Empire Windrush docking at Tilbury Docks, Essex, on 21 June 1948

Do You Want The Truth Or Something Beautiful? The Empire Windrush story.

19th June 2022 / 23 minutes of reading / Bajan People, Barbados Post World War II, Black History Month / 3 Comments

Only five of the 1,027 passengers on board the Empire Windrush began their journey in Barbados. Bill Hern writes about them here and explodes some myths about the iconic ship and its historic journey to England in June 1948. Background:The Windrush scandal erupted in 2018 where people mainly of Caribbean descent were wrongly classified as …

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Children of the Barbados Ashkenazi Jewish Community circa1954

Peddlers All: Stories of the First Ashkenazi Jewish Settlers in Barbados

16th June 2022 / 11 minutes of reading / Bajan History, Bajan People, Barbados during World War I and World War II, Barbados Genealogy, Barbados Post World War II / 12 Comments

In 1932, three Polish Jews, Moses Altman, his niece, Dina Mass, and her husband, Moses Mass, arrived in Barbados looking for refuge from the harsh economic conditions and anti-Semitism in Europe. Moses Altman’s wife and children (Henry, Simon, Edna (Pillersdorf), Doris (Kaplan) and Mary (Speisman) arrived not long after and were followed by the families …

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Old Warri warriors St. Peter Barbados

The game of Warri

17th May 2022 / 12 minutes of reading / Bajan History / 2 Comments

“Warri is a game with several different names, including wari (or owari), wao, awèlè, awela, ayo, aji, awari, oware and ouri. This game is of the pit-and-pebble family, which originated in Ancient Egypt some 3,500 years ago, making it one of the oldest games in the world. The word “warri” means houses and this game …

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CNS Lady Drake

CNS Lady Drake 1928 – 1942

9th March 2022 / 5 minutes of reading / Bajan History, Bajan People, Barbados during World War I and World War II / 4 Comments

This is the story of CNS Lady Drake one of five Lady Boats that plied the trade routes between Canada and the West Indies from 1928 to 1942 when she was sunk by a torpedo from U-106 about 140km north of Bermuda. Six crew members and six passengers were lost. The master, one hundred and …

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Major Teddy Goddard a Bajan policeman from below the cliff

Major Teddy Goddard – a Bajan policeman from below the cliff

8th March 2022 / 11 minutes of reading / Bajan History, Bajan People, Barbados during World War I and World War II / 1 Comment

Major Teddy Goddard (Theodore Percival Alleyne Goddard) was born ‘below the cliff’ in Clifton Hall Woods, Barbados in 1883. Children born into poor white families had little prospect of bettering their position. Teddy Goddard, had little idea when he enlisted in the army in 1903 for three years that he would be transported to the …

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Barbados Island life photographs and stories by Craig Burleigh

Barbados Island Life

8th March 2022 / 4 minutes of reading / Bajan History, Bajan People / 4 Comments

Craig Burleigh is an American born, Bajan bred, San Francisco Bay Area based professional photographer. He grew up on Rockley Beach with sand between his toes from 1955 to 1965 and at Lamming’s St. Joseph and Edgecliff, St. John later on. Craig has been scanning his back-catalogue of Barbados photographs from the 1970s and is …

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Barbados Trailway Demo Stretch

The Barbados Trailways Project Part 2 – the beginning of the refurbishment

16th January 2022 / 3 minutes of reading / Bajan Hikes, Bajan History / 5 Comments

The Barbados Trailway will convert a portion of the disused trainline (which operated from 1881 to 1937) into a 16km paved multi-use trail from Valley Plantation to Consett Bay. It is a fiscally and socially responsible heritage tourism development project that can help to diversify and enhance our tourism product while also providing recreational spaces …

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