About Arts and Culture – recollections of a nonagenarian

Feb 18, 2023 Letters

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Dear Editor,

One reflects on memories growing-up, albeit in random sequence. First there was what I regarded as the national Anthem – The Legend of Kaieteur by Arthur J. Seymour. Next, came the cacophony of folksongs, some of which were included in more formal concerts, mostly at the Town Hall, Georgetown, where there were featured groups like the Woodside Choir and the Police Male Voice Choir. But there also were well attended recitations from the well recognised St. George’s Cathedral Choir, Brickdam Roman Catholic Cathedral Choir, as well as the Trinity Methodist Church Choir. Dorothy Tait who promoted the Georgetown Philharmonic Orchestra led the Bedford Methodist Church Choir. Calypso appeared to have such status that Lord Canary was made a Junior Minister in the then Ministry of Trade.

Programmes of Classical Music were consistently rendered by the:

– Georgetown Philharmonic Orchestra,

– Princeville Philharmonic Orchestra,

– the ­British Guiana Police Band on Sundays afternoons – after Sunday School, in the Botanic Gardens and selectively on full moon nights on the Seawall Bandstand. Even The Chronicle Atlantic Steel Symphony Orchestra upheld its name with appropriate classical renditions. The internationally acclaimed Rudolph Dunbar of BBC fame (he was the youngest person to conduct the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra) came from the U.K. and conducted the Hundred Voice Choir in celebration of our Independence, at the Queen’s College Auditorium. It was then that we missed the internationally recognised accompaniment of the brilliant Joyce Ferdinand-Lalljie also then resident in the U.K.

At Queen’s College, we had a regular Arts Master who prepared us for the Oxford & Cambridge O’Level Examinations. I actually took extra lessons from the artist E. R. Burrowes whose sculpture of Hubert Nathaniel Critchlow, leader of the first Labour Union to be recognised officially in the British Empire, stands in the compound of Parliament Buildings Brickdam.  His daughter Barbara sang opera, as did her elder counterpart Madame Alice Fraser-Denny, both acclaimed by Italian audiences. Berbician Philip Moore, after his extended residence at Princeton University, USA, returned home to create, amongst other acclaimed works, the well-exposed 1763 Monument.

In the milieu, there were Aubrey Williams’ paintings, which were later elided from the reconstructed Timehri Airport Building (now the Cheddi Jagan International Airport). Then there was artist and anthropologist Denis Williams who established the Burrowes School of Art. I recall vividly my early introduction, at the hereditary New Market Street home of my mentor Harold Davis to the inimitable Stanley Greaves, some of whose early paintings adorned Herdsmanston House (now Lodge), and who continues to display his immeasurable talent as both artist and litterateur. For a time also I related to the exceptional couple, Guyanese Donald and English born Leila Locke, both of whom adorned our landscape with measurable paintings, with Leila indulging in distinctive local scenarios such as Kitty District, Red Water Creek and Amerindian communities. Life others, some of her works were exhibited at Carifesta Guyana 1972.

There was also the inspirational period when our earliest writers gained international recognition – Edgar Mittelholzer, Jan Carew, Wilson Harris, the latter when as an ‘Interior Land Surveyor’ of the Drainage and Irrigation Section of the Public Works Department in 1950s I, as a Class 11 Accounts Clerk, had to process his financial requirements. Certainly, there were others who thrived overseas, like a former colleague of the Government Information Services in the late 1950s, Ivan Van Sertima acclaimed for his epic ‘They Came Before Columbus’.

But, of course, the most memorable must be Martin Carter, Poet extraordinaire so inspired by those explosive days and nights Guyana then experienced. While he was employed at the then Bookers Stores and I at Booker Sugar Estates Head Office, we would collaborate in producing weekly radio broadcasts material on behalf of the whole Booker Group. Most productively we would socialise after work at the historic Woodbine Hotel. Ian Mc Donald also of Bookers Sugar Estates Ltd and already of international fame for his writings was always an interested colleague.

In the same breath it must be remembered that it was sugar in the person of Frank Thomasson, Chief Personnel Officer, and Arthur Hemstock of the then British Guiana Sugar Producers’ Association who created the Theatre Guild. There was spawned a range of the most talented actors and actresses, and of course directors and producers. Fading memory recalls Wilbert Holder, Ken Corsbie, Christopher Dean, Pat Cameron, Margret Lawrence, Clairmont Tait, Marc Matthews. Ron Robinson’s ‘No Big Thing’, which originated there, is still maintained by Gem Madhoo’s Group at the National Cultural Centre.

But long before, there was the historic Assembly Rooms where plays were performed to exclusive colonial audiences. It was destroyed in the great fire that ravaged the Georgetown Business district in the 1940s. There stands the Bank of Guyana, alongside the former historic art gallery of the Royal Agricultural and Commercial Society.

Opportunity is taken here to fast forward and remind of the critical need to revive the celebration of those cricketing heroes formerly identified at the equally historic test cricket ground at Bourda where recognisable were pavilions named for CLIVE LLOYD, LANCE GIBBS, ROHAN KANHAI. There must be determination to revive their memorial! The National Stadium is but a sterile edifice.

But perhaps my most climatic experience in relation to Indian music, more specifically ‘Dance’. I recall that while a young Personnel Manager in the early 1960s I would attend the cinema at Rosignol Village next door. There I became enamoured of Indian films, especially those of handsome young Amitabh Bachan. In one of them I became so entranced with the outstanding dancing of Nargis (hope the name is correct), that when soon after she came to British Guiana on tour, I excitedly arranged for her to perform at the Blairmont Estate Community Centre, where anxious crowds were mesmerised. I myself was particularly hypnotised more by the delicate movements of eyes and hands, than feet. I have since continued to be a devotee of Indian classical music, so that when our own national dance troupe made annual presentations, including at the Chinese Sports Club (now Cosmos), but more regularly at the National Cultural Centre, where I lamented their farewell performance.

It was there I recall being enthralled by young Gora Singh and his spiritual performance of Kathak dance. In an entirely other breath, I am reminded of the Lavinia Williams breathless Dance Group.

It is in relation to all the foregoing and more, that one anxiously awaits the restoration of the National History and Arts Council, which would enlighten the current Minister of Culture, Youth and Sports. Its membership must include such spiritual contributors as Amena Gafoor, Ian McDonald, Al Creighton, not to the mention the well experienced Gail Teixeira; as well an Amerindian Representation, of course.

This authoritative group must be asked to reconceptualise and recreate a most comprehensive development plan for Arts and Culture that must outlast well past the current portfolio.

Yours truly,

E. B. John

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• BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Booker Group, E.B. John, Philip Moore, Rudolph Dunbar

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