Book on folklorist Wordsworth McAndrew published

Oct 11, 2014 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
A book on Guyana’s leading folklorist, playwright, poet, Wordsworth ‘Mac’ McAndrew has been published.
The author of the 243-page work was his friend and also a folklorist Roy Brummell, who hails from Dartmouth on the Essequibo Coast, but currently resides at Flatbush in Brooklyn, New York.
Roy summarized Mac’s hard work and described him as Guyana’s legendary “Mr. Folklore and imparting folk knowledge to Guyanese, through radio and other means”. Brummell went on to say that “certainly there were others before him (McAndrew) who played their part in preserving Guyana’s folklore, but no one raised folklore to national consciousness in Guyana as much as Mac did”. He described him as “My Buddybo who was to Guyana what Louise Bennett was to Jamaica.”
The book refers to Mc Andrew as a reader of stories including the famous “De Grat Jackass race” The
writer of the class poem “Ol Higue”, “Creole Meche Meche Folk”, “Focus on Folk” and “What Else” of GBS Radio fame.
Mac rubbed shoulders with poetry stalwarts as Martin Carter, Ian Mc Donald, Ivan Van Sertima, Alec Best and Henry Josiah, as well as cultural icon Celestine Dolphin
Mac was a no-nonsense person and despite that it was the policy of President Burnham and the
government, for government officers to be addressed as “Comrade”, he refused to be addressed
as Comrade and defied his boss’ warnings not to wear rubber slippers and dashiki to work, which eventually was one of the main reasons why he was fired by Management of GBS Radio.
In fact, Wordsworth wore dashiki long before anybody knew the name of the “strange” looking garment.
Several of his friends and colleagues gave brief reminiscences in the book and his English wife, Rosie, referred to her wedding day when she was towed on his bicycle to and from church.
The unusual “bicycle story” was widely publicized locally and was even syndicated on Reuters. Among some of his colleagues and friends who added their bit to the publication were: Sir Ronald Sanders,
Professor Frank Birbalsingh, Oscar Wailoo, Marc Matthews, Vic Hall, Ken Corsbie, Stanley Greaves,
Lorenzo Blackmore, Dr. Judith Roback, Francis Quamina Farrier, Eusi Kwayana, Dr. John Rickford, and many others, including yours truly.
The masterpiece was published by Caribbean Press. Brummell said that he has completed writing
Volume II, which should be published soon, and thereafter he will arrange a launching in Georgetown.
I had time and time again advocated for Mc Andrew who was born on November 22, 1936, to be given a national honour, even after his death on April 25, 2008, but so far the Honours Committee has not done so. In fact no one has been accorded a national honour for the past seven years.
Oscar Ramjeet

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Book on folklorist Wordsworth McAndrew published

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