf7ksbzcgmukMj/s1600/postman.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfmv0Wfpn-3BgNv-cMyKkK-x7sIkORNjMwZ3ohSKAKMEcrQg5SlefvtB3Ng6OgiStaBXWG29NAdawn3r0O-JtAYEfqr-KlM9pokCYf34fC0ASNYRCwvx_2evtf7ksbzcgmukMj/s1600/postman.jpg" width="218" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Postman in British Guiana</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">But the “what if” never left me. There's a wonderful story in there somewhere. And so, after the publication of two of my first three novels, it became the inspiration for a story in which just such a stamp turns up: a family heirloom worth millions. <i>What if </i>someone's cantankerous grandmother was in possession of such a stamp? <i>What if...?</i> So many<i> what ifs </i>followed. Greed, possessiveness, sentimentality: the stuff of human interaction. <i>The Small Fortune of Dorothea Q</i> was the result. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">When I first wrote it in 2008 it did not find a publisher, but early this year I pulled it out, dusted it off, repaired and polished it, and prepared it for late summer publication with my present publisher, Bookouture. It seems my timing was perfect; the original stamp is now hot news, my novel timely.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I hope that E.D.W. would approve; he might not have saved us a stamp, but he has given me a story.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Recent Articles on the Sotheby's Auction:</span></span><br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.google.de/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCwQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegraph.co.uk%2Fculture%2Fculturenews%2F10716730%2FRed-letter-day-for-most-expensive-stamp.html&ei=HSN8U-qbO8jW0gXN2oDoDw&usg=AFQjCNF5kq2FhnFXGdpQl8Shcucu5Dzk8A&sig2=B3bJ0c75IGPM7_SgfXOBQQ">Red-letter day for most expensive stamp </a> <b>Telegraph</b><br />
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/02/nyregion/the-mona-lisa-of-stamps-to-be-auctioned-at-sothebys.html">The ‘Mona Lisa’ of Stamps to Be Auctioned at Sotheby’s</a> New York Times<br />
<a href="http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/wealth/art/sothebys-to-auction-rare-stamp-british-guiana-one-cent-magenta-in-new-york/articleshow/30402226.cms">Sotheby's to auction rare stamp British Guiana One-Cent </a> BBC<br />
<a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2620558/Holy-Grail-stamps-fetch-20-MILLION-auction-despite-costing-just-one-CENT-issued-1856.html">'Holy Grail' of stamps, British Guiana 1c Magenta, to fetch </a> Daily Mail<br />
<a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-26189281">British Guiana stamp could fetch $20m, says Sotheby's</a> Economic Times/India Times<br />
<a href="https://www.google.de/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=11&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCsQFjAAOAo&url=http%3A%2F%2Farticles.chicagotribune.com%2F2014-03-24%2Ffeatures%2Fsns-rt-us-auction-stamp-20140324_1_stamp-john-du-pont-treskilling-yellow&ei=PyJ8U9v_KaWx0AW4-oDQDw&usg=AFQjCNEFW_ODeb7j1VzDC4CuQUNgufjB4A&sig2=3iiDoYTBKNQQq-TlH5lovg">Rare stamp from murderer's estate may set record at auction ...</a> Chicago Tribune<br />
<a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/remarkable-story-of-the-12m-stamp-owned-by-a-millionaire-murderer-that-is-about-to-become-one-of-the-most-expensive-objects-ever-sold-9213959.html">Remarkable story of the £12m stamp owned by a millionaire murderer that is about to become one of the most expensive objects ever sold...</a> The Independent<br />
<br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Lamaha and Carmichael Street Post Office photo</span>: © Amanda Richards<br />
Old photos of Main Post Office and Postman with thanks to Dmitri Allicock.</div>
</div>
</div>
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Cox – A Feisty Fifties Feminist<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Book Antiqua";"><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Book Antiqua";">By
Sharon Maas</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Book Antiqua";"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua", serif;">It’s quite a
responsibility, being the daughter of Eileen Cox. She remains an icon of Guyana, always held up to me as a model; someone whose footsteps I should follow, even
as she grew old and frail. This was never so clear to me as that day at the
Republic Bank; she needed me, or rather, my arm. I helped her out of the taxi
and, at a snail’s pace, she hobbled up to the bank entrance on Water Street,
hooked onto my elbow with one hand, her walking stick in the other.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV2OAm4sljiyzQnpkQJgDTxHrnLzGvuXXD65OqfHAnmfYlUBCjl1H_XkKzo_DPpwgud17npflPZLihhOdx757JjGobYF1LxdHWef9AGQ46tnQaGAC-Q6dOnPjnxv9a-ypGkXTK/s2048/oldmumandme.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1367" data-original-width="2048" height="429" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV2OAm4sljiyzQnpkQJgDTxHrnLzGvuXXD65OqfHAnmfYlUBCjl1H_XkKzo_DPpwgud17npflPZLihhOdx757JjGobYF1LxdHWef9AGQ46tnQaGAC-Q6dOnPjnxv9a-ypGkXTK/w640-h429/oldmumandme.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Book Antiqua";"><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">The year was 2012. She was
94, a fragile, bent old woman, physically a shadow of what she once was, but
mentally still as sharp as a razor. By this time, Mum rarely left her home in
Subryanville; indeed, she rarely ever left her bedroom, but sat there all day,
near the bedside phone, because, then as ever, she was still President of the
Guyana Consumers Association, and people still turned to her for advice. I
lived far away, in Germany, and visited when I could, usually once a year to
check on things. But that day, she had business at the bank.</p><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Book Antiqua";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua", serif;"> As
is usual in the morning, the Republic Bank lobby was crowded. People milled
about, having pulled a number, and waited to be seated, while those seated
waited to be called to the counter.</span><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua", serif; mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua", serif;">But
then a whisper went up: </span><i style="font-family: "Book Antiqua", serif;">It’s Eileen Cox!</i><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua", serif;"> And the crowd before us parted
like the Red Sea, and we made our slow way forward, down a corridor of smiling
faces, past calls of “Good morning Miss Cox!” and “Hello Miss Cox!”; past
autograph books held out for her to sign --- oh wait, I got carried away there;
that didn’t happen. But it really did feel like arriving with some celebrity at
the Oscars, walking up the red carpet with my shuffling mother on my arm. Mum
was served first, and nobody minded.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua", serif;">And
Mum was, in her own way, a celebrity in Guyana. I’m afraid that in my younger
years I never really appreciated her; I took her for granted, as young
daughters often do. But whenever I returned to Guyana and people realized she
was my mother, they never failed to tell me how much she meant to them. How
much she helped them. How they listened out for her on the radio, or read her
Consumer Advocate columns in the Stabroek News. How they loved her. “She was a
phenomenon!”</span><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua", serif; mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua", serif;">“An icon!” Taxi drivers who
dropped me off at her home would say, “Wait, you’re Eileen Cox’s daughter? I
drove her once!”</span><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua", serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Book Antiqua";">So
yes, I am the daughter of a Guyanese celebrity: the real kind, the deserving
kind, the kind who really DID something to deserve her fame and wasn’t just
famous for fame's sake. Mum was internationally respected for her consumer
activity, invited to Consumer seminars and conferences around the world, from
Chile to India to Canada.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Book Antiqua";">She<b> </b></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Book Antiqua";">lived a public life, and her
accomplishments are well known: starting with her activities as women's rights activist as a young married women, advocating for the rights of women i Public Service to keep their jobs after marriage. After her divorce when I was three, she must have been one of the very first single working mothers in the colony. Later, she was active in the Public
Service Union and in the Credit Union, but it was in founding the Consumers Association that she found her final calling. She remained </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Book Antiqua", serif;">the GCA's President of </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Book Antiqua";">right up to her resignation
aged 93. <br /><br />As a public figure she was outspoken and very direct; but she had
another side to her, a private side, that others did not see.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Book Antiqua";"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Book Antiqua";">It would be true to say that though she
was not a Christian in name, she very much embodied true Christian values and
ideals. She has always lived a most simple life, never expecting special
favours, never living beyond her means. She loved flowers, nature, the fresh
air of the sea wall. Up to her very last day, when she could no longer walk,
her carer Sego would carry her downstairs so that she could enjoy the evening
Atlantic breeze.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Book Antiqua";"><br /><i>Photo below: Mum with Guyana President Dr Cheddi Jagan</i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Book Antiqua";"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwASwbFiaMeP6gr1XEFSTzgKNXUgYDbcmI-FUa9Bgu-F8weJvR0yLI5oIT_d48ekuyFV64XKPSrYGjG40OJ75wph4E3KV40uZ5BVhKQTqU9GqwLch13Yyr1oSZtwvX8W8s5itb/s1782/cheddi+and+mum.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="With Guyana's President, Cheddi Jagan" border="0" data-original-height="1079" data-original-width="1782" height="388" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwASwbFiaMeP6gr1XEFSTzgKNXUgYDbcmI-FUa9Bgu-F8weJvR0yLI5oIT_d48ekuyFV64XKPSrYGjG40OJ75wph4E3KV40uZ5BVhKQTqU9GqwLch13Yyr1oSZtwvX8W8s5itb/w640-h388/cheddi+and+mum.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Book Antiqua";">S</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Book Antiqua";">he never wanted more than what she had.
She cared about people regardless of race, religion, political affiliation,
sex. As Hansard Editor at Guyana’s Parliament she worked hard all her life,
supporting not only me but other members of her extended family – the
breadwinner of the family. She was without wile and without guile; a divorcee
by choice, she was married to her mission, the well-being of every single
person in Guyana. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Book Antiqua";">A</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Book Antiqua";">t times, when I was a child, I was even
jealous because I thought she spent more time helping others than being with
me. But in the end it was all good, because it gave me a sense of independence
and adventure, of daring to seek the unconventional. I learned that
selflessness, not selfishness, is the true secret to a fulfilled life. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Book Antiqua"; mso-font-kerning: .5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Book Antiqua"; mso-font-kerning: .5pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Book Antiqua";">Which
doesn't mean being a doormat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She taught
me that there is strength and dignity in humility, in putting the needs of
others before your own, in caring, in serving. These are the </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Book Antiqua", serif;">values she </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Book Antiqua", serif;">truly </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Book Antiqua", serif;">lived all her life. Though she was not typical for women of her generation,
these are all typically female strengths, subtle strengths that tend to go
unnoticed and undervalued, crushed by the typically male "strengths" of domination
and aggression, which are not strengths at all as they accomplish nothing.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Book Antiqua";">Yet
water wears away stone, and women have at all times and all places been the
very backbone of society, precisely through those quieter strengths and values.
For Mum, these strengths brought results. Men adored, respected, and bowed before
her.</span></p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3WJ42sV2JezsTTe7KsRZQhTLLUnGjXOnJ-oynrJ0eQDLelU34RXovZWCYxKLyx7-h8zht3oD5pDwd6g5Ry8PYMA-TDhTPLWxIN_vOcYOQH50LDNZOQeqGCfMYS5xn7KNzNorW/s731/mum+and+me.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="731" data-original-width="430" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3WJ42sV2JezsTTe7KsRZQhTLLUnGjXOnJ-oynrJ0eQDLelU34RXovZWCYxKLyx7-h8zht3oD5pDwd6g5Ry8PYMA-TDhTPLWxIN_vOcYOQH50LDNZOQeqGCfMYS5xn7KNzNorW/s320/mum+and+me.jpg" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #111111; font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Book Antiqua";">Yes:
Mum was Guyanese royalty, for it is the heart that really rules. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Book Antiqua"; mso-font-kerning: .5pt;">She</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #111111; font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Book Antiqua";"> died in her sleep in November 2014. She
lives on in the hearts of many.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Book Antiqua";"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Book Antiqua";">Sharon Maas is the author of The Far Away Girl, The Sugar
Planter’s Daughter and several other novels set in Guyana, India, France, Germany and England.</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Book Antiqua"; mso-font-kerning: .5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> See also: <a href="https://sharonmaas.blogspot.com/2015/03/mum-feisty-fifties-feminis.html" target="_blank">Eileen Cox: a Tribute to my Mother</a></o:p></p>Sharon Maashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17242218167706605535noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28613189.post-71029192076509767682020-11-12T11:05:00.007+00:002020-12-11T16:27:30.414+00:00Dr. Peter Pritchard: "You don't have to be a dinosaur."<p><b><br /></b></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMYEWo8IsySOedEapR8ydcjShZjhlcFx2WvoeiJ-8mqMpeyHF36bvK2yI4w0w0FjyX8IkxAjmE7Hrs4P3KDx0fedvsVUv_HoI8_3x7ykK-bRuefxQU2vQ5PqbkleAvkuUoy4Va/s300/peter.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="201" data-original-width="300" height="429" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMYEWo8IsySOedEapR8ydcjShZjhlcFx2WvoeiJ-8mqMpeyHF36bvK2yI4w0w0FjyX8IkxAjmE7Hrs4P3KDx0fedvsVUv_HoI8_3x7ykK-bRuefxQU2vQ5PqbkleAvkuUoy4Va/w640-h429/peter.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><b><br /></b></p><p><b>Note: This post was first written back in 2012, on another of my blogs . In view of my soon to be published novel set in Guyana, </b><b>in which Peter and his wife Sibille make a cameo appearance, </b><b>I'm reposting it so that it is new on this blog.</b></p><p><b>Sadly, Peter passed away in early 2020.</b></p><p>There’s no way I can call Dr Peter Pritchard an unsung hero. He’s already been named a <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">Hero of the Planet </a>by no less than TIME Magazine, and he’s already famous in animal conservation circles as the leading expert in marine turtles. </p><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-5659454474019734807" itemprop="description articleBody" style="line-height: 1.5; position: relative; width: 568px;"><p> Yet he’s a prime example of those people I mentioned in my last post—people who go about their work quietly and diligently, doing what they know is right; if they ever do call attention, it’s to the objects of their ardour, not to themselves, and that’s Peter all over: a big, unassuming man beating the drum for a humble animal he’s determined to save from a ruthless world.</p><p> I was little more than a giggling teenager when I first met Peter, working at my very first job as a staff journalist at the Guyana Graphic. My own personal hero at the time was one of my editors, Sibille, a few years older than me and already a household name in the country due to her bylines. A tiny woman with a huge personality, Sibille was everything I wasn’t: confident, outspoken, spunky and funny, and I looked up to her no end. She was also a great writer, and I wanted to be a great writer; I couldn’t believe it when she took me under her personal wing, and in time we even became friends, close friends, in fact. She drew me out of my shell and helped me find my feet as a journalist.</p><p>My other friend, Pratima, and I would tease her mercilessly about her “Turtle-man”—the gentle giant who every now and then would swoop in from Florida to take her, and sometimes us as well, out to dinner, or off on expeditions in Guyana’s swamps, forests and beaches. One day, Sibille flew off to Florida, and didn't come back.</p><blockquote class="tr_bq">Reader, she married him.<br />That was over 45 years ago.<br /><br />More about Peter and Sibille, <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">"one of Central Florida's most exotic, and unlikely, power couples".</a><br /><br />A few days ago I called their home in Florida—where in 2004 I was their guest for three weeks--just to let them know I was going to Guyana.<br />“I’ll be there myself in March”, Peter told me, and so yet another case of serendipitous scheduling slotted into place.<br /><br />Of course, knowing that Peter will be in Shell Beach working on that project means that, once again, my plans have changed.<br />Karanambu. Jonestown. Shell Beach. I just hope I will have time for the real reason for my visit: my mother.<br />She’s my third Earth Hero, to be introduced. Coming up tomorrow.<br /><br /><b>About Peter Pritchard:</b><br /><br /><b>From <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">Wikipedia:</a></b><br /><br /><i>Dr. Peter Pritchard (born 1943) is a leading turtle zoologist. Educated at <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">Oxford University</a> and the <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">University of Florida</a>, where he earned his Ph.D. in Zoology, he is most commonly known for his campaign of almost 40 years for the conservation of turtles. Appropriately, his privately funded Chelonian Research Institute, for the study and preservation of turtles, is located in <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">Oviedo, Florida</a>, <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">United States</a>, just a half hour's drive from <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">Disney World</a>. Frank Sulloway had noted that Pritchard 'has amassed nearly 12,000 tortoise and turtle skeletons - the third largest collections in the world.'</i><p><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt4mc4-ebFrnf9248WuRhF5N7bnrVslmfNAEXBiJ8BkjPuVOCcs8axSHDEGmwHrtSj0SW43HSJO7DiGjGGTTQOAbD7Okgi1FJIGvItdYSJ9LNwvcOxCqyr2mBp41lTdhXV7HQhEQ/s1600/peter.jpg" /> </p></blockquote><b>From <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">Time Magazine:</a></b><br /><br /></div><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-5659454474019734807" itemprop="description articleBody" style="line-height: 1.5; position: relative; width: 568px;"><i>Pritchard has done his most innovative work along the Atlantic coast in Guyana, a haven for sea turtles. By the 1960s, overhunting by local Arawak Indians--themselves an endangered group--had ravaged the turtle population. But Pritchard helped save both turtles and tribe: he has lobbied Guyana and private sources for grants that have weaned the Arawaks off turtle meat and into chicken farming. And he hires Arawaks to tag turtles for research and defend nesting grounds. The killing has largely stopped, he says, because turtle protection is now "a family discipline thing" among Arawaks, "rather than an outsider laying down the law."</i></div><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-5659454474019734807" itemprop="description articleBody" style="line-height: 1.5; position: relative; width: 568px;"><br />There's a wonderful video interview with Peter on this site: <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">Oceanology</a>. Watch it, below this post; it's about far more than turtles. There's real wisdom here:<br /><br /></div><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-5659454474019734807" itemprop="description articleBody" style="line-height: 1.5; position: relative; width: 568px;"><i>Narrator: Turtles are slow and not very smart, but they've been around since the day of the dinosaur.<br /><br /></i></div><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-5659454474019734807" itemprop="description articleBody" style="line-height: 1.5; position: relative; width: 568px;"><i>Peter: I think the moral of the story is: don't try to be dominant. Try to have your place, but you don't have to be the big dinosaur. That lasts for a while, and, you know, it comes to an end.<br /></i><br /><br /></div><br /><br /><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/as44lQhFZpI" width="560"></iframe>Sharon Maashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17242218167706605535noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28613189.post-500030409632005472020-11-12T10:49:00.005+00:002020-11-13T18:20:49.276+00:00Only These Grandmothers: a poem by Maggie Harris<p> </p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><b>Only
these Grandmothers</b><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Only these grandmothers can see down the long road
travelled<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">where all the love and pain converge like cars in a traffic<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">jams. Only these grandmothers carry the scent of kitchens<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">infused by cooking pans and garlic pulled out of the wild
woods<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">to layer the earthenware pots where rabbits simmer.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Only these grandmothers smell of milks suckled at the
breasts<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">of Amazons and lowly countrywomen whose babies<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">make do with Cow & Gate, make room<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">for others who will inherit the world.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">There are grandmothers who left those kitchens long ago<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">for factories and offices where the typing pool<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">and the cleaning women all walk on rollercoaster <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">ledges, keeping their determined stares ahead<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">not looking back the way they came where sheer edges<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">mark the abyss of failing<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">to be<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>mother<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>father<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>provider<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>teacher.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Generations on, the mother’s sleep is haunted<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">by dreams of a succubus inhabiting her body<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">and soul, when every fever of your child ushers<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">in the terror of gravestones<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">fists beating where the heart should be<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">pounding into midnight<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">the long hours of midnight<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">cloaking the bedroom floor with a terror<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">unnamed.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Blessed are those who remember the burial place<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">of the navel string<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Blessed are those whose faces still glow faintly in
daguerreotypes<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">whose gold bangles circa 1903 swing from the wrists of a
favourite child<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Blessed are those whose memories string like fairy lights<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">between balconies and high-rise flats<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">villages of lamplight<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">country lanes and cane fields<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">blackberry bushes and mango trees.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Only these grandmothers can raise their rifles over the
gates<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">and shoot into the trees where the limbs of young men<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">flail into the foliage.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Only these grandmothers can halt the slingshots aimed at
birds<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">in the knitted palms of their hands.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Only the grandmothers can look down the long roads
travelled<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">into the histories of yesterday<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">and back to the future where the children test the waters<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">with their toes<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">and languages ricochet like gunshots.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Only these grandmothers can stand between yesterday<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">and tomorrow<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">and tremble, at the knowledge they have gleaned.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">MAGGIE HARRIS <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMnB3xPu56SzzmZGr_lVjSCTKf_25EofX6I9tFwSyqzXjiLLGpcZvH8WB2hRiIIvUANl6JgzjsZdBf4ub8ZoGcJFTIjbKIzhzNZhH4hHDMNavdM1nXvhkgDbOBku0xfW0EQfsd/s960/maggie.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="960" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMnB3xPu56SzzmZGr_lVjSCTKf_25EofX6I9tFwSyqzXjiLLGpcZvH8WB2hRiIIvUANl6JgzjsZdBf4ub8ZoGcJFTIjbKIzhzNZhH4hHDMNavdM1nXvhkgDbOBku0xfW0EQfsd/s320/maggie.jpg" /></a></div><br /><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span><p></p>
Maggie Harris is a Guyanese writer living in Kent. Twice winner of the Guyana Prize, she was the Caribbean Winner of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize and has travelled to the Caribbean, Europe and India. As well as poetry she has written short stories and a memoir, Kiskadee Girl. She has taught Creative Writing and was International Teaching Fellow at Southampton University. Guyana continues to inspire her and her latest poetry collection is ‘On Watching a Lemon Sail the Sea.’Sharon Maashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17242218167706605535noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28613189.post-88025394400125809092020-11-01T11:09:00.006+00:002023-01-16T10:35:45.387+00:00Writing by the Seat of my Pants<p><b> I'm going to reproduce a few blog posts I wrote a few years ago for Amy Sue Nathan's blog Women's Fiction Writers. Here's the first, <a href="http://womensfictionwriters.com/2014/02/06/guest-post-author-sharon-maas-flies-and-writes-by-the-seat-of-her-pants-and-it-works/">with a link to the original post.</a>)</b><br /></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /><br />I write my novels flying by the seat of my pants, without a plan or even an outline, not knowing where I’ll end up when I write that first word. I plunge blindly into the story with nothing more than a vague idea of a character, and go along wherever she takes me. I’m often surprised at the results.<br /><br />Sounds like a recipe for chaos, but there’s a method to the madness, and I quite clearly learned the method back in 1971-72, when, as a very naïve 19-year-old, I left my home in Guyana and plunged into the heart of the Amazon for the adventure of my life. I had no plan, no goal, and very little money; I just knew I had to go. I certainly had no idea that I’d end up learning not only how to navigate South America flying by the seat of my pants, but a whole new approach to life and, several decades later, how to write a novel.<br /><br />Parents of teenagers will be relieved to know I didn’t travel alone. Two friends, Margaret and her boyfriend Salvador, decided to come along with me when I left my journalist job at the Sunday Chronicle and crossed the Brazilian border, bound for Manaus.<br /><br />A month later, there we stood on the Manaus dock on the river Amazon, waiting for a riverboat to take us further. But in which direction? East, to Belem, the Atlantic coast, and then south to Rio? Or west, deeper into the Amazon basin, to Leticia in Colombia at the point where three nations meet, and Iquitos, in Peru? We didn’t care; we’d take the first boat that would actually leave with us on board, instead of promising to leave the next day but stealing off in the night, without us. It took a few days, but in the end we left on the Evandro, towards Colombia.<br /><br />And that was the motif for the whole year-long journey. We never knew where we’d end up. We’d meet people who’d invite us to stay a week, or run into others who’d give us an address in a village we’d never heard of; we zig-zagged across the continent, up the Amazon, across the Peruvian Andes, and up the west coast through Ecuador and Colombia.<br />All that year we moved on, from here to there, taking life as it comes, day by day and never knowing where we’d end up.<br /><br />It meant ceding control to where life would go, and to cede control we needed an almighty trust that somehow, it would be good, better even, than anything we could deliberately plan. And it was. It was almost as if there was already a plan in place; people we had to meet, places we had to see, and by letting go of our own plan of what we should do where, we allowed the real plan to kick in; we were following a blueprint greater than ourselves, a wonderful story in which we were the characters.<br /><br />It turned into a voyage of discovery. We explored the continent—that is, the four countries we traversed, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia—from the ground; we lived in native villages, learnt Spanish, and eventually, by trial and error, learnt to think like a native. We met the right people at the right times. Events fell into place. We learnt to let go, to let life take us where it wanted. We learnt to adapt and flow like water, to deal with obstacles and assholes as they came along. Most of all, we learnt about ourselves, discovered who we really were, deep down inside. It was glorious, magical. It was once-in-a-lifetime.<br /><br />Fast-forward twenty-five years. Here’s me in my late forties, a stay-at-home mother by choice, with no particular desire to get back into the stress of working outside the home as a social worker. My husband earned enough for us all, and so our physical needs were cared for. Life was organised, planned out, as it should be. After all the struggles of the previous years—with my first child I’d been a single mother for several years, working part-time—I finally had the time to do something I had always yearned to do: write a novel. My second child was now five years old, in nursery school; I could get back to my true calling. What a glorious situation!<br /><br />For I had always been a storyteller. When I was a child of eight or nine I used to scribble Enid-Blyton knock-offs, adventure stories featuring a bunch of children with dogs and horses who had great fun and loads of adventures catching dangerous criminals. I had always been a dreamer, easily caught up in wishful thinking, dreaming happy ends to some of the not-so-nice situations I found myself in—particularly romantic ones.<br /><br /><i>But could I write a whole novel?</i> How even to begin? Some well-meaning people advised me to start small, with short stories, but I always knew that wasn’t for me: I didn’t like reading short stories, and if I were to write anything then it had to be long.<br /><br />But surely you needed a plan: to know all the characters and what they would do and how they would do it, and all that in advance. I was never any good at making plans. The idea of writing a novel seemed an impossible goal, a pipe dream, far beyond my limited capabilities. I read books on the technique of writing, books on how to hone one’s craft, how to create compelling characters; I learned about three-part-structure and foreshadowing and the perils of multiple viewpoint. But the more I read, the more paralysed I felt.<br /><br />But then I stumbled across Dorothea Brande’s slim volume, Becoming a Writer. I read it in one sitting, and I knew it had been written for me alone. Here there was not a word about technique; it was all about discovering the writer’s magic. There is such a thing? There is! Said Dorothea, and the book was all about how to reveal it.<br /><br />It is, she says, a voyage of discovery. The planning, conscious mind must take a back seat to the creative unconscious mind. This can actually be learnt.<br /><br /><i><blockquote>The unconscious is shy, elusive and unwieldy, but it is possible to learn tot tap it at will, and even to direct it. The conscious mind is meddlesome, opinionated and arrogant, but it can be made subservient to the inborn talent through training.</blockquote></i><br /><br />And it all came back to me: the art of letting go, of trusting in life, or, in this case, trusting my own unconscious mind; letting it take charge, and following where it would take me.<br /><br />A character came to me, a first sentence; I wrote it down, and the rest followed on from there. I flew by the seat of my pants. Just the way I’d travelled South America, one step at a time, one day at a time, one page at a time. It was as if the story was already written, and all I had to do was turn to it, deep inside me, to let it out.<br /><br />After a few years practice on a first novel that found an agent but didn’t sell, I picked myself up and started again. A chaotic first draft was the result; there followed months of revision, during which I put into action all the good advice I’d learnt on writing craft.<br /><br />That book was<i> Of Marriageable Age.</i><br /><br />It sold, at auction, to HarperCollins.<br /><br />Now that I’m a veteran writer, participating in the international online writers’ community, I know that there’s a word for people like me: I’m a “pantser”. I also know that, more and more, writing this way is frowned upon: it’s a method, they (“they” being other veteran writers) say, for beginning writers or, at the other end of the spectrum, genius writers. </span><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Real writers—professionals—plan and plot, outline and structure; we don’t just follow each random story impulse, each imaginary detour. The controversy is illustrated perfectly in the blog post <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">A Modest Proposal to Pantsers: Don’t</a> and the subsequent comment trail. What the sceptics ignore, however, or don’t seem to even know, is that there’s a method to “pantsing”, a technique, a discipline, a skill; and we who work this way need to learn and develop that skill for ourselves.<br /><br />I’ll tell you my own secrets in my next guest blog here on Women’s Fiction Writers: coming up in April. And here it is: <a href="https://sharonmaas.blogspot.com/2020/10/are-stories-carved-in-stone.html">Stories: Not Carved in Stone</a><br /><br /></span><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 22px; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://womensfictionwriters.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/sharon-5.jpg" style="background: 0px 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: #4faeb6; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;"><img alt="Sharon #5" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-3624" height="300" loading="lazy" src="http://womensfictionwriters.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/sharon-5.jpg?w=200" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; float: left; margin: 0px 24px 0px 0px; max-width: 100%;" width="200" /></a><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /><br /><i>Sharon Maas was born in Georgetown, Guyana in 1951, and spent many childhood hours either curled up behind a novel or writing her own adventure stories. Sometimes she had adventures of her own, and found fifteen minutes of Guyanese fame for salvaging an old horse-drawn coach from a funeral parlor, fixing it up, painting it bright blue, and tearing around Georgetown with all her teenage friends. The coach ended up in a ditch, but thankfully neither teens nor horse were injured. Boarding school in England tamed her somewhat; but after a few years as a reporter with the Guyana Graphic in Georgetown she plunged off to discover South America by the seat of her pants. She ended up in a Colombian jail, but that’s a story for another day.<br /><br />In 1973 she travelled overland to India via England, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. After almost two years in an Indian Ashram she moved to Germany, got an education, got a job, got married, had children, and settled down. She still lives in Germany after three and a half decades, but maintains close ties and great love for both India and Guyana; and, somewhat reluctantly, for England.<br /><br />Her first novel, Of Marriageable Age, was published in 1999 by HarperCollins, and is set in India, Guyana and England. Two further novels, Peacocks Dancing and The Speech of Angels, followed.<br /><br />Sharon will soon be entering the digital world with the e-publication of Of Marriageable Age through the British women’s fiction publisher, Bookouture. Find out more: <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">www.sharonmaas.com</a><br /><br /><b>(update on this: I've now had ten novels published by Bookouture, with the eleventh due for publication in 2021.</b></i></span></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 22px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><b>Update 2: now thirteen novels, two more due in 2023.</b></i></span></p><div class="sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; clear: both; color: #333333; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;"><div class="robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-icon-text sd-sharing" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1em;"><div class="sd-content" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><ul style="box-sizing: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><li class="share-facebook" style="box-sizing: inherit; display: inline-block; list-style-type: disc; margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px; padding: 0px;"><a class="share-facebook sd-button share-icon" data-shared="sharing-facebook-3623" href="http://womensfictionwriters.com/2014/02/06/guest-post-author-sharon-maas-flies-and-writes-by-the-seat-of-her-pants-and-it-works/?share=facebook&nb=1" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" style="background: rgb(248, 248, 248); 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box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.08) 0px 1px 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: #656565; display: inline-block; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 23px; padding: 1px 8px 0px 5px; text-decoration-line: none; text-shadow: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;" target="_blank" title="Click to share on Twitter"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 23px; margin-left: 3px;">Twitter</span></a></li></ul></div></div></div></div>Sharon Maashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17242218167706605535noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28613189.post-90118546782234311582020-10-31T11:16:00.008+00:002020-11-14T11:02:40.403+00:00 Stories: Not Carved in Stone<p><br /></p><div class="slideshow-window jetpack-slideshow slideshow-black" data-autostart="1" data-gallery="[{"src":"http:\/\/womensfictionwriters.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/img_0005.jpg","id":"3866","title":"IMG_0005","alt":"","caption":"","itemprop":"image"},{"src":"http:\/\/womensfictionwriters.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/img_0006.jpg","id":"3865","title":"IMG_0006","alt":"","caption":"","itemprop":"image"},{"src":"http:\/\/womensfictionwriters.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/img_0003.jpg","id":"3867","title":"IMG_0003","alt":"","caption":"","itemprop":"image"},{"src":"http:\/\/womensfictionwriters.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/img_0002.jpg","id":"3868","title":"IMG_0002","alt":"","caption":"","itemprop":"image"}]" data-trans="fade" id="gallery-3864-4-slideshow" itemscope="" itemtype="https://schema.org/ImageGallery" style="background-color: #222222; 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text-decoration-line: none; transition: border-color 0.3s ease-out 0s; width: 32px; zoom: 1;"></a></div></div><h2 style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 3rem; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: 700;">Not Carved in Stone: Excavating for a Story</span></h2><div><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LNo__dgoVJQ" width="320" youtube-src-id="LNo__dgoVJQ"></iframe></div><br /><span style="box-sizing: inherit;"><b>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNo__dgoVJQ&feature=youtu.be</b></span></div><div><span style="box-sizing: inherit;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="box-sizing: inherit;"><b>(This article was first published on the website<a href="http://womensfictionwriters.com/2014/04/24/guest-post-is-your-story-carved-in-stone-by-author-sharon-maas/"> www.womensfictionwriters.com</a> in April 2014)</b></span></div><div><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></div>By Sharon Maas<br /><br /><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 22px; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://womensfictionwriters.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/coverfinal.jpg" style="background: 0px 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: #4faeb6; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;"><img alt="Coverfinal" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-3870" height="300" loading="lazy" src="http://womensfictionwriters.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/coverfinal.jpg?w=198" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; float: right; margin: 0px 0px 24px 24px; max-width: 100%; text-align: right;" width="198" /></a>Last February I spent three wonderful weeks in South India. The best part of my morning routine was a walk up a nearby mountain to visit a little ashram where I could sit and meditate in silence. On the way up, dotted here and there along the cobblestone path, sat a few of the local sculptors, selling their work and creating their next piece. Always I stopped to watch, fascinated<span face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif" style="color: #333333;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px;">.</span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #333333; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 22px; padding: 0px;"><span id="more-3864" style="box-sizing: inherit;"></span></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 22px; padding: 0px;"><br /><br />These were simple men. They sat on the bare earth, their basic tools laid out before them. In one hand they held the stone they were working on, either soapstone or marble; in the other hand was the chisel. With all the patience in the world they carved away, scraping and sculpting to mould from the stone their works of art: effigies of gods, or elephants with babies in their innards, or ornate lampshades, candlesticks, incense holders, jewelery boxes, and, in one case, a snarling tiger. Each piece was perfectly formed.<br /><br />They had no blueprint or model to work from. Each sculptor knew innately, with an uncanny surety and minute precision, how much to remove and at what angle, and did so as naturally and confidently as you and I would tap a keyboard. Sometimes he held the stone with his toes, and hammered (hammered!) away to get it right (see photo). A millimeter to the left or right would have ruined the finished product; but it never did. Symmetry and balance flowed from those sculptor hands, perfection in stone. It was as if the final product was already in the stone, waiting for the sculptor’s thought, the chisel’s touch. Some of these artworks may have lacked the sophistication of their expensive lookalikes in the boutiques of Chennai Airport, but each one was a miracle in stone. I was spellbound, hooked. I was probably their best customer in those three weeks; I bought several pieces to bring home as gifts.<br /><br />I also brought back new inspiration, new insight into my own work as a writer.<br /><br />“It’s not carved in stone!” is one of the maxims that comfort me as I write my first draft. It’s all right to make mistakes, as mistakes can be corrected in second, third and fourth drafts. Words are not stone; a clumsy word can be improved on, typos put right, ham-fisted scenes rewritten, dialogue made snappier, characters made more evil. I can chisel away at a story as much as I want; I can add new scenes if necessary, or remove ones that don’t work. I can polish, mould, move story elements around; and one day, hopefully, the story will be as perfect as my ability allows. There is no absolute perfection in storytelling; a different choice of words would produce a different story, or a different slant to the story, or a new nuance to the story. That is the beauty of writing; it is fluid, flexible,<span face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif" style="color: #333333;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px;"> </span></span>not carved in stone.<br /><br />And yet I brought with me the insight that indeed, each story has its own innate truth, a form it has to be, a form it wants to be and needs to be – and that as surely as the Indian sculptor digs from a formless stone a beautiful Buddha’s head, so it is my task to dig within myself to find the inherent truth of each story I create. That takes time, and experience — and method.<br /><br />In February I wrote a guest post here on “writing from the seat of my pants”. Very often, this kind of writing is dismissed as shallow, random or chaotic, and perhaps in some cases it is. But it doesn’t have to be. Done properly there is, or should be, skill involved, the skill of digging deep inside to know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, what the story is: its truth, which is the truth of its creator, the writer.<br /><br />I was 49 when I started my writing career. I had no confidence in my writing abilities, no trust in the stories within me, or I would have started at a much younger age. I didn’t even know that stories were there in me to be written. But then I discovered Dorothea Brande’s classic Becoming a Writer, first published in 1934 and still in print.<br /><br />Brande opened my eyes. Brande believed that hidden within the unconscious mind is an intelligence that must be tapped by the conscious, allowing it, the unconscious, to freely flow, “bringing at demand all the treasures of memory, all the emotions, incidents, scenes, intimations of character and relationship which it has stored away in its depths. The role of the conscious mind is to control, combine and discriminate between these materials without hampering the unconscious flow.”<br /><br />In the “born writer” Brande believed, this process takes place smoothly and rapidly; by some fortunate accident of temperament or education the naturally gifted writer can put that unconscious flow completely to the service of reasonable intention, whether or not he or she is aware of doing so. There is a magic to writing, says Brande; and it can be learned.<br /><br />For me the book was a turning point. She put into my hands the basic tools for excavating my own depths, for finding that hidden lump of story buried within me, and carving out its truth into a readable form, a process that indeed sometimes feels like magic.<br /><br />I am basically a shy, elusive and clumsy person, and so imagine my joy when I read the following words:<br /><br /><i></i></p><blockquote><i>The unconscious is shy, elusive and unwieldy, but it is possible to learn to tap it at will, and even to direct it. The conscious mind is meddlesome, opinionated and arrogant, but it can be made subservient to the inborn talent through training.</i></blockquote><br /><br />Brande taught me to trust the unconscious mind, to know that it is the repository of all the ingredients that make good stories. She gave me clues, hints to the many ways and means of tapping into that source. This turned out to be the method that worked for me, and worked well. In the 14 years since reading that book I have written seven novels; three were published by HarperCollins, and two became French bestsellers. The others are waiting in line for publication, and two more are waiting to be written. To any writer who struggles to find their story, who feel that his or her problem is not with the actual craft of writing, but antecedent to that, with the finding of a story to tell; anyone who finds the actual storytelling the hardest part of writing, that inspiration has dried up, that writer’s block has set in, that his or her story is hidden away behind a locked door I would say: read Brande’s book. It just might provide a key.<br /><br />At present I am revising a novel I wrote in 2004, a novel which didn’t find an agent or a publisher back then. I thought it needed just a spit and a polish, but now, ten years later, I realised that the flaw ran much deeper. Something was missing in that first draft, a vital dimension to the story without which it fell flat.<br /><br />Fresh from India and inspired by the work of those Indian sculptors, I finally found that missing dimension. I found it because I’m now a better, more mature writer, and can dig deeper. I’m a miner and a sculptor. And I am more thankful than ever that stories are not carved in stone.<div><br /></div><div>See also: <a href="https://sharonmaas.blogspot.com/2020/11/writing-by-seat-of-my-pants.html">Writing from the Seat of my Pants</a><br /><p></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 22px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #181818;"><a href="http://womensfictionwriters.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/sharon-2.jpg" style="background: 0px 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: #4faeb6; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;"><img alt="Sharon #2" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-3871" height="200" loading="lazy" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" src="http://womensfictionwriters.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/sharon-2.jpg?w=300" srcset="http://womensfictionwriters.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/sharon-2.jpg 4757w, http://womensfictionwriters.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/sharon-2-300x200.jpg 300w, http://womensfictionwriters.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/sharon-2-1024x684.jpg 1024w" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; float: left; margin: 0px 24px 0px 0px; max-width: 100%;" width="300" /></a></span><span style="box-sizing: inherit;"><i>Sharon Maas was born in Georgetown, Guyana in 1951, and spent many childhood hours either curled up behind a novel or writing her own adventure stories. After a few years as a reporter with the Guyana Graphic in Georgetown she spent some time travelling in South America and overland to India. She ended up in Germany, married with two children, and now has a day job as a social worker in a hospital. She writes novels in her free time.<br /><br />(Update: she now lives in Ireland and has ten published novels with Bookouture.)</i></span></p></div>Sharon Maashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17242218167706605535noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28613189.post-79243631467902034742020-10-30T10:07:00.003+00:002021-06-04T06:58:29.954+01:00Down Memory Lane: Georgetown Cinemas of Yesteryear<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span lang="EN-GB"><br />So, the Astor
Cinema is up for sale (* see update at end of blog post). <br />It’s now a derelict hulk, just one more eyesore in a
city that was once deemed the most beautiful in the Caribbean. The tiny For Sale
sign hangs on its façade like a timid afterthought, a hopeless plea to some
rich saviour to swoop in and rescue this one-time Castle of Dreams; save it
from crumbling to the ground. <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxC6ScCSzFsi45AZXQqboXpf57HaNbUH3uuhdyfNU4htETwmkx5zUO-HX5iMTMLqpnKroZED79XA83UlJkdO1lDf32REi5SQcejOazgjNQt2UXfeornuNzrWGJ1K-xcR3OhcOa/s1600/photo+(42).JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxC6ScCSzFsi45AZXQqboXpf57HaNbUH3uuhdyfNU4htETwmkx5zUO-HX5iMTMLqpnKroZED79XA83UlJkdO1lDf32REi5SQcejOazgjNQt2UXfeornuNzrWGJ1K-xcR3OhcOa/s1600/photo+(42).JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Astor -- Palace of Dreams?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"> <span style="line-height: 200%;">With a pang, I stopped to take a snap. And I made
a wish. Someone, please, do it! Someone save this monument to Georgetown’s
Golden Age! Such wonderful stories have played out here; so many people escaped
their humdrum lives within these crumbling walls. This was once the home of
romance and glamour and joy. Bring it back! Cinemas took us Georgetowners to
far-off lands and transported us into the exotic lives of others; they showed
us the world beyond our shores, and took us on adventures and exploits beyond
our wildest dreams; they sowed the seeds of</span><span style="line-height: 200%;">
</span><span style="line-height: 200%;">ambition within our souls and lit the fuse of our most daring
aspirations. They did it in a way the now ubiquitous DVD—sold now in pirated
copies at every street corner—cannot; and that Multiplex Cinema I heard is
planned for Georgetown? Phooey! It can’t compare. </span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="line-height: 200%;"><br /></span></span> Going to the cinema was a big event. You dressed up, and you were on your best behaviour. I went on my very first date to the Astor: I was 14, and it was My Fair Lady, and I was petrified. It was always a double-feature, back then, and in the pause between films you could buy soft-drinks and popcorn. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_l8KvOnCp11CFqEvj123IdtQVC22JR_F36kXESJHwrIxJBDARyMve4ComGP-VtI5PCreAeJebeCPOVlCaxxzbEOh44Qc0EsfXykNnK29z03d4iyjGzKbiwko5Dl_j5uK-1yOi/s1600/my+fair+lady.jpeg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_l8KvOnCp11CFqEvj123IdtQVC22JR_F36kXESJHwrIxJBDARyMve4ComGP-VtI5PCreAeJebeCPOVlCaxxzbEOh44Qc0EsfXykNnK29z03d4iyjGzKbiwko5Dl_j5uK-1yOi/s1600/my+fair+lady.jpeg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><br />Before the film started they'd play God Save the Queen and show a <span style="font-family: inherit;">short film with the<span style="background-color: white;"> young Queen Elizabeth II in Royal military scarlet uniform. She'd be sitting side-saddle on a horse, at the trooping of the colours. E</span>veryone would stand up in respect, except those in the Pit, who continued laughing, talking, shouting, cursing. We ignored them. This was before Independence in 1966, of course. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/vkof1LXib1s?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
<br /><p align="left"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>After the Queen they'd show British New Reel, </span></span>Pathé<span style="font-family: inherit;"> and British Council films, which showed new developments all over the British Empire, where </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">the sun never set.</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> This would be followed by Donald Duck or Mickey Mouse cartoons, and trailers for coming films.</span></p><p align="left">I remember well the owner and
manager of the Astor. He was a young man
named Gregory G., and he liked to hang around outside the cinema with other
young men of his ilk, ogling us teenage girls in ways that, in retrospect, were
decidedly creepy.</p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><div style="line-height: 200%;"><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<a href="http://www.camanabaytimes.com/the-rise-and-fall-of-guyana%E2%80%99s-cinemas/" style="line-height: 200%;">In this article</a><span style="line-height: 200%;"> </span><span style="line-height: 200%;">another writer, Godfrey Chin is nostalgic for the good old cinema days:</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="line-height: 200%;">
<i><span style="line-height: 200%;"><br /></span>In 1940 the Correia family built the magnificent Astor on Waterloo Street, and in spite of WWII the film fare of Hollywood’s best, delighted the locals. The classic Gone with the Wind which opened in Atlanta, in December 1939, debuted at the Metropole in March 1941, and all the great classic movies such as Gunga Din, Casablanca, Citizen Kane, Robin Hood and Singing in the Rain, kept the locals up to date with the fashions, styles, norms, etc, of the outside world. Cinemas were our windows to the outer world. Even the British Council utilised 16mm shows to educate us about our then British ‘overlords.’</i></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;">The Astor was, the story goes, the
scene of an embarrassing éclat between my aunts and my Uncle Denis. Everyone
in Georgetown had heard of or knew Uncle Denis, a rather eccentric bachelor. The eldest
of eight brothers, he rode around town on a rusty old bicycle wearing khaki
short pants, long socks, and a hat. If he saw one of his many nieces and
nephews he would immediately jump off his bike and call us to him, whereupon
he’d tell us a joke, guffaw loudly, and ride off again. So very embarrassing! <br /><br />Uncle Denis was quite brilliant,
though his formal education was limited. He had taught himself German and was
well known for tutoring pupils who weren’t doing well at school, especially in
mathematics; and never taking any money for his efforts. Uncle Denis was a
Christian and believed in Christian charity. Which also meant he had not a
selfish or mean or snobbish bone in his body. And also that he was quite poor
all his life.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Which was why,
when he went to the cinema, he would always sit in Pit. In the classist, racist
Georgetown of those days, the cinema was the one place that told you where you
stood in the hierarchy. If you were black and poor, you paid a pittance and sat
in the Pit, at the front of the cinema. Here there were only wooden benches; it
was a noisy, raucous place and those who considered themselves better off would
never set foot down there. Behind the Pit was the House, where the general
populace sat. Above the House ranged the quiet comfort of Balcony, floating
above House in velvet exclusivity. And at the front of the Balcony, if you
could afford it, was the serene luxury of the Box.</span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Uncle Denis was
fair-skinned, but he always sat in Pit. And there he was spotted by my aunts
one day at a cinema outing. “Look; there’s Denis down there in the Pit!” said
Aunt Edith* with a shudder, pointing down. “I hope he doesn’t see us!” said Aunt
Doreen* as they all moved along to take their seats. And just at that moment, Uncle Denis looked up and spotted them in the Box.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Uncle Denis
immediately rose to his feet; he turned around and waved, his face a big joyful
grin. “Doreen, Edith, Marjorie*! Hold on, I’m coming!” he yelled for all the
world to hear, and proceeded to step over all the benches in Pit, climb over
the barrier to House, and up the staircase to Balcony and Box. I don’t know if my aunts
were required to pay extra for Uncle Denis; but he certainly watched that film
in comfort that day. And I don't know how true the story is, but knowing Uncle Denis -- well, let's just say it's credible.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><br />The Pit, apparently, was quite a ribald place, to put it politely. Another writer describes it thus: <br /><i><br />
</i><span lang="EN-GB"><p align="left"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Times New Roman; font-size: x-small;"><i><span face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"></span></i></span></p><blockquote><p align="left"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Times New Roman;"><span face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><i>To venture into the Pit toilet (urinal), which was usually at the end of a long, dark tunnel, was to enter a stinking, crowded, noisy hell hole that only the brave, reckless and desperate could deal with! I usually held my waste in, almost giving me "nara" pains by the time I got out of the Pit.</i></span></span></p><p align="left"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Times New Roman;"><span face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><i>During a show, a Pit patron may let off a stink bomb, or a firecracker squib, which would create a stir, or an argument and a fist-fight may break out among the brethren. I say brethren because few women, with the exception of ladies of the evening, would venture into the Pit.</i></span></span></p><p align="left"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Times New Roman;"><span face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><i>These ladies were often welcomed with open arms and pants, sometimes going to the back of Pit, where House overhung Pit, and setting up business there. In the middle of the show, it was not unusual to hear groaning and rustling from that section, providing a distraction from the main event on the screen, and causing some patrons to complain loudly. I wonder if this perhaps gave rise to the term "Passion Pit"?</i></span></span></p></blockquote><p> (from <i><a href="http://guyana.org/special/heydorn_cinema.html">Moving pictures: a nostalgic look at Guyana's cinemas</a></i>) </p><p align="left"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Times New Roman; font-size: x-small;"><span face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"></span></span></p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Opposite the Astor on Waterloo St was the Globe. Today, where the Globe used to stand is just an empty lot gathering the usual
Georgetown garbage. But the Globe too has memories for me, and evokes for me
one particular event.</span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB"></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTyPQNRkVzb3wyMTs5P4OmBHgsmTej_LsmY6VLQfPcBoBSCDMspaHzkFPvkzCoy3CGk2679A8u5BPzS0Rv9tgimREWglcx3vwrwtOPMPzb_ghmky26hTYjE2FmOw_FtLENVXF_/s1600/photo+(43).JPG" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 200%; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTyPQNRkVzb3wyMTs5P4OmBHgsmTej_LsmY6VLQfPcBoBSCDMspaHzkFPvkzCoy3CGk2679A8u5BPzS0Rv9tgimREWglcx3vwrwtOPMPzb_ghmky26hTYjE2FmOw_FtLENVXF_/s1600/photo+(43).JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Where the Globe once stood</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span lang="EN-GB"></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"> I was a junior journalist at
the time, working for the Chronicle. Apart from the obvious advantage of laying the
foundation of my life as a writer (though I didn't know it then), the job came with certain perks, the chief
one being getting to meet interesting people—especially foreigners to our
shores—and attend interesting events. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span lang="EN-GB">One of the latter was a concert by
<a href="http://www.biography.com/people/mahalia-jackson-9351242#awesm=~oGG7z8oXOlXqf7">Mahalia Jackson</a> at the Globe Cinema; it must have been around 1969, a few years before her death in 1971. We of the Press got to sit in a Box, while all the other invitees—for the most part, members
of Society sat nearby in Balcony and Box rustling their programmes and clapping
staidly at the end of each of Mahalia’s songs, or maybe rattling their jewellery. The Pit, of course, was closed.
This was a celebrity concert—they couldn’t have the hoi-polloi lowering the
tone. </span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjai0D2Xp3OX_ciNStVkjyt55jZ6DfLtbvwDwCmcXM7mDdNG3FGwh_SGhKPoyPULTJii3Qn74zXrWksxRna7VK41kle0Ku7inPs-XGT4S70AMa2sdgG-y0U8SWOzEGbf1jm5WV4/s1600/mahalia.jpeg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjai0D2Xp3OX_ciNStVkjyt55jZ6DfLtbvwDwCmcXM7mDdNG3FGwh_SGhKPoyPULTJii3Qn74zXrWksxRna7VK41kle0Ku7inPs-XGT4S70AMa2sdgG-y0U8SWOzEGbf1jm5WV4/s1600/mahalia.jpeg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mahalia Jackson</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB">However, one door, right next to the stage, stood open—only a chain closed it off from the street,
and that’s where the banished hoi-polloi gathered, pushing and jostling to get the chance
to see their idol. A guard stood there with a baton, pushing them back and
trying to keep them from getting too rowdy.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Mahalia Jackson
noticed the little rumpus down there in the corner, and assessed the situation
in a moment. “Remove that chain!” she called. Next thing the chain was down and
the city’s poor black population was pouring into the Pit. They filled the
benches; they sat on the floor and stood on the sides and simply crammed
themselves into every last inch of space.</span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Mahalia began to
sing again, and this time, what a difference! The crowd in the Pit went
wild. They clapped along, they sang along, they cheered, they rejoiced. Whether
it was a slow and intimate <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJzxiDwDbdI">Take my Hand, Precious Lord</a> or a jubilant <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEH7jyt1eoo">He’s Got the Whole World in his Hands</a>—the Pit crowd was with her, heart and soul. Life
came into that staid cinema hall, and joy and celebration. It was magnificent! Up in the Balcony and Boxes the Upper Echelons of Society sat stiff and silent,
clearly out-privileged. And I would have loved to make the reverse journey to
Uncle Denis: down from the Box and into the Pit, into the midst of the
rejoicing. For most of those people down there it would have been an evening
they would never forget—just as I have never forgotten it.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9I36Mh5WD3MLfN6mx7Gp_pSAMW_hBrqJAXe-0ALyeXM6jWRfpwgs2FJzBUYqpQaaUnM9rwzVgJCnuvfC9Ng3OxZQS2v_GWkb8AP4eIcxLWMAICJaKnYIZ-hYCYYikG1_6kWQF/s1600/photo+(44).JPG" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9I36Mh5WD3MLfN6mx7Gp_pSAMW_hBrqJAXe-0ALyeXM6jWRfpwgs2FJzBUYqpQaaUnM9rwzVgJCnuvfC9Ng3OxZQS2v_GWkb8AP4eIcxLWMAICJaKnYIZ-hYCYYikG1_6kWQF/s1600/photo+(44).JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Strand de Luxe -- Now the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God<br /><br /><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="line-height: 200%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="line-height: 200%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="line-height: 200%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="line-height: 200%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="line-height: 200%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="line-height: 200%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="line-height: 200%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="line-height: 200%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="line-height: 200%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="line-height: 200%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="line-height: 200%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="line-height: 200%;">Other cinemas
in Georgetown were the Metropole, the Plaza, the Empire, the Hollywood and the
Strand de Luxe. The Strand was called de Luxe as it was a new build, the first
air-conditioned cinema in town and quite special. Now it is another derelict
hull; perhaps a church hall of some kind, judging by the sign across the
building.</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 200%;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYGGa-QWDSksKvaugPcWMpPAw53RykFaoSQwfdUUr5iCJapalWzRDP7hHgkqc4qnAW6G5H0J_2o2bVw3-Sesuy2uWLD1DYpHXW-OGRFZ-ePZwog2XjNstKek65GIdVo_btUN4e/s1600/strand.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYGGa-QWDSksKvaugPcWMpPAw53RykFaoSQwfdUUr5iCJapalWzRDP7hHgkqc4qnAW6G5H0J_2o2bVw3-Sesuy2uWLD1DYpHXW-OGRFZ-ePZwog2XjNstKek65GIdVo_btUN4e/s1600/strand.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Strand -- back in the day.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="line-height: 200%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7IXqSkRbYAsAJJ51AIkr9K-pOGFuknK5skfjWb8aLYYplPkEJIq5YtLIWJzWwX5Yin1oD7qnGhOmfMBGjjfSFOnN7-Em2etc9YSL8yFrvtd_5FZkPMGldcrvCDdsAcMGUjiwk/s1600/beach+party.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7IXqSkRbYAsAJJ51AIkr9K-pOGFuknK5skfjWb8aLYYplPkEJIq5YtLIWJzWwX5Yin1oD7qnGhOmfMBGjjfSFOnN7-Em2etc9YSL8yFrvtd_5FZkPMGldcrvCDdsAcMGUjiwk/s1600/beach+party.jpeg" /></a></div>
<span lang="EN-GB">The Plaza was in
Camp Street, just around the corner from my home in Lamaha Street. The Plaza showed
all those <a href="http://mentalfloss.com/article/29007/party-frankie-annette-7-official-beach-party-movies">Beach Party movies</a> with Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon. I saw
them all with great delight; I was in my early teens, and American teenagerdom
seemed to me the height of all that was good and worth striving for in the
world. I watched every one of them.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Hollywood in
Alexander Road showed classic Hollywood movies from the 50's to the 80's. The Rio/Rialto in Vlissingen road showed almost exclusively Hindi or Urdu movies, so I never went there. And I have no
memories whatsoever of the Empire. There remains the Metropole, and with it a
memory of </span><span style="line-height: 200%;">little Charlie. </span><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoVwctkbyIMVlLErA1kzvMtqqSyg7KItcQUJuswlaUQ8aHiuw5AFGM2kAlaehrhsS1wWNLC3q3rwdqaeogKdqmf9MjgJJIhDWY0WSj2L1k5xZc7DXtcdcs_wSu1ZXvu9bEYd3_/s1600/jerry.jpeg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoVwctkbyIMVlLErA1kzvMtqqSyg7KItcQUJuswlaUQ8aHiuw5AFGM2kAlaehrhsS1wWNLC3q3rwdqaeogKdqmf9MjgJJIhDWY0WSj2L1k5xZc7DXtcdcs_wSu1ZXvu9bEYd3_/s1600/jerry.jpeg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.7273px; text-align: center;">Jerry Lewis<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="line-height: 200%;">When I was ten years old I broke a bone in my hand
and was in the Georgetown Hospital for a few days. I remember a huge ward full
of screaming children; I hated it, but luckily my Dad came to visit each day. Mum was working in Trinidad at the time.
In the bed next to mine lay a little Amerindian boy. Possibly, he had polio; I
remember both his legs were in callipers. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="line-height: 200%;">Dad made some enquiries and
discovered he was an orphan, and in and out of hospital. Charlie must have
tugged at Dad’s heart-strings, because after I was released from hospital Dad
took me to the cinema at the Metropole to see a Jerry Lewis film, and he
stopped at the hospital to pick up Charlie. It was a Jerry Lewis film, and it
was the first time Charlie had ever been to the cinema. So it’s thanks to
little</span><span style="line-height: 200%;"> </span><span style="line-height: 200%;">Charlie that the Metropole gets a
place in my Memory</span><span style="line-height: 200%;"> </span><span style="line-height: 200%;">Gallery of Georgetown cinemas.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB">But there’s one
more.</span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Which Georgetown teenager of
the 60’s and 70’s can forget the Starlite Drive-In? Of course, for most of
those years, my generation was too young to own a car or even have a driving
license, but if we were lucky we knew someone who knew someone and could wangle an invite. The big deal was Tuesday night: Carload Night! We’d load up the car
with as many teenagers as possible and drive up the East Coast Demerara towards
Ogle—that’s where the big screen of the glorious Starlite was to be found. We
never went for the film. It was for the event, the experience, the company that we
went. It was a party, and we were young; those were the days, my friend, we
thought they’d never end.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB">I'll end this eulogy with another quote from Godfrey Chin:</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Christmas 2008 the Astor, the last cinema standing, was showing a powerful action double, Casino Royale and Quantum Leap. As I sat in their balcony reminiscing, there were about 12 patrons in the entire cinema. I was impressed that the upkeep and maintenance in the balcony and house area was pretty good. The leather upholstered box seats are still there.<br /><br />As I thanked Desmond Woon, the Manager, for his cinema tour, I quipped that his last stand reminded me of Errol Flynn in They Died with their Boots On, which opened at the Metropole around 1943. I should really name this Nostalgia, ‘The Astor’s Last Stand.’</i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>So, any offers for the Astor? Or if not, why not post your own memories of Georgetown Cinemas in the comments?</b></blockquote>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span>
</div>
</div>
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* The For Sale sign is gone; but I don't think it was sold. Will find out.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">* New update: 2019: the building has been pulled down. It's an empty site. Something mew will go up there one day.<br />*Aunts' names changed to save them further embarrassment.</div>
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Sharon Maashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17242218167706605535noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28613189.post-71872575884496642372020-10-15T17:26:00.000+01:002020-11-13T11:16:26.700+00:00The Girl from the Sugar Plantation<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The New York Times gets it totally wrong in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/17/opinion/man-booker-bad-history.html">this article.</a> It's not as simple as that.<br />
<br />
Read the post before this about the C<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=28613189#editor/target=post;postID=4233872627211906574;onPublishedMenu=template;onClosedMenu=template;postNum=0;src=postname">harisma of Jock Campbell</a> to understand more.<br />
<br />
Better yet, read my new book, about to be published, TOMORROW.<br />
<br />
Here it is:</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">"These books have taken me to a far off land, to another time, that feels nothing like the world I have grown up in. The experience is always a very overwhelmingly real and emotional one, but I just can’t get enough of it. </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">The Girl from the Sugar Plantation</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;"> is no different. The magic and power of music, the pain and pleasure of love, the destructive nature of secrets and lies all delved deep into my heart and I expect will stay there for some time. This is a powerful and emotional story that will melt even the coldest of hearts. I challenge you to enter the world of </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">The Quint Chronicles</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;"> and not fall in love."</span></blockquote>
<br />
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2123697188?book_show_action=true">From this review on Goodreads </a><br />
<br />
The blurb: <span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;">An unputdownable story about a woman in search of the truth, the man she falls in love with, and the devastation of the Second World War.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;"> </span><br />
<span id="freeText5803507158844173722" style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;"><b>1934, Georgetown.</b><br /><br />All her life, <b>Mary Grace</b> has wanted to know the truth about who her parents really are. As the mixed-race daughter of two white plantation owners, her childhood has been clouded by whispered rumours, and the circumstances of her birth have been kept a closely guarded secret…<br /><br /><b>Aunt Winnie</b> is the only person Mary Grace can confide in. Feeling lost and lonely, her place in society uncertain, Mary Grace decides to forge her own path in the world. And she finds herself unexpectedly falling for charming and affluent <b>Jock Campbell</b>, a planter with revolutionary ideas.<br /><br />But, with the onset of the <b>Second World War</b>, their lives will be changed forever. And Mary Grace and Jock will be faced with the hardest decision of all – to fight for freedom or to follow their hearts…<br /><br />An utterly compelling and evocative story about the heart-breaking choices men and women had to make during a time of unimaginable change. Perfect for fans of <i><b>The Secret Wife</b> </i>and <i><b>Island of Secrets</b> </i>.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;"> </span><a data-text-id="5803507158844173722" href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36059264-the-girl-from-the-sugar-plantation#" style="background-color: white; color: #00635d; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration-line: none;">(less)</a><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
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Sharon Maashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17242218167706605535noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28613189.post-42338726272119065742020-08-10T14:28:00.003+01:002021-05-13T10:53:25.500+01:00The Booker Prize Backstory. Part 4: the charisma of Jock Campbell<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: large;"><b>So, I kept the best for last. Here, with kind permission of Ian McDonald, is an essay on Jock Campbell. Whereas the previous posts are more about what he did, this one is about who he was; which is the key to everything else. He was surely an Everest among humans, and if Guyana had been, say, a country more in the public eye Jock would have had his rightful place as one of the few greats of the last century.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">JOCK CAMPBELL</span><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: large;"><b>An Essay by Ian McDonald</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: large;">After reading<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: large;"><i>“Sweetening Bitter Sugar:
Jock Campbell – The Booker Reformer in British Guiana, 1934-1966”</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRFxZRajwKNP8hfBx621R7FfwWvyQK5Q_SRBJludQFr1apmBUK77bXkpXFuiCsMFQL2WqtKek7IuhPBvoFAGtrxRn1EdZSk66Sjr5AyN0jCL5OSmdYZRpDw_jFP1NEbWIYLqTO/s1600/jock+4.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRFxZRajwKNP8hfBx621R7FfwWvyQK5Q_SRBJludQFr1apmBUK77bXkpXFuiCsMFQL2WqtKek7IuhPBvoFAGtrxRn1EdZSk66Sjr5AyN0jCL5OSmdYZRpDw_jFP1NEbWIYLqTO/s320/jock+4.jpeg" width="218" /></span></a><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;">In my last months
at Cambridge University, in early 1955, I was offered a number of jobs
including one by the Shell Oil Company to work for them in Trinidad where I had
been born and lived as a boy and gone to school. I had decided to take up this
offer when out of the blue I was asked if I would be interested in a job in
British Guiana with Bookers. The <o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-family: "arial";">job sounded interesting and I went up to
London to meet the Chairman of Bookers, Jock Campbell, for an interview over
lunch. It is nearly fifty years ago but I remember that meeting as if I was
there earlier today.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: large; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;">I had already met
a number of very remarkable men including my tutor at Cambridge, the future
Regius Professor of Modern History, Geoffrey Elton, the dedicated and daunting
English lecturer, critic and editor, F.R. Leavis, the celebrated economist
Arthur Lewis of St. Lucia and an astonishing sportsman named Dennis Silk who
later became President of the MCC – but now I found Jock Campbell easily the
most charismatic man I had encountered in my life.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;">It is impossible
to convey by simple description the force and compelling attractiveness of a
truly charismatic person. How can you exactly describe an emanation of energy,
a unique aura that goes far beyond physique and appearance and words 0uttered?
The word derives via ecclesiastical Latin from the Greek </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: normal;">kharisma </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;">meaning a divinely conferred power or talent. That captures something of
the essence of what is involved since it infers that the charismatic person
attracts and deserves devotion. I was a Jock devotee from the very start.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: large; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;">Jock Campbell’s
eloquence made the heart beat faster and my young undergraduate mind and soul
responded to his fervour. That first meeting lasted for a long time, well past
the cheese and liqueur part of lunch, and by the end I was completely and
utterly converted to this extraordinary man’s vision of how practical good
could be done in this world. I have been in the Guyana sugar industry for
nearly fifty years and I have never stopped looking upon what has to be done
not just as a job, though of course it is that too and has to be done well, but
also as a sort of crusade.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Jock
effect has never really worn off.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: large;">I remember him at
that meeting as restlessly enthusiastic, inspired with convictions that he
could hardly contain. I recall to this day how one expansive gesture scattered
green peas all over the table! I was enthralled by the man and the story he
told and the ambitions he held and wanted to explain. Jock told me then of his
early days in British Guiana and his shock at the terrible conditions he saw at
first hand on his family plantations and his determination to introduce root
and branch reform as soon as he had the authority. He described the steps he
had already taken to reorganize completely the chaotic shambles of the
sprawling Booker empire in British Guiana into separate companies with Boards
and well defined areas of operation and responsibility – Bookers Sugar Estates,
Bookers Stores, Bookers Shipping, Bookers Rum and Bookers Industrial Holdings.
He had put in train and was determined to carry through a revolution in the
whole ethos of Bookers, how it was run, what it would try to achieve, how
people throughout the whole organization must be made to matter. He told me of
the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement – I found out later that he was its principal
architect – which provided a secure basis on which to build improved conditions
for those who worked in sugar.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: large; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;">For the first
time, and I was to have the concept elaborated often in the future, Jock gave
me a glimpse of his belief that Bookers had to exercise a four-fold
responsibility: to shareholders who provided the investment and deserved a
return; to employees who were the company’s lifeblood and deserved decent
remuneration and ever-improving life conditions; to customers without whose
satisfaction no business could exist; and to the community and country in which
the business operated since the ultimate test of a company was how much it
contributed to the enrichment and modernization of the whole civic body.
Nowadays, the concept in the business world of balanced responsibilities may
seem well worn but fifty years ago it was new and revelatory. If any concept
held sway then it was the imperative of maximizing profit which Jock rejected
completely.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: large; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;">Now, fifty years
on, I find Professor Clem Seecharran’s book on Jock Campbell magnificent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because I held Jock in such esteem, and still
hold his memory in high honour, if this book had fallen short in telling his
story I think I would have been the first to be critical.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it measures up exceedingly well to the
man and what he tried to do and what he achieved. It is a book of immense
significance in telling the story of Guyana at a particularly important
juncture in its history – the era just prior to independence. But for me it is
also a book which tells the story, and fills in countless interesting details,
about the life of an extraordinary man who was my friend and mentor in an
unforgettable period of my life.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: large;">I joined Bookers,
in 1955, at a time when the Jock Campbell revolution was in full flow. I found
myself in the middle of a process in which Bookers was being completely
recreated. In this process the sugar industry in British Guiana was transformed
from a run-down, unprofitable, inhuman, parternalistic and plantocratic
expatriate family concern into a rehabilitated, forward-looking, productive and
dynamic enterprise basically run by Guyanese for the much improved good of
Guyanese and Guyana.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: large; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;">Sugar production
grew from 170,000 tons to 350,000 tons. Estates were consolidated and factories
modernized. Drainage and irrigation facilities and the whole infrastructure of
field works were completely revamped. Agricultural practices and applications
were overhauled in line with current world-class technology. The first sugar
bulk-loading terminal in the Caribbean was established to replace the drudgery
of loading sugar in bags.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: large; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;">And the people
side of the industry was simply revolutionized:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>remuneration vastly increased, the old logies eliminated and 15,000 new
houses in 75 housing areas built with roads and water supplied, medical
services upgraded to cater for all sugar workers and their families and the
scourge of malaria eradicated, Community Centres established on all estates and
welfare, sporting, cultural and library activities expanded, training and
education immensely stepped up, a world-class Apprentice Training Centre
established, a cadet scheme and scholarships introduced and all along
Guyanisation pressed forward until the time came when the industry was being
run almost entirely by Guyanese. It was an era of tremendous growth and change
for the better in the sugar industry and indeed throughout all the enterprises
making up the Booker Group in Guyana at the time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: large; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;">I cannot forget
that wonderful time. All that was being done was captured in a phrase Jock
Campbell as Chairman used in all his key addresses: “People are more important
than ships, shops and sugar estates.” We tried to act in the belief that
business could not possibly just be about making money if only because that
would be soul-destroyingly boring. Business had to be about making the lives of
people better and more fulfilled. People in any case always came first however
you considered what you were trying to do in business. Creating profit was
vital but not just for its own sake but for good, everyday, ordinarily human,
immediately flesh and blood, life-enhancing purposes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: "arial";">Working in that
old Bookers with Jock Campbell was marvelously exhilarating. There was a
feeling of fervour and achievement – even in a small way of being involved in
making history. Getting things done in a good, progressive cause was the
essence of the job, not simply maximizing efficiency and making profits which
were to be seen as necessary means and never as ultimate ends. I remember the
clear purpose, the hard but satisfying work, the extraordinary leadership, the
good humour, the enthusiasm and high spirits, the overall intelligent humanity
of the operation, the camaraderie and the sense of fulfillment.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "arial";">It was Jock who
showed me the passage from Boris Pasternak’s </span><span style="font-family: "arial";">Dr. Zhivago</span><span style="font-family: "arial";"> in which Strelnikov, caught in the in the huge ebb and flow of the
Russian Revolution, amidst the tremendous events taking place all around him,
the giant turns and turnabouts of history, suddenly realizes that the small
concerns of individual men and women are what count in the end:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: large; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;">“And in order to do good to others he needed, besides the principles that
filled his mind, an unprincipled heart – the kind of heart that knows of no
general causes, but only of particular ones and knows the greatness of small
actions.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: large; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;">Understanding the
importance of small causes, appreciating the greatness of small actions: that
is the essence of compassion in the exercise of power and that is what Jock
Campbell most certainly and most deeply understood.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: large; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;">I remember him as
the man who told us in no uncertain terms that no person is ever redundant,
only jobs, and we were never to forget that. I remember him as the man who
often reminded me, and others, that it was important to pay attention to one
man’s grievance as well as to Three-Year Plans. And I vividly remember him as
the man who when he retired as Chairman asked me to keep an eye on six old
pensioners who had given him good service in his younger days and make sure
every Christmas to send them a card and a gift on his behalf – which I
faithfully did until one by one over the years they died. And so it came to one
last Christmas I only had one card and one gift to send and my last communication
from Jock was a Christmas card of his own, scribbled in his distinctive hand,
wishing myself and family the blessings of the season and, in a postscript,
thanking me for again doing him the small service of sending that last old
pensioner his greetings and gift for work done so long ago and still so well
remembered.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: large; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;">In a letter to me
once he quoted approvingly a saying of the American Irving Howe: “There is
utopia and utopia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The kind imposed by
an elite in the name of an historical imperative, that utopia is hell. It must
lead to terror and then, terror exhausted, to cynicism and torpor. But surely
there is another utopia. It cannot be willed into existence or out of sight. It
speaks for our sense of what may yet be.” Jock Campbell himself had a profound
sense of what should be attempted and what might be achieved in the cause of a
better society. All his working life he strove pragmatically to improve the
lives of people whom his decisions touched.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: "arial";">I remember it all
so vividly. I see now more clearly than ever that we lived and worked in an
exceptional time for an extraordinary man. I am more pleased than I can say
that in Professor Clem Seecharan Jock Campbell has found a historian worthy of
his remarkable personality and achievements and in </span><span style="font-family: "arial";">Sweetening
Bitter Sugar</span><span style="font-family: "arial";"> a classic book which preserves his
legacy for new generations.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "arial";">Ian
McDonald</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;">.<br /><br />Previously: </span></span><a href="http://sharonmaas.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-page-turning-booker-prize-backstory.html" style="text-align: left;">Part 1: Slavery, James Bond, and an Aristocratic Scottish hero</a></div> <a href="http://sharonmaas.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-page-turning-booker-prize-backstory.html"> Part 2: Jock Campbell moves into the Booker Stronghold</a></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <a href="https://sharonmaas.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-booker-backstory-part-3-reform.html"> Part 3: Reform, Reform, Reform</a><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>(Note: this article has been abridged. S. Maas)</i></span></div><div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Albion Estate Today. A recent visit: <a href="http://sharonmaas.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-making-of-demerara-gold.html">The Making of Demerara Gold</a></b><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span face=""arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #424242; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;"><i>Sweetening Bitter Sugar Jock Campbell The Booker Reformer in British Guiana 1934-1966 </i> Clem Seecharan Ian Randle Publishers 2005</span></div>
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Sharon Maashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17242218167706605535noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28613189.post-67084314036022935482020-08-02T11:45:00.005+01:002021-05-13T10:51:47.262+01:00The Booker Backstory: Part 3: Reform, Reform, Reform. And new houses!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-size: large;">When Jock returned to British Guiana after the war he found a senior management of crusty old men. Entrenched in their ways, confined in their thinking, these men were rooted in a framework of self-interest intrinsically opposed to change. He dismissed them all as hopeless. He was a new broom sweeping clean. He ran rings around them and knew it.<br /><br />He whirled through the company like a hurricane, leaving the survivals exhausted, but exhilarated, removing the old and replacing it with new. <br /><br />The company was in complete disarray, so splintered nobody knew what was making a profit and what was making a loss. The machinery was old and derelict after the war years, and a serious fire had destroyed several Booker buildings. <br /><br />Worst of all, the company was universally hated, both inside and outside the colony, and even by the colonial authorities. It was the textbook example of an arrogant, imperialist juggernaut grown obese and unwieldy off the fat of the land; except that it was now making a loss. All that would have to change.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I believe that there should be values other than money in a civilised society. I believe that truth, beauty and goodness have a place. Moreover, I believe that if businessmen put profit, greed and acquisition among the highest virtues, they cannot be surprised if, for instance, nurses, teachers and ambulance men are inclined to do the same. Jock Campbell </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-size: large;">Bookers, once a synonym for greed, would become a model of benevolence. And the process began with people. The company began to recruit new managers, efficient managers, ethical, hand-picked managers; a difficult task, which Jock solved by breaking it down into small and manageable units. <br /><br />Most important of all, the new people were Guianese; qualified, home-bred individuals who had caught the infectious spirit of their leader. If they lacked the skills for the job, they were sent abroad for training. The glass ceiling of skin colour cracked and crumbled; and it fell apart not through protest by the workers, not through rebellion or revolution, but through a decree from above.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Housing</b><br />One of Jock’s main goals from the very beginning was the rehousing of the Indian workers, and ironically he was aided in his vision by the Marxist vision of a young Indian firebrand. <br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsrxIkKUsSOPOzMWlzNUXl7-95VbOguMrTPold_fXVTiqlkSm-0yGhJkQ2Q7x9nMz9ZtVCYAYarg9ivD6YPXmG-7SMHRu3AirDnTJ9iyPa8i43hHWA10hTt5iOtCgOMslQ93HZ/s1600/logies.jpeg"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsrxIkKUsSOPOzMWlzNUXl7-95VbOguMrTPold_fXVTiqlkSm-0yGhJkQ2Q7x9nMz9ZtVCYAYarg9ivD6YPXmG-7SMHRu3AirDnTJ9iyPa8i43hHWA10hTt5iOtCgOMslQ93HZ/s320/logies.jpeg" /></a> <br /><br /><b>The logies </b><br />Cheddi Jagan had himself grown up on a sugar-estate and knew the squalor first-hand. With his equally radical American-born wife Janet he determined to change things, but from the bottom up. Jagan’s fiery speeches to workers up and down the coast had one aim: the ousting of King Sugar; and housing was for him, as for Jock, a primary issue. <br /><br />In April 1953, just before the General Election in which he would triumph, Jagan wrote in a pamphlet:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Imagine the state of sanitation and the condition of the sugar estate workers during the heavy rainfall and flood periods which are frequent. The whole housing area becomes covered with polluted water from the overflowing latrine trenches. This polluted water remains in the land for days and sometimes weeks. Cheddi Jagan<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpFdHApcd84K9EKcgA15kzaL9qEBgOA2DHi3Mo-dRhfgqetIpkZufTx52KnpMRTEOqWb9xSdErGZVVRfUxD3U5tZ1f2i-DeBoW0uL1H-tDuhoUku_RRFOSEojY4jt3glmqNv0q/s1600/logies+1.jpeg"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpFdHApcd84K9EKcgA15kzaL9qEBgOA2DHi3Mo-dRhfgqetIpkZufTx52KnpMRTEOqWb9xSdErGZVVRfUxD3U5tZ1f2i-DeBoW0uL1H-tDuhoUku_RRFOSEojY4jt3glmqNv0q/s320/logies+1.jpeg" /></a> <br /><b>Now homes under construction </b><br /><br />Even the “crusty old men” on the Booker Board knew that change had to come. It had to come from above if they were not to be dethroned from below; and so, in November 1953, Campbell was able to announce that the sugar producers had agreed to finance the rehousing programme. <br /><br />Workers were now able to erect their own homes on estate land leased to them for a peppercorn rent; they were lent money on easy, interest-free terms and so were able to build their own homes. Thousands of families were rehoused in this way. In the following years, more progress was made: the home-owners were able to buy the lots they leased at a nominal price of $1 per lot. <br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR3zhJhY6TrT-ov0wE5nK-mrSNYvd9m-9ynvNG1vlUINSLSqgVmA4pG5QIQcB8FCr-n3Lqf_Tg2TGEIulViIsB_K0DDYE3q0e4BHC0TZA5beyqlh-LM1RtPG0RCdOiaOIKrwlE/s1600/logies+2.jpeg"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR3zhJhY6TrT-ov0wE5nK-mrSNYvd9m-9ynvNG1vlUINSLSqgVmA4pG5QIQcB8FCr-n3Lqf_Tg2TGEIulViIsB_K0DDYE3q0e4BHC0TZA5beyqlh-LM1RtPG0RCdOiaOIKrwlE/s320/logies+2.jpeg" /></a> <br /><b>New home, painted and finished! </b><br /><br />The eradication of malaria and the housing reform, these were the shapers of the post-War generation of sugar workers and their children, primarily Indian-Guyanese people. The reformist vision of Jock Campbell and the unwavering challenge from Cheddi Jagan’s incorruptible, Marxist-inspired mission, were inseparable. The social reforms fed an insatiable appetite for even more reforms; it is a tragedy for all Guyanese that Marxism, in one form or another, won out; that capital was seen as a necessary evil. The English-speaking Caribbean has had no such such parallel, not even Bishop’s Grenada. Clem Seecharan, Sweetening Bitter Sugar</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Bookers was eventually nationalized in 1976 and Campbell returned to England, disappointed and disillusioned.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>The Booker Prize</b><br /><br />As for the Booker Prize: it was Jock alone who created the conditions wihtin the Booker Empire that made it possible. He had always been passionate about the arts, and under his direction Booker supported and even sponsored artists of all kinds. <br /><br />In her memoir <i>Journey to Guyana</i> the English writer Margaret Bacon describes with obvious awe how such support might work; she recounts the story of a gifted Guianese artist whom Booker decided to send to England on a scholarship. Booker paid his passage, met him at the dock in England, found him and paid for his accommodation, and financed his entire Art studies. It was, she says, typical of Booker benevolence towards artists of all stripes; and Jock was the ultimate force behind the benevolence.<br /><br />A few years after his return to England he was playing golf with his good friend Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond novels, who was terminally ill with cancer.<br /><br />Fleming asked Jock for advice on securing his estate for his family from heavy taxation. Jock initially advised Fleming to turn to accountants and merchant bankers, but then had a new idea: Bookers could act as bankers for Fleming, beneficially for both parties.<br /><br />As a result, Bookers acquired a 51% share in the profits of Glidmore Productions, the company handling the profits for worldwide royalties on Fleming's books, and the associated merchandising rights.<br /><br />Out of this acquisition was born the Bookers Author Division, with the injunction:<br /><br />It should make money, not to mention being entertaining, and there could be advertising interest in it for some of our companies.<br />Bookers Author Division later acquired the copyrights of other well-known authors, including novelists Agatha Christie, Dennis Wheatley, Georgette Heyer and the playwrights Robert Bolt and Harold Pinter. It was the copyrights of Agatha Christie which, over time, contributed most to the profit of the Author Division.<br /><br />In the late 1960s the publishers Jonathan Cape suggested that Bookers might sponsor a major fiction prize, and the Booker Prize was launched in 1969. A new sponsor for the prize was announced in April 2002, the Man Group, after which it became known as the Man Booker Prize.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">It would never have happened had it not been for Jock; and so, along with the shortlisted authors and winners, it would not be amiss to remember and honour the giant of a man who made it happen. His philosophy is one that can never go out of date, and is perhaps more relevant than ever in today’s unscrupulous world.<br /><br /><br /><i> To be Continued... </i><a href="https://sharonmaas.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-booker-prize-backstory-charisma-of.html">Part 4: The Charisma of Jock Campbell</a><br /><br /></span> <b> <a href="http://sharonmaas.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-page-turning-booker-prize-backstory.html">Part 1: Slavery, James Bond, and an Aristocratic Scottish hero</a><br /> <a href="http://sharonmaas.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-page-turning-booker-prize-backstory.html"> Part 2: Jock Campbell moves into the Booker Stronghold</a></b><div style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1.5pt; border-bottom: 1.5pt solid windowtext; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-style: none none solid; border-top-style: none; padding: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><div style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1.5pt; border-bottom: 1.5pt solid windowtext; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-style: none none solid; border-top-style: none; padding: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><div class="MsoNormal">
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Source: Sweetening Bitter Sugar Jock Campbell The Booker Reformer in British Guiana 1934-1966 Ian Randle Publishers 2005</div>
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Acknowledgments: all photos reproduced here with kind permission of Clem Seecharan, author, Sweetening Bitter Sugar<br /><br />See also:<br /><br /><a href="http://sharonmaas.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-making-of-demerara-gold.html"><b>The Making of Demerara Gold</b></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; padding: 0cm;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; padding: 0cm;"><br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">By the 1930s the majority of British Guiana’s sugar estates belonged to Bookers. One of these two was the Campbell estate, at Albion in the Corentyne district. This estate belonged to a Scottish family, the Campbells. The Campbells were of aristocratic stock; William Middleton Campbell was Governor of the Bank of England between 1907 and 1909, a man of great prestige. The Campbells had been in Guyana for many decades; they too had owned slaves, they too had grown rich through sugar. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">In 1934 a young Campbell, Jock, came to British Guiana for the first time to take charge of the family estates.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Jock was born in 1912, and grew up in great privilege in Scotland and Ireland. He attended Eton and Oxford; he enjoyed the good life, liked fast cars and even faster women.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Neither of those were to be found in British Guiana.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">This new world was to prove his Damascus.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Raised on romantic myths of the pleasant life to be had on a sugar estate, Jock received the shock of his life on being confronted with the reality: his family had been slave-owners. His family's fortune was founded on the blood, sweat and tears of African slaves and, more recently on Indian indentured servants. This stark truth shook him out of his hedonism forever.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">There is an anecdote that perfectly illustrates the mentality he found as he arrived at Albion and was shown around the family estate by the manager, Mr. James Bee; here it is, in a dramatized version, just as I wrote it for a novel:</span></div>
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<span style="color: #351c75; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Jock stopped and stared, frowning. There in front of him stood several long, low, ramshackle buildings, rough constructions made of coarse wooden planks haphazardly hammered together, black holes for windows and doors. They were like piles of rotting wood set aside for burning, and they stood in a shallow lake of sinking black mud. A miasma of wretched despair hung over the site, a cloud of squalor that wafted through the air along with the stench of human excreta and rotting refuse. It was a scene in sharp comtrast to the clean green of the canefields behind them, and the crisp white houses of the white estate managers and foremen. </span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #351c75; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">‘What on earth are those?’ he asked Mr Bee, ‘pig sties?’</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #351c75; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">For indeed, pigs roamed the area, grunting in excitement at the dubious treasures they found in the mud.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #351c75; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Mr Bee waved his hand in dismissal. ‘Oh, those are the <i>logies</i> where our coolies live.’</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #351c75; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">‘You mean people live there? The stench is appalling. How can they stand it?’</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #351c75; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">‘They’re used to it – they don’t mind in the least. These people are not like you and me, you know. The standards are much lower.’</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #351c75; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Jock swallowed the words on the tip of his tongue, and said instead, ‘But why don’t the have proper homes?’</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #351c75; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">‘Well, we already had the <i>logies </i>when the slaves were freed so it was logical and cheaper to put the coolies here. It saved money. Why build new homes when we had perfectly good accommodation still standing? Bookers is a business, not a charity!’</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #351c75; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Leaving the logies behind them, Jock and Mr Bee approached a freshly painted building, simple but palatial in comparison to the hovels they had just seen, and scrubbed clean. Mr Bee pointed to it in passing and said: ‘That’s the stable for our mules.’</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #351c75; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Jock finally found his voice. ‘Why don’t you let the coolies live here and put the mules in the <i>logies</i>?’</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #351c75; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Bee looked at him as if he were mad.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #351c75; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">‘Mules cost <i>money</i> to replace!’</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-size: large;">The shock sank deep, and turned his life around. From the very start, Jock determined to CHANGE the way the estate was run, and he set his sights high: the Booker Empire. His plans were quite clear.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">His father and uncle owned the company Curtis Campbell, which consisted of two sugar estates, Ogle and Albion. But two estates would not be enough for Jock; his vision for King Sugar meant that structural and social changes had to encompass the entire sugar industry. Booker was the embodiment of King Sugar; that throne must be usurped. Jock convinced his father and uncle that a merger between Curtis Campbell and Booker Bros, McConnell and Co was necessary for the survival of the family concern. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Those two were on the Board of Booker, and helped negotiate a take-over of their own company in 1939. Shares were exchanged; Jock became a Director himself, the youngest ever, and moved into the Booker stronghold. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdjRBTVeyzm4H7nvRlv_tcLF6m7NBCcpRjOQiNXhtsp-wPf05kRCkJG8VbEwsQKqlqJTrF_7bHvsDnbsZopP0o8eI2kTIHnURClL9nMs4buz16Dnb7G4i2VyCEO1Uj8i2qHB5W/s1600/jockcampbell.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdjRBTVeyzm4H7nvRlv_tcLF6m7NBCcpRjOQiNXhtsp-wPf05kRCkJG8VbEwsQKqlqJTrF_7bHvsDnbsZopP0o8eI2kTIHnURClL9nMs4buz16Dnb7G4i2VyCEO1Uj8i2qHB5W/s320/jockcampbell.jpeg" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">Jock spent the war years in England, working in the Colonial Office. There he prepared the groundwork for his vision. In 1947, aged 35, he became Booker’s Vice-Chairman. In 1952 he became Chairman, aged only 40: he had reached the very top. In fact, to all intents and purposes he had been running the company since 1945. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">His standard line was, People are more important than ships, shops and sugar estates, and that was the basis of everything he did.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-large;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-large;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>To be Continued... </i><a href="https://sharonmaas.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-booker-backstory-part-3-reform.html"><b>Part 3: Reform</b></a><br /></span><br /><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://sharonmaas.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-page-turning-booker-prize-backstory.html">Part 1: Slavery, James Bond, and an Aristocratic Scottish hero</a><br /><br /><a href="https://sharonmaas.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-booker-prize-backstory-charisma-of.html">Part 4: The Charisma of Jock Campbell</a></div>
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Source: <i>Sweetening Bitter Sugar Jock Campbell The Booker Reformer in British Guiana 1934-1966</i> <span face=""arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #424242; font-size: 12.7273px; line-height: 17.9972px;"> </span>Clem Seecharan Randle Publishers 2005</div>
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Acknowledgments: all photos reproduced here with kind permission of Clem Seecharan, author, Sweetening Bitter Sugar<br /><br />See also:<br /><br /><a href="http://sharonmaas.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-making-of-demerara-gold.html"><b>The Making of Demerara Gold</b></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "times new roman";"><b>It’s
Booker Prize time again, offering new </b></span><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">debate </b><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">material for the literary set and the
chattering classes: who is she? is she <i>that</i> good? and so very young! never heard of her! I'm off to Waterstones/Amazon! And so on and so forth.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "times new roman";"><b>For
me it’s a bit different. When this time comes around each year I remember the
unsung hero who made it all happen; I remember the extraordinary story of how
The Booker came to be, a story as original and as thrilling as all the great fiction
we celebrate in its name. It’s a story of adventurers and pioneers, </b></span><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">the Scottish Aristocracy </b><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">and sugar;
of slaves, slave owners, and hard labour in the broiling sun; of exploitation,
cruelty, rebellion, revolution; and, finally, of reform and redemption and the
triumph of good over evil, almost Disneyesque in its climax. It's even got </b><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">James Bond.</b></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "times new roman";"><b>And I lament
the fact that hardly any non-Guyanese knows the whole amazing story, or that of
the remarkable man at its centre.<o:p></o:p></b></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large;"><b> Trust me, you need to know. I'll tell you in a nutshell.</b><o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "times new roman";">The setting is British Guiana, as Guyana was then known, nestling comfortably on South America's eastern shoulder.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">A wild, dangerous, unexplored land, perfect for pioneers and young men eager to risk all to make a fortune in the New World. There was a perilous ocean to cross, jungles and swamps to overcome once they got there. But they did it.</span><br />
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In 1815, one such young man, Josias Booker, arrived in Guiana (not yet a colony) from Lancashire to work as company representative on Broom Hall estate in the district of Demerara. Within three years Josias had established himself as plantation manager of Broom Hall, growing cotton.<br />
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This estate had 155 African slaves.<br />
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Over the years, production on Broom Hall increased three-fold. News of this success spread; soon other plantation owners began to copy Josias, sending their slaves to Broom Hall for training. Josias Booker thrived. He acquired his own plantation, then another, and another. When neighbouring plantations failed he stepped in and took over. His fortunes grew.<br />
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By this time Josias’s younger brother George Booker had followed him to the colony and had settled in the capital, Georgetown. George worked at building up a general merchandising and trading business, and acted as a shipping agent for the export of timber. A third Booker brother, William, joined them. All three brothers prospered.<br />
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By the early 1900’s, however, cotton production in Guiana was in decline; North America had overtaken it. The planters - first among them the Booker brothers - switched to another cash crop: sugar. <br />
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Before long the Booker Brothers owned most of the colony’s sugar plantations -- as well as most of the African slaves.<br />
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By now, British Guiana practically belonged to Booker Brothers and its partner company, McConnell. Booker Brothers, McConnell and Company held a tight stranglehold on the country's economy. The Booker ethic was "buy cheap, sell dear", and nothing else counted; certainly not the people who made their success possible.<br />
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Slavery had been abolished in 1838, but the freed African slaves had been replaced by imported indentured servants from India, whose lot was hardly better than that of slaves. They were kept in the most miserable conditions, worked from early morning till evening for a pittance. Work on a sugar estate is back-breaking labour; the sun was hot and the food was scarce and there was no chance at respite. Booker Bros did not care. All that mattered was profit.<br />
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<br />
The company held immense power over the colonial government. When Bookers snapped its fingers, the Government fell to its knees. It was the quintessential exploitative imperialist company. The sugar industry in particular, in the words of Ian McDonald, was a “run-down, unprofitable, inhuman, paternalistic” plantocracy, wringing every last drop of revenue from the colony. Bookers trampled through the land taking what it could. It watched while other companies failed, then snapped them up as bad debt, for a pittance. It sat like a giant spider ready to pounce, growing fatter, and uglier, by the day. It owned sugar estates, stores, shipping companies. It had a finger in everyone’s pie.<br />
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<br />
BG, as Guianese fondly called their homeland, stood not for British Guiana, the cynics murmured, but for Booker Guiana. Those who worked for the company loathed it with all their being. Those who didn’t work for it loathed it even more.<br />
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And then along came Jock.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">To Be Continued... <a href="https://sharonmaas.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-booker-prize-backstory-part-2-jock.html">The Booker Backstory, Part 2. Jock Campbell</a></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 19.0909px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">(Source: Judy Slinn and Jennifer Tanburn, The Booker Story (Andover, Jarrold Publishing, 2003)<br /><br /><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">See also:</span><br style="font-family: "Times New Roman";" /><br style="font-family: "Times New Roman";" /><a href="http://sharonmaas.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-making-of-demerara-gold.html" style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><b>The Making of Demerara Gold</b></a></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "book antiqua" , serif;">Eileen Cox – Guyanese
Royalty</span></b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGhDV0zndiPqJf3dZI7JgqlmshqFwyvIX4z8uBrITmYxN8Zqfhy9Lp4_FE-Zc_e2VdlwmcpCvhpW-skSzPZTj50XEZm92_01HkXF68aMx_Q6I2BEgMXwnMq_reQ-bV6Dp6-Tax/s1600/mumandsharon.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="731" data-original-width="430" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGhDV0zndiPqJf3dZI7JgqlmshqFwyvIX4z8uBrITmYxN8Zqfhy9Lp4_FE-Zc_e2VdlwmcpCvhpW-skSzPZTj50XEZm92_01HkXF68aMx_Q6I2BEgMXwnMq_reQ-bV6Dp6-Tax/s320/mumandsharon.jpg" width="188" /></a><span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , serif;">A few years ago, I was in Guyana visiting my mother, Eileen
Cox. She was 93, a frail, bent old
woman, physically a shadow of what she once was, but mentally still as
sharp as a razor. By this time, Mum rarely left her home in Subryanville;
indeed, she rarely ever left her bedroom, but sat there all day, near the
bedside phone, because, then as ever,
she was still President of the Guyana Consumers Association, and people still
turned to her for advice. I lived far away, in Germany, and visited when I
could, usually once a year to check on things.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , serif;">That day she had to go to
the bank, and she needed me, or rather, my arm. I helped her out of the taxi and,
at a snail’s pace, she hobbled up to the Republic Bank entrance on Water
Street, hooked onto my elbow with one arm.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , serif;">As is usual in the
morning, the Republic Bank lobby was packed. People milled about, having pulled
a number, and waited to be seated, while those seated waited to be called to the counter. But then a whisper went up: <i>It’s Eileen
Cox!</i> And the crowd before us parted like the Red Sea, and we made our slow
way forward, down a corridor of smiling faces, past calls of “Good morning Miss
Cox!” and “Hello Miss Cox!”; past autograph books held out for her to sign ---
oh wait, I got carried away there; that didn’t happen. But it really did feel
like arriving with some celebrity at the Oscars, walking up the red carpet with
my shuffling mother on my arm. Mum was served first, and nobody minded.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , serif;">And Mum was, in her own
way, a celebrity in Guyana. I’m afraid that in my younger years I never really
appreciated her; I took her for granted, as young daughters often do. But
whenever I returned to Guyana and people realized she was my mother, they never
failed to tell me how much she meant to them. How much she helped them. How
they listened out for her on the radio, or read her Consumer Advocate columns
in the Stabroek News. How they loved her. “She was a phenomenon!” “An icon!” Taxi drivers who dropped me off at
her home would say, “Wait, you’re Eileen Cox’s daughter? I drove her once!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , serif;">So yes, I am the daughter
of a Guyanese celebrity: the real kind, the deserving kind, the kind who really
DID something to deserve her fame and wasn’t just famous for fame's sake. Mum
was internationally respected for her consumer activity, invited to Consumer
seminars and conferences around the world, from Chile to India to Canada.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , serif;"><br />
</span></b><span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , serif;">She<b> </b></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "book antiqua" , serif;">lived a public life, and her accomplishments are well known:
starting with her activities in the Public Service Union, in the Credit Union,
her advocacy for women's rights, and most of all, as President of the Consumers
Association right up to her resignation aged 93. As a public figure she was
outspoken and very direct; but she had another side to her, a private side,
that others did not see.</span><span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , serif;"><br />
<br />
</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "book antiqua" , serif;">It would be
true to say that though she was not a Christian in name, she very much embodied
true Christian values and ideals. She has always lived a most simple life,
never expecting special favours, never living beyond her means. She loved
flowers, nature, the fresh air of the sea wall. Up to her very last day, when
she could no longer walk, her carer Sego would carry her downstairs so that she
could enjoy the evening Atlantic breeze.</span><span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , serif;"><br />
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S</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "book antiqua" , serif;">he never
wanted more than what she had. She cared about people regardless of race,
religion, political affiliation, gender. She was without wile and without
guile; a divorcee by choice, she was married to her mission, the well-being of
every single person in Guyana.</span><span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , serif;"><br />
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A</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "book antiqua" , serif;">t times,
when I was a child, I was even jealous because I thought she spent more time
helping others than being with me. But in the end it was good for me, because
it gave me a sense of independence and adventure, of daring to seek the
unconventional. I learned that selflessness, not selfishness, is the true
secret to a fulfilled life.</span><span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "book antiqua" , serif;">Which doesn't mean being
a doormat. She taught me that there is
strength and dignity in humility, in putting the needs of others before your
own, in caring, in serving. These are
the values she lived truly all her life. Though she was not typical for women
of her generation, these are all typically female strengths, subtle strengths
that tend to go unnoticed and undervalued, crushed by the typically male
strengths of domination and aggression. Yet water wears away stone, and women
have at all times and all places been the very backbone of society, precisely
through those quieter strengths and values. For Mum, these strengths brought
results. Men adored, respected, and bowed before her.</span><span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , serif;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , serif;">I'll end with an anecdote
provided by my cousin Mirri's husband, Peter Halder, a story that provides yet
another, less serious side to my mother. In Peter's own words:</span><span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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“Mirri's parents held an Old Year's Night Party every year to celebrate Mirri's
birthday but ostensibly to bring the family together for the last day of the
year and thereby begin the new year in togetherness. Aunt Eileen attended each
Party. She danced with Mirri's father, her brothers, especially the late Ivor,
and I had one or two with her.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #111111; font-family: "book antiqua" , serif;">Imagine my shock
when a popular song was playing, she held out her hand to me for a dance,
and during it she let go of me and began to do The Hustle in grand style.
I was at a loss and just stood and watched. "Come on Peter," she said
with a smile, " don't tell me a young man like you doesn't know how to do
The Hustle."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #111111; font-family: "book antiqua" , serif;"> Frankly I knew but was too embarrassed to do
it, especially the hip to hip bump with
someone I looked up to. She lived her life in such a manner that she was
regarded as the Queen of Subryanville.”</span><span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #111111; font-family: "book antiqua" , serif;">Yes: Mum was Guyanese
royalty, for it is the heart that really rules. She was a living example of
what we all could be to make our nation truly great. To regain our reputation
as The Land of Hospitality.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #111111; font-family: "book antiqua" , serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span><span style="color: #111111; font-family: "book antiqua" , serif; font-size: 16px;">Mum died in her sleep in November 2014. She lives on in the hearts of many.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #111111; font-family: "book antiqua" , serif;">She was cremated three years ago almost to the day today. RIP, mum!</span></div>
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Sharon Maashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17242218167706605535noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28613189.post-2949625223955666422020-02-01T18:08:00.003+00:002021-05-13T10:48:05.662+01:00The Making of Demerara Gold<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b>Albion Estate: From Field to Factory</b></div>
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This is the former Campbell Plantation, the home of Jock Cambell. For the time being, just a collection of photos taken in November 2012. It's about time I published them!</div>
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<b>Staff Living Quarters</b></div>
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<b> Albion Estate Guest House</b></div>
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<b>Guest House Cook!</b></div>
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<b>This 90-something lady used to work in the fields back in colonial days. She's now retired (of course!) and well looked after by her family.</b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8WZ0HzgvK8_B_Recrbg2YiNGyVFUGF3G2S9OIGOcdacphZHifVKIQhc8c5VAaEOrbvOaB3nQmrQkJ0Ugt_teKT1Sb1y8hpVPhll12zCd1tdkLrDXJn58tpeLF6W70od0PEemp/s1600/IMG_0006.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8WZ0HzgvK8_B_Recrbg2YiNGyVFUGF3G2S9OIGOcdacphZHifVKIQhc8c5VAaEOrbvOaB3nQmrQkJ0Ugt_teKT1Sb1y8hpVPhll12zCd1tdkLrDXJn58tpeLF6W70od0PEemp/w477-h640/IMG_0006.jpg" width="477" /></a></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>On the canefields: mechanics repairing a tractor.</b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2Hbsq0Fu7G_eV3BzGNoETuKs8haDH9gkIC-QGE0EA0STO4oBp2q83at0B6NSuFfkVBSFmk9IPTB0p3HNChuTQcYY0pYXWxsQ8EeVLBHNOuQzjXSc4lCUODLMGWDqTbMtxN3X7/s1600/IMG_0010.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="477" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2Hbsq0Fu7G_eV3BzGNoETuKs8haDH9gkIC-QGE0EA0STO4oBp2q83at0B6NSuFfkVBSFmk9IPTB0p3HNChuTQcYY0pYXWxsQ8EeVLBHNOuQzjXSc4lCUODLMGWDqTbMtxN3X7/w640-h477/IMG_0010.jpg" width="640" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHDEsWTrAbDDR47MPvUF2b2iqJQ8WCfKJ4P5iNi7JW1h5mPrK8ZkQZkaANaorvu2N35GEKRAjrxaDX_wScqzPW8thLhbxXUFNz68IokIO0Jl9mRoX-z8ghFizg_a3R2782kfIX/s1600/IMG_0015.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="477" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHDEsWTrAbDDR47MPvUF2b2iqJQ8WCfKJ4P5iNi7JW1h5mPrK8ZkQZkaANaorvu2N35GEKRAjrxaDX_wScqzPW8thLhbxXUFNz68IokIO0Jl9mRoX-z8ghFizg_a3R2782kfIX/w640-h477/IMG_0015.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>The punts.</b></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCZREejHfzx4V9gvvj_GRMPjWlKys7BzUEKNHwPEBEX1lEpIBOn_TDLVcf-VQt_2gr1P71bbhs8fIHGK0QVH7OithrRIVLtS3EezoC6PXK7c4VBT-6GV-q9AA_DqkhsXI_vpb0/s1600/IMG_0012.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="477" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCZREejHfzx4V9gvvj_GRMPjWlKys7BzUEKNHwPEBEX1lEpIBOn_TDLVcf-VQt_2gr1P71bbhs8fIHGK0QVH7OithrRIVLtS3EezoC6PXK7c4VBT-6GV-q9AA_DqkhsXI_vpb0/w640-h477/IMG_0012.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhyjHuD6TRGyPc9nMUegphSB_nvqKPJ21IprDinOHqTdW-gatf5rTHEZk9skaF3VNnRhvPvt5yJuiH2BbvRKXLOGMQjIVh2HTUa-sf8UqCDXuULzzE9ydFZxeMCctqSmw05hsl/s1600/IMG_0014.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="477" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhyjHuD6TRGyPc9nMUegphSB_nvqKPJ21IprDinOHqTdW-gatf5rTHEZk9skaF3VNnRhvPvt5yJuiH2BbvRKXLOGMQjIVh2HTUa-sf8UqCDXuULzzE9ydFZxeMCctqSmw05hsl/w640-h477/IMG_0014.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<b>There are two kinds of canals; drainage and transport. You can see them both here:</b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIiIz60sZhK0QO7GtPAouvgNUhDqZVH38HV3VxWkrBVPLIQG1-tkVFWUYNNHLn3h1rQrsmoMTOvPOgPmPubBFeCe2Lr9UXuD28wFwqHNvIbxJq2SAaS7eKHnWa0nv4eCOSR5YE/s1600/IMG_0016.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="477" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIiIz60sZhK0QO7GtPAouvgNUhDqZVH38HV3VxWkrBVPLIQG1-tkVFWUYNNHLn3h1rQrsmoMTOvPOgPmPubBFeCe2Lr9UXuD28wFwqHNvIbxJq2SAaS7eKHnWa0nv4eCOSR5YE/w640-h477/IMG_0016.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
And here:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsudukb4hNxWOjTcnnrkqK1L4jHvGIrQWE_6LXItJtsqQQsa2bRFvo-X54DKwWQRWM5IW6MIuOVD8oaWPa2YhCOGHAPgZrtB3YsDrACeXjYK_T_ke8-9DlFtRU8XFQW-EPMDIi/s1600/IMG_0017.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="477" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsudukb4hNxWOjTcnnrkqK1L4jHvGIrQWE_6LXItJtsqQQsa2bRFvo-X54DKwWQRWM5IW6MIuOVD8oaWPa2YhCOGHAPgZrtB3YsDrACeXjYK_T_ke8-9DlFtRU8XFQW-EPMDIi/w640-h477/IMG_0017.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfN1bb9O6KZu8nDeiG8geTiFTTF5igc5URHbU0ZiWhexGNHXG8xEbGTtHgHhYWRlZd_ktTJoAt0jh__eZg7LZfPfXFkFr0dxYZC-E1Pa0FxyNA0i4ZuFWdFm0yEHS2xeIZO68i/s1600/IMG_0018.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="477" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfN1bb9O6KZu8nDeiG8geTiFTTF5igc5URHbU0ZiWhexGNHXG8xEbGTtHgHhYWRlZd_ktTJoAt0jh__eZg7LZfPfXFkFr0dxYZC-E1Pa0FxyNA0i4ZuFWdFm0yEHS2xeIZO68i/w640-h477/IMG_0018.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHEH1UkyAz3GBy6GqL8gE8vpY5r7zFcE0zbaamX9InDfM-o-e4ZD3aaFYhYniimfSW9LaiqZgaXeZcwdKjWM4BJcClP_bB_fXDI9omSgN42Dhsrf5bfBWK9BwWfLOVfNBV8s9D/s1600/IMG_0019.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="477" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHEH1UkyAz3GBy6GqL8gE8vpY5r7zFcE0zbaamX9InDfM-o-e4ZD3aaFYhYniimfSW9LaiqZgaXeZcwdKjWM4BJcClP_bB_fXDI9omSgN42Dhsrf5bfBWK9BwWfLOVfNBV8s9D/w640-h477/IMG_0019.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGPblJlezSngxl1dct_TV8J3NYJTasOZY2dgPbB8cYGR5d99YuuPXvuAa3miHMQ8VwMCiyqstoC5Wmal3SEcqX-zEQiXkj6TaXkDifpdUWEytu7BwwjaWa_KPberqTeRNK-i1b/s1600/IMG_0020.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="477" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGPblJlezSngxl1dct_TV8J3NYJTasOZY2dgPbB8cYGR5d99YuuPXvuAa3miHMQ8VwMCiyqstoC5Wmal3SEcqX-zEQiXkj6TaXkDifpdUWEytu7BwwjaWa_KPberqTeRNK-i1b/w640-h477/IMG_0020.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<b>Transport bus for sugar workers.</b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVvLWtSyceN89HVeLw4hfhQgdYxPX8wPb2OZc9ABOSd44-0RswVO3BYeMfeGlIwVbiZRE9LgN2Grba-qeEXrszf5HWjhCj65DO7BJ8nFO2Km433Cp3y50_RBvH32IOlSPm7ct_/s1600/IMG_0021.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="477" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVvLWtSyceN89HVeLw4hfhQgdYxPX8wPb2OZc9ABOSd44-0RswVO3BYeMfeGlIwVbiZRE9LgN2Grba-qeEXrszf5HWjhCj65DO7BJ8nFO2Km433Cp3y50_RBvH32IOlSPm7ct_/w640-h477/IMG_0021.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq12bElqO115FJxzuDkiseVW5Tnvrx3knFeWfpN-zpZcWn_jVw2ChfFDUIJycnIKUMwdFJ5SBMKIFOqoUtLZIN28Sa-ryHIbsOPYDwHZl66iPglJdMNQIZI6WrudgsY7GXHikw/s1600/IMG_0022.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="477" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq12bElqO115FJxzuDkiseVW5Tnvrx3knFeWfpN-zpZcWn_jVw2ChfFDUIJycnIKUMwdFJ5SBMKIFOqoUtLZIN28Sa-ryHIbsOPYDwHZl66iPglJdMNQIZI6WrudgsY7GXHikw/w640-h477/IMG_0022.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Going home; it's been a hard day's night.</b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjViPT_GhBhy2oUxPekdgiAWi2uJ8KL7y-4Sk9TujZ2pTziOzzWAB8EWWSrcnNgu2E6bgNMFGQj1uMa8j1N00V_VRsiI9wG0qZeDY_IZehwHbvj3Q2poSMfmVRgeCk6mfvIEPhe/s1600/IMG_0023.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="477" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjViPT_GhBhy2oUxPekdgiAWi2uJ8KL7y-4Sk9TujZ2pTziOzzWAB8EWWSrcnNgu2E6bgNMFGQj1uMa8j1N00V_VRsiI9wG0qZeDY_IZehwHbvj3Q2poSMfmVRgeCk6mfvIEPhe/w640-h477/IMG_0023.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcufSzKh6nQgUG7jIfbBkgXdh1QcmfQeQNAZXP2zuCcKNt_LKGVHokgvDNwomii_BxhjzFFB-c32xWQgznGBdL4ZG-zSGSsb8L_iSCKFs3tonEmovwVR3yv1omyEaCDxm5Zagu/s1600/IMG_0024.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="477" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcufSzKh6nQgUG7jIfbBkgXdh1QcmfQeQNAZXP2zuCcKNt_LKGVHokgvDNwomii_BxhjzFFB-c32xWQgznGBdL4ZG-zSGSsb8L_iSCKFs3tonEmovwVR3yv1omyEaCDxm5Zagu/w640-h477/IMG_0024.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP8GMKcuLoN9qscfAohHP7m5hNtaOG95St1jLtqZ5CIJ81zlaTyyRgdT0OwOicO6_MHjIU99dACWJ8JqFEaltNjAp32p-nhNgB8FCKbeqFZ7OIVT6DO21UFD2xqXqKlXYKZ-jR/s1600/IMG_0025.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="477" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP8GMKcuLoN9qscfAohHP7m5hNtaOG95St1jLtqZ5CIJ81zlaTyyRgdT0OwOicO6_MHjIU99dACWJ8JqFEaltNjAp32p-nhNgB8FCKbeqFZ7OIVT6DO21UFD2xqXqKlXYKZ-jR/w640-h477/IMG_0025.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN-LPzVvHDdSLrjNDT_7v5Wmtd0Xe1dJ9ksWgAN0L7KKEtdIsGBoUNzSAO8M-z48XZqsI5ncxbas4nKsfrOTgenlRxn3vcXyHaoOCk0mKC2jN22qiN76R0fxfnMN76yy_S6fIQ/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1195" data-original-width="1600" height="478" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN-LPzVvHDdSLrjNDT_7v5Wmtd0Xe1dJ9ksWgAN0L7KKEtdIsGBoUNzSAO8M-z48XZqsI5ncxbas4nKsfrOTgenlRxn3vcXyHaoOCk0mKC2jN22qiN76R0fxfnMN76yy_S6fIQ/w640-h478/image.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: center;">
<b>On the field:</b></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgl1iPoPj3NvPEgm_wARZXyWWIDtJmUMxMwke7y5RBAqv7NQZ3C9ARAA1-LYJkBlS1Zjdc-4GK6_7gTj_BfMalwTQfHic8T49qWlNeSyJ2mKqdmTxzBfnRQB8x6pVKjAkselwE/s1600/IMG_0027.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="477" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgl1iPoPj3NvPEgm_wARZXyWWIDtJmUMxMwke7y5RBAqv7NQZ3C9ARAA1-LYJkBlS1Zjdc-4GK6_7gTj_BfMalwTQfHic8T49qWlNeSyJ2mKqdmTxzBfnRQB8x6pVKjAkselwE/w640-h477/IMG_0027.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Punts on their way to the factory:</b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC7Tzez1uysCMLtT2p6DhIm1PSZixglPs_VUPGNB-x2Rg5T8Zv5Lm955i-0SpkrUZNjX3a0jFWZ75ZLo5iMJ9h81QCisuaN5P3Rf7XIMjOCsybus9UCZ8lXwZmx16gqf30B399/s1600/IMG_0028.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="477" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC7Tzez1uysCMLtT2p6DhIm1PSZixglPs_VUPGNB-x2Rg5T8Zv5Lm955i-0SpkrUZNjX3a0jFWZ75ZLo5iMJ9h81QCisuaN5P3Rf7XIMjOCsybus9UCZ8lXwZmx16gqf30B399/w640-h477/IMG_0028.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">See also: The Jock Campbell Story</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f2fdff; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 15.4px;" trbidi="on"><div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://sharonmaas.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-page-turning-booker-prize-backstory.html" style="color: #00be92; text-align: left; text-decoration-line: none;">Part 1: Slavery, James Bond, and an Aristocratic Scottish hero</a></div><a href="http://sharonmaas.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-page-turning-booker-prize-backstory.html" style="color: #10ff8f;">Part 2: Jock Campbell moves into the Booker Stronghold</a><br /><a href="https://sharonmaas.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-booker-backstory-part-3-reform.html">Part 3: Reform, Reform, Reform</a></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f2fdff; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 15.4px;" trbidi="on"><a href="https://sharonmaas.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-booker-backstory-part-3-reform.html" style="color: #00be92; text-decoration-line: none;">Part 4: The Charisma of Jock Campbell</a></div></div>
Sharon Maashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17242218167706605535noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28613189.post-21086181824662122312019-11-19T18:27:00.001+00:002020-11-12T17:46:58.446+00:00The Sugar Planter's Daughter<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sugar-Planters-Daughter-heartbreaking-Chronicles-ebook/dp/B01FPVDKBE/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1U9GZBN9675JQ&dchild=1&keywords=the+sugar+planters+daughter&qid=1585298893&sprefix=sugar+planter%27%2Caps%2C142&sr=8-1">The Sugar Planter's Daughter: Book Two in the trilogy</a></div>
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<b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">A breathtaking and unforgettable story of a woman torn between her family and the man she loves.</b><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">1912, British Guiana, South America: Winnie Cox</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> is about to marry </span><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">George Quint,</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> the love of her life. Born into a life of luxury and privilege on her father’s sugar plantation, Winnie has turned against her family by choosing to be with George – a poor black postman from the slums.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Winnie may be living in poverty, but she’s got what sister </span><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Johanna</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> doesn’t have: a loving husband and a beautiful family. And despite Johanna running her family’s sugar plantation, Winnie will always be their mother’s favourite daughter, a bitter pill for Johanna to swallow.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Then Winnie’s son falls ill and she must travel to Venezuela desperate for a cure. With her sister away, Johanna finds herself increasingly drawn to George. But he only has eyes for Winnie. Johanna, stung by the rejection and the fragile state of her own marriage, is out for revenge – no matter how devastating the consequences.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">A compelling and evocative story of betrayal, temptation and buried secrets that will captivate fans of Dinah Jefferies and Kate Furnivall.</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"></span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /></div>
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What readers are saying about The Sugar Planter's Daughter:</h2>
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<br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">'Heartbreaking, poignant and intriguing ...This truly is a powerful story that will fascinate and </span><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">engross you from the very beginning until the very end.</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">'</span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">What's Better than Books</i><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">'The writing is </span><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">stunningly evocative and sensual</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> ...I just felt immersed in the story and setting from the start.' </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">The Book Trail</i><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">'Exceptional ... evokes a whole range of emotions' </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Batty About Books</i><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">'</span><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">A beautifully written story of love against all the odds.</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">' </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Portobello Book Blog</i><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">'</span><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">A wonderful and heartrending book</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">' </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Sean's Book Reviews</i><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">'</span><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">A beautiful mesmerising work</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> ... I was completely transported' </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Krafti Reader</i><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">'</span><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">A terrific writer</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">' Barbara Erskine</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">'</span><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">A page-turning story</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">, full of humanity, crossing cultures and continents, reminiscent of Andrea Levy.’ Katie Fforde</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">'</span><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">A beautiful story about tragic love</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> and ultimately about forgiveness… with powerful messages about love, life and learning to let things go in order to be happy.’ </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Life With Joy</i><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">‘</span><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Rich in detail and emotion</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> and has the most beautiful and real description of loss I have ever read.’ </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Shaz’s Book Blog</i></div>
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Sharon Maashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17242218167706605535noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28613189.post-22709819059506882732017-07-07T15:15:00.006+01:002017-07-08T11:39:02.060+01:00Writing Retreat in Sri Lanka<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I've been here a week now, and settled in nicely after a rocky start in which I almost died of thirst on my first night! I will be here for six weeks. I will be doing no sightseeing until my daughter arrives on the 6th August. I'm here to write; or rather, edit. The first draft of my next manusript is finished and I'm now going through the marked-up version supplied by my editor. Deadline: 10th July! Which means I have two more days, as of today, to finish. After that there is a pause, and then proofreading. We hope to get the entire editing process over by the time I leave on 13th August.</div>
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But in a place like this, work seems almost like play. This is the garden of the villa I'm staying at:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP7sqZ78gkmulNYva8AfiUJijfB-9IlVhxSN988Ax6zm7rZDYwpO5Bq9XQbSYE-f-Mv0nJMAJ2iaQJnutTWbbIgTr-MbDkrtd466xZVP0VhnIPI_68Bs72Yr_OyX0yh9ARXYUm/s1600/20170630_145519.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP7sqZ78gkmulNYva8AfiUJijfB-9IlVhxSN988Ax6zm7rZDYwpO5Bq9XQbSYE-f-Mv0nJMAJ2iaQJnutTWbbIgTr-MbDkrtd466xZVP0VhnIPI_68Bs72Yr_OyX0yh9ARXYUm/s640/20170630_145519.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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And this is my "office", the dining table where I deposit myself with laptop every morning. I work until the battery is empty...<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2Q6gEu30j8Ax6nDpuVvBWUv19BUARrtESCaAEosvya5pnmjoeHJyLN2E0EfCiY6Y0_-pDmO0D1hje1M0nrlHUSI_j3VCqIzdyaddyYovCkYNrj643zSj8i8RJ68JQ2KOb2WM-/s1600/20170707_094717.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2Q6gEu30j8Ax6nDpuVvBWUv19BUARrtESCaAEosvya5pnmjoeHJyLN2E0EfCiY6Y0_-pDmO0D1hje1M0nrlHUSI_j3VCqIzdyaddyYovCkYNrj643zSj8i8RJ68JQ2KOb2WM-/s640/20170707_094717.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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...after which I take a rest, in the red hammock. My room is that edifice on the right; it's separate from the main house, at the end of a wide L-shaped terrace, so it's a bit private, which I like.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP2Mb0gJRL70yHzU-Cg-e5FTANkLWiWrQuvgT8Vn4jyzznNJ5nQhGlojRVsatmVMu7tRnJl5oCmYt21wY-hsuzPn2KDvQMtpZ5G8Tfa6k_wsb6Ff-1ufiPpUBDi0DEcK87FKXB/s1600/20170707_170545.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP2Mb0gJRL70yHzU-Cg-e5FTANkLWiWrQuvgT8Vn4jyzznNJ5nQhGlojRVsatmVMu7tRnJl5oCmYt21wY-hsuzPn2KDvQMtpZ5G8Tfa6k_wsb6Ff-1ufiPpUBDi0DEcK87FKXB/s640/20170707_170545.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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This is the house as seen from the gate:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj6RCauFPDCjEqNY1eU8smLk8ufMk59YQOqqkiRs249P-nZtoJi3iwkPI0mdx4WNn06U9cAY-FmmzPmfF4ZWaFktEQKgTnQQdcPuql95SwBDyuwpqCYhX5oIC0Tey7rhYAggfp/s1600/20170707_170444.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj6RCauFPDCjEqNY1eU8smLk8ufMk59YQOqqkiRs249P-nZtoJi3iwkPI0mdx4WNn06U9cAY-FmmzPmfF4ZWaFktEQKgTnQQdcPuql95SwBDyuwpqCYhX5oIC0Tey7rhYAggfp/s640/20170707_170444.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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The garden is huge, and adjoins another huge property which is just a coconut field. This in the middle of the bustling city of Negombo.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid4igbHIogenJwZF8rUHFs77GFPueOSzecJ9skxMgSfiCHt6zJKtZvD8Ih5yXIlNmFCQlGemQHJ54tJr_n9yAbTlzh2hgAuX_GNGrqMD35_2mENOaI4lyQxVvxnkVHYwE1CbYd/s1600/20170707_170441.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid4igbHIogenJwZF8rUHFs77GFPueOSzecJ9skxMgSfiCHt6zJKtZvD8Ih5yXIlNmFCQlGemQHJ54tJr_n9yAbTlzh2hgAuX_GNGrqMD35_2mENOaI4lyQxVvxnkVHYwE1CbYd/s640/20170707_170441.jpg" width="640" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQcrw-HB-ykJ7DQ6pl2MGtupZlwIjnvJMb-G74hIH7x57idiJJAzNOChuKDZmtqV-Fopa9dNy6GixpAwLeREMFZvNX7cOt7VCgBMhxC8LsMOicDIoFS-dC-9AJWwrMjM2L5d74/s1600/20170707_170506.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQcrw-HB-ykJ7DQ6pl2MGtupZlwIjnvJMb-G74hIH7x57idiJJAzNOChuKDZmtqV-Fopa9dNy6GixpAwLeREMFZvNX7cOt7VCgBMhxC8LsMOicDIoFS-dC-9AJWwrMjM2L5d74/s640/20170707_170506.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Sharon Maashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17242218167706605535noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28613189.post-46065181543796827892016-07-16T12:04:00.002+01:002020-11-12T17:55:35.522+00:00The countdown starts!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Just six days to go till publication day!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinpj_oE6AjvyEX1XMQi0JRbPTR4YavOx7ujJbWeqjIZ9R8YgsTGy3iokM7p2tVRh6MQUjyyqVOtAr7CJvECSILXEAtMiXEZYGYwWcf4sdICwJz4QvRC_GnbNLhO_3ZjcnoouDV/s1600/sugarplanter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinpj_oE6AjvyEX1XMQi0JRbPTR4YavOx7ujJbWeqjIZ9R8YgsTGy3iokM7p2tVRh6MQUjyyqVOtAr7CJvECSILXEAtMiXEZYGYwWcf4sdICwJz4QvRC_GnbNLhO_3ZjcnoouDV/s640/sugarplanter.jpg" width="416" /></a></div>
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1695049967?book_show_action=false">Here's a Goodreads review</a>:<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Excerpt:</span></blockquote>
<em style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">The Sugar Planter’s Daughter</em><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"> by Sharon Maas is a deep and heartrending story of love and loss; betrayal and forgiveness; secrets and lies. I felt deeply involved in Winnie's and George’s lives; the lives of George’s family and their encompassment of Winnie into their hearts. But Yoyo on the other hand – she had such bitterness in her heart; she made me so angry at times - I didn’t like her at all! This is my first by this author and though I found the beginning of the book quite slow at times, I enjoyed the experience. Highly recommended.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Available on Amazon on pre-order now, at other digital retailer and in print on publication day, 22nd July 2016.</span></div>
Sharon Maashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17242218167706605535noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28613189.post-73674159034345136832015-12-27T10:54:00.001+00:002015-12-27T10:54:04.784+00:00Reviews: Musings Straight From the Heart<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b>A couple of reviews in India. </b><br />
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This one is from the blog <a href="http://www.privytrifles.co.in/2015/12/book-review-of-marriageable-age-by.html">Reviews and Musings,</a> by Privy Trifles (Namrata)<br />
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The story is beautiful with such vivid descriptions that it makes you travel along from one continent to another with the characters. I enjoyed the beauty of the language the most, it is so enticing that it was simply thrilling to keep reading it. I enjoy such novels a lot, light on language, heavy on plot and emotions making it a perfectly enjoyable read on every page. From the pre-independence to the post independence era the detailing is very well described which speaks volumes about the author's research behind this book. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggF9fdaQgbZmGfGo6maKMH7zQo0VEmjfz0vB_xbUnmb3n8p1e3djQXQrFa1U4-XZU4eIl_vJVFXTBJ4fNlRUkHGZfDYZYjNpGsnmZfq10rNOSxhS50KdTgJxgHFQbruaeQblQO/s1600/OMAcoverIndia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggF9fdaQgbZmGfGo6maKMH7zQo0VEmjfz0vB_xbUnmb3n8p1e3djQXQrFa1U4-XZU4eIl_vJVFXTBJ4fNlRUkHGZfDYZYjNpGsnmZfq10rNOSxhS50KdTgJxgHFQbruaeQblQO/s320/OMAcoverIndia.jpg" width="206" /></a></div>
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Every page is so well narrated that you want to keep turning page after page to know the secrets hidden behind the whole plot. I stayed awake in the night just to know what happened because the excitement was just too much to contain.</div>
<a href="http://www.privytrifles.co.in/2015/12/book-review-of-marriageable-age-by.html">Read more. </a></blockquote>
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This is from the Blog <a href="http://www.artihonrao.net/2015/12/review-of-of-marriageable-age-by-sharon.html">Straight from the Heart,</a> by Arti Honrao:<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px; line-height: 21.56px; text-align: justify;">Cover of the book is what helps the reader to decide whether to pick up the book to read or not. When I opened the package and looked at the cover; I knew my decision to review this book was right and I was going to enjoy reading it. For me, the woman on the cover was a strong woman; a woman who has been through a lot in life and has her own secrets. The synopsis mentions two names 'Savitri' & 'Saroj' but as I read the book I could identify the woman on the cover to be 'Savitri'. <a href="http://www.artihonrao.net/2015/12/review-of-of-marriageable-age-by-sharon.html">Read more</a></span></blockquote>
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Sharon Maashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17242218167706605535noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28613189.post-35674878455770526292015-12-27T10:51:00.001+00:002017-03-06T10:40:58.679+00:00Old World Charm<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcNwqaOTWSz14cN9doDE8PRv16MbCDwh96fkN4glOApndOHO8Zh520lm58nRGmphKV_LGcRW_7mOUpS4eyPUtDhFG0rONey5zLTwTBZwdlpqad_Ynpa0vyEQTJev_SCsCcNgrN/s1600/OMAcoverIndia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcNwqaOTWSz14cN9doDE8PRv16MbCDwh96fkN4glOApndOHO8Zh520lm58nRGmphKV_LGcRW_7mOUpS4eyPUtDhFG0rONey5zLTwTBZwdlpqad_Ynpa0vyEQTJev_SCsCcNgrN/s320/OMAcoverIndia.jpg" width="206" /></a><a href="http://www.gypsyonexploration.com/of-marriageable-age/">I love this review,</a> because the author Ramya Mishra says that OMA retains that hard-to-find Old World Charm. Indeed: that's what I hoped to reflectin the pages of this book. Our world has turned so hard, so cynical. The heart needs replenioshment form time to time, and that can be found in the pages of a novel. Here's an excerpt from her review:<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #555555; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.5px;">After ages, I have read a book, which retained the old world charm. Yes folks it talks about love, but not the kind of love that today’s generation believes in. It speaks of love where, whether the person is around or not but the love never fades off. Hats off to the author Sharon Maas, for writing such a beautiful story which extends across globe. <a href="http://www.gypsyonexploration.com/of-marriageable-age/">Read more</a></span></blockquote>
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Sharon Maashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17242218167706605535noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28613189.post-32077117145056030142015-12-27T10:38:00.001+00:002015-12-27T10:38:00.616+00:00Everywhere in India!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
OMa -- as I like to call Of marriageable Age -- is now all over the place in India.<br />
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Here are a few of the displays:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCTFOUV5lMKGJcBoyMP1_EV5R6Ko43p7qfGZglTSQeAU5yWdan55aCXNVHi2WqabsxKHJQ_fXJ0XWiDXZdAfHqA3oPjaFBHnOqhrvqEkJEzfq8lAeuOl6Ls7ykmaBX_rOXcRyy/s1600/6b4bea09-ed70-4900-939a-28a4674dda3e.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCTFOUV5lMKGJcBoyMP1_EV5R6Ko43p7qfGZglTSQeAU5yWdan55aCXNVHi2WqabsxKHJQ_fXJ0XWiDXZdAfHqA3oPjaFBHnOqhrvqEkJEzfq8lAeuOl6Ls7ykmaBX_rOXcRyy/s400/6b4bea09-ed70-4900-939a-28a4674dda3e.png" width="298" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRjH_YKGPGAWDYZULhHvDlD9qIN8RwCsSVMfFdl0ZqX7w_7DATdoqwWDrrJAEBXDp7cRRzYKI5lN-az_ciDNTvwhkuMiHd2S6SMz3kr0xeH0cfsvQuFjOQAOw1a5H71DUUwRTi/s1600/Amrit+Book+Co..jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRjH_YKGPGAWDYZULhHvDlD9qIN8RwCsSVMfFdl0ZqX7w_7DATdoqwWDrrJAEBXDp7cRRzYKI5lN-az_ciDNTvwhkuMiHd2S6SMz3kr0xeH0cfsvQuFjOQAOw1a5H71DUUwRTi/s400/Amrit+Book+Co..jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLI7NOGQP_el-6NaXIk20kx7O0w0eiRP5MvasZ9ndRT3SdEmbHhO6Xscd9PNkUUebOb5uoM62fpNXFAgPncPWDRSCZLpnKx4HKc6yu-bZjf98-C5B4Vlb4FQ6Jc0XdC7QjvDCQ/s1600/Full+Circle+Book+Shop+-4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLI7NOGQP_el-6NaXIk20kx7O0w0eiRP5MvasZ9ndRT3SdEmbHhO6Xscd9PNkUUebOb5uoM62fpNXFAgPncPWDRSCZLpnKx4HKc6yu-bZjf98-C5B4Vlb4FQ6Jc0XdC7QjvDCQ/s400/Full+Circle+Book+Shop+-4.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho-xFAutkrdDK82Z6xReIPgHftI5QtnyyoSEWvET0zrzKGBcktkdnZoja9MbqZJMZ_1joCS4hyphenhyphenba7bByOAvlWhfcGaPc1CN8e0VcgprEP5GpObfwWN9hVIbw-GZ1FWnlG8Ltl7/s1600/IMG-20151124-WA0015-bangalore.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho-xFAutkrdDK82Z6xReIPgHftI5QtnyyoSEWvET0zrzKGBcktkdnZoja9MbqZJMZ_1joCS4hyphenhyphenba7bByOAvlWhfcGaPc1CN8e0VcgprEP5GpObfwWN9hVIbw-GZ1FWnlG8Ltl7/s400/IMG-20151124-WA0015-bangalore.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghhuW_bAHxVxbaA7th3sJsT6WQuiFKEl21yBnh1j6_f7fl-oZOtQrqIJCfxlq5txIOfAXeTTOEseMM5HwZxO7ZCH1sawIPRwX814XpRIGvVTfRNkq1Ja7UTIrJva0Xav27cSPE/s1600/IMG_20151109_165839-+Bangalore.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghhuW_bAHxVxbaA7th3sJsT6WQuiFKEl21yBnh1j6_f7fl-oZOtQrqIJCfxlq5txIOfAXeTTOEseMM5HwZxO7ZCH1sawIPRwX814XpRIGvVTfRNkq1Ja7UTIrJva0Xav27cSPE/s400/IMG_20151109_165839-+Bangalore.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvsITrL21FmzDv0jS2Jj8T0EtdhYv4N8sBZfQv88v5PFKqXSrPfvuEoY0YYpxal8Kq49zcsKAas2ZmtjyxqchDK02CjgRhQfhk2S2Q1Z8KavRSvIVv-aNKK8PECvmGYr50b8qE/s1600/of+Marriageable+Age.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvsITrL21FmzDv0jS2Jj8T0EtdhYv4N8sBZfQv88v5PFKqXSrPfvuEoY0YYpxal8Kq49zcsKAas2ZmtjyxqchDK02CjgRhQfhk2S2Q1Z8KavRSvIVv-aNKK8PECvmGYr50b8qE/s400/of+Marriageable+Age.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrTP1TgtwIhVSrUvhBivtS23YbgdG4Iv6Ba1cLtx1Ca6LVFMBCqLr9Ec4GjpB7WwXMXfbHjSS5L-GroV812K7kzdluAefzYD4Z4oDTHvHhL1iLXriPtUL0ZfjX5dGsr81OJkfp/s1600/window+display+%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrTP1TgtwIhVSrUvhBivtS23YbgdG4Iv6Ba1cLtx1Ca6LVFMBCqLr9Ec4GjpB7WwXMXfbHjSS5L-GroV812K7kzdluAefzYD4Z4oDTHvHhL1iLXriPtUL0ZfjX5dGsr81OJkfp/s400/window+display+%25281%2529.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Sharon Maashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17242218167706605535noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28613189.post-78468395116041568382015-12-27T10:28:00.003+00:002015-12-27T10:28:45.986+00:00Now in India!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b>I'd like to share the beautiful new cover of the Indian edition of Of Marriageable Age:</b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_n8INaME7hAIdAkj9bDulaV5JC0PI1X6YV585EU8ivuLjtDfBbtVeIAdFkdr19WZvp8_OUoXsai7xA41nSEOf67fY6OAACpruBqXarIA3dZ5SVQdCmy0aandYH9uuYMIqDC-e/s1600/OMAcoverIndia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_n8INaME7hAIdAkj9bDulaV5JC0PI1X6YV585EU8ivuLjtDfBbtVeIAdFkdr19WZvp8_OUoXsai7xA41nSEOf67fY6OAACpruBqXarIA3dZ5SVQdCmy0aandYH9uuYMIqDC-e/s640/OMAcoverIndia.jpg" width="412" /></a></div>
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Sharon Maashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17242218167706605535noreply@blogger.com0