Landmark at Chateau Margot

Landmark at Chateau Margot

Chateau Margot is a little village on the East Coast of Demerara about six miles from Georgetown. It was once a sugar estate, therefore the need for this tall imposing structure which is the first object that passengers on board a ship that comes to Guyana see. It was erected by a Buxtonian, Anthony Gordon, who was as imposing as the structure itself. A verbose man of whom it was said told his groom, in the days of horse-drawn carriages to “unhitch those quadrupeds and provide them with provender, or I shall connect my shoemaker to your tailor.”

On the completion of his task when he saw the volume of smoke that was emitted from the chimney, exclaimed, “Had it not been for the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, I would have drowned the heavens with smoke!” The chimney has been the theme for two other Annandale poets, Rooplal Monar, national prizewinner and Guska, poet and artist.

The writer of my foreword to “Selected Poems” yet unpublished, told me that reading about the Chimney brought tears to her eyes. Here it is:

You stand
defiant of wind and weather
a monument
dwarfing the tall green trees around;
Innumerable bricks labouriously laid
fashioned your form so straight and strong.
Where is the being that gave you shape?
If you could answer, you would tell:
“His bones are hidden in the dust
and time has dulled the scroll of memory”
Yet, in your form and bearing there exudes
the spirit of your maker long deceased.

Once your hollow symmetry
like a giant sky-trained gun
belched forth munitions of black dust
that seemed to drown high heaven
and hide the sun;
But now, your sooty task, complete
You remain serene, majestic,
enveloped in earth and sky and air
a monument to your designer
gladdening eyes at sea.

So, like you,
when my brief task of rhyming is complete
and the dark dust of my musings to earth subsides,
May my soul’s song survive:
a time defying monument in VERSE.

Randall Butisingh

randallbutisingh@hotmail.com

http://www.randallbutisingh.wordpress.com

A NOTE OF GRATITUDE

A NOTE OF GRATITUDE

Dear visitors to my blog:

I will like you to know that without the vision and assiduous commitment of CYRIL BRYAN (Economist and Info Technology consultant), this project would have only been a dream. He initiated it, and is now sustaining it.

The last time I saw him was in the late fifties, more than forty years ago when he was a teenager, working as a pupil teacher with his father, George Bryan, who was Head Teacher of Lusignan Government School, near Buxton, in Guyana. I was Senior Assistant then.

Not long ago, he was re-introduced to me by my good friend and colleague Eusi Kwayana, Minister of Education in the short-lived PPP government of 1953;later was in the Burnham Government; Head of his own private school in Buxton; and writer. Mr. Kwayana is now domiciled in the U.S.A. and has written the foreword to my Book of Thoughts entitled “Flashes of Light”.

I must also thank my grand daughter-in-law to be, Vanessa, for helping me to understand the computer better.

I will be 95 come December 1st , 2007, but I do my own typing. “Gold and silver have I none but such as I have, give I unto thee.” If my messages can touch only one heart, I know I have not lived in vain.

Randall Butisingh

REVERENCE FOR SUNDAYS HAS GONE

REVERENCE FOR SUNDAYS HAS GONE
(Article in Stabroek News)

Growing up in Buxton on the East Coast of Demerara as a boy, I remember what it used to be like on Sundays. Those who are living now and are old enough , will also remember. Our country was British Guiana then. I recall vividly, from around 1922, the stillness that pervaded the village on Sundays. During the day shops were closed, all activities ceased, most residents kept indoors or appeared to have kept there regardless of their persuasion.

The only sound that could have been heard was the loud peals, in the morning and early evening, of the various church bells calling the faithful of the different denominations to worship, and the uneven beat of shod feet on the brick road, going to and coming from church. The church-goers were clad in their Sunday best, the men in serge, tweed and palm beach, and the women, invariably in flowing white, all, men and women, wearing hats. In the hand of each was the prayer book and hymnal- the ladies with the added appurtenance of a fan which helped to alleviate the heat generated by a uaually packed congregation.

On entering the building, the men doffed their hats, and after prayers were said and seats taken, there ensued a pin-drop silence. No one spoke in church, even a whisper would have been audible. Any late comer had to walk on tip-toe and a screeching boot, which occasionally happened would shatter the stillness and embarrass the offender. This was the atmosphere set for worship in church. It was an awe-inspiring silence and reverence for the house of God.

Retiring from worship, the faithful spent the remaining hours of the day reading the Bible or resting their bodies for work during the week ahead. In the afternoon, the children were sent to Sunday School where they learnt the Catechism, the Ten Commandments, the Twenty-third Psalm, and were told stories from the Bible - all of which helped to mould the character of the youth. No play was permitted.

But the reverence of the day or the observance of it as a day of rest was not to continue. During my lifetime, which began two years before the first World War, I have witnessed many changes in society; changes in attitude towards religion and the gradual and almost precipitate breakdown of morality. Today, Sunday has become a holiday for all kinds of secular activities and sensual enjoyments - the stillness which once pervaded shattered with noise of all kinds.
It was in 1956 or thereabouts, when a bill was about to be passed to permit Sunday afternoon cinema shows. In a letter to the press I wrote: “I write with some degree of trepidation, though not with surprise about the bill to permit Sunday afternoon cinema shows.” In another part, I wrote:”In my opinion, if this bill is passed, Christians youths, who now reverence the day, will come to disregard it, and this will gradually weaken their hold on religion. My letter was quoted by a Christian member of parliament. The bill was passed.

So, from that time onwards, we have witnessed the violation of the sanctity of the day, and of it being a day of rest for all, Today, there is no activity precluded, entertainment or otherwise. The recent bill to open shops on Sundays, though seemingly convenient for the few, will further violate the sanctity of the day.

In conclusion, I would like to say that no economic progress alone could bring peace and happiness to a nation. Morality can only be built on the rock of true religion, with fruits of Faith, of Love and Compassion and of universal Brotherhood.

Randall Butisingh