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Reflections: Col. Duke’s Morris 8
The great thing about BajanThings is that the articles often trigger memories of Bajan days gone by. BajanThings reader Mark Layne wrote from Nova Scotia having read the article: “The Duke Affair – A West Indian versus the colonial establishment“, about Colonel Duke who was summarily dismissed by a new Governor in 1948 – the…
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Freya Stark (married name: Perowne)
Dame Freya Madeline Stark DBE (31 January 1893 – 9 May 1993), was a British explorer and travel writer. She was the wife of the Barbados Colonial Secretary Stewart Perowne and was one of five passengers who travelled in May 1948 from Barbados to Trinidad to join the Empire Windrush for its historic passage to…
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Major Teddy Goddard – a Bajan policeman from below the cliff
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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Cooking on a cast iron coal pot stove
There is a corner of my UK garden that is forever Barbados. It’s where I store my cast iron coal pot during the winter. In the UK it is rare to see a coal pot and my grandchildren had no idea what Grandad was using on his birthday barbecue. They were spared seeing this rusty…
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The Canadian Lady Boats
Between 1928 and 1952 The Canadian National Steamship Company Lady Boats (The Canadian Lady Boats) operated two routes from Canada to the West Indies the: The Lady Boats keep coming up in my researches into the family in the West Indies. They were clearly important not just for the economy of the islands but also…
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It was always hot – Memoirs of Col. Reginald T. Michelin, Commissioner of Barbados Police 1949-1953 post Col. Oriel St.A. Duke
Reginald Townend Michelin (1903-1998), CMG (1957), CVO (1953), OBE (1952) took the post of Sub-Inspector, Police, Jamaica, 1924 and Inspector, Police, Leeward Islands, 1928. He was made Assistant Commissioner of Police, Nigeria, 1930, and Commissioner of Police, Barbados, 1949 and Jamaica, 1953, retiring in 1958 from the Colonial Police. In 1940 he married Nina Gladys…
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The Duke Affair – A West Indian versus the colonial establishment
Oriel St. Arnaud Duke was born in Montserrat the second son of Dr Mansergh Duke, a Dublin doctor, and Emily née Wilkin. His family nickname was Konks. His first job was as a clerk in the Antiguan government. During World War I he volunteered for the British West India Regiment and was transferred to 10th…
