St Vincent, born woman becomes National hero of Trinidad and Tobago.
Elma Constance Francois, was born in Overland, St. Vincent in 1897. In her youth she received primary education up to 5th Standard and she worked alongside her mother picking cotton. From an early age she struggled for the betterment of her people since life in St Vincent was very hard for labourers, especially women.
Some found work picking up cotton chaff for which they would receive 12-14 cents a day. Her father, a labourer, died when she was still little. The family lost all their belongings in the volcanic eruption that devastated the island in 1902, and there weren’t any prospects for young women other than working as a domestic servant, picking cotton or finding some sort of employment in the sugar factory at Mount Bentinck.
Already socially minded as a young teenager, she tried to organise the workers in the sugar factory, which was not met with understanding by the owners of Mount Bentinck, of course, she was fired. Elma moved to Kingstown, where she had a liaison with Albert James. They had a son. In 1919, Elma Francois migrated to Trinidad, leaving her two-year old boy behind in St. Vincent.
First, she had to find an income. The Stollmeyers employed her as a servant in their ‘castle’ on the Savannah. Little did they know that they were housing a future labour leader! She was to later form the National Unemployed Movement in 1934, and in 1935 the Negro Welfare, Cultural and Social Association, which pioneered many forms of public protest for the rights of colonised people.
On September 25, 1987, she was declared as a "National Heroine of Trinidad and Tobago". She had been described as one of the "Vociferous Africentric activists" in the history of Trinidad and Tobago and in the Caribbean region.
The Georgetown Anglican Church was featured in the National Stamp gallery in 1976.
A Modern Day Roll Model From Chester Cottage
Cecil Browne was born in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines in 1957 and came to High Wycombe in 1970. Cecil was one of the first black pupils to attend The Royal Grammar School. Attending University of London where he attained a BSc degree in Maths, he then went on to obtain his Masters in Education at Brunel University. Cecil returned to High Wycombe where he has lectured in mathematics at a local college for the last twenty-five years, eventually becoming the Head of Mathematics. He was one of the founding members of the Caribbean Saturday School in High Wycombe and has been involved with many community programs and activities, the most recent being the organisation of Caribbean Community Day at Adams Park where Wycombe Museum first promoted the launch of the Black and Asian section of its Oral History Project. 
Cecil recently published his first book of short stories: "The Moon is Following Me", which is about Caribbean life and is available in the museum shop. He wrote this book hoping to encourage others in his community to tell their own stories, and is now in the process of completing a second edition.
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SVG First Airport
Ever wondered why your baggage is tagged 'SVD' as the airport destination code for E.T Joshua Airport, especially since 'SVG' had become the popular country code for St. Vincent & the Grenadines since the early 1980's.
Well SVD stands for “St. Vincent, Diamond”. Diamond, was the location of SVG's first airport, between the first and Second World War, hence SVD. In the early 1950's, the decision was made to move the airport, and the entire air transport system, over to Villa and to use sea-planes. The Grumman Goose being the popular airplane at the time.
So, now we landed and took off from the water in front of Villa Beach in the Young Island Channel. The seaplanes landed from the Indian Bay area and came into the airport, then took off after taxiing out to the Indian Bay between Young Island and Villa Beach, heading out into Calliaqua Bay, then off to Seawell in Barbados.
Above from left to right is Diamond Airfield, Villa Sea plane port, The opening of ET Joshua Airport and the new Argyle Airport.
Cholera In St Vincent
"Bacteria are excreted in faeces and if this comes into contact with drinking water, the bacteria can infect people."
There is a long stretch of road from Grand Sable leading to Georgetown, known as Cholera Long Stretch. Most of todays generation may not of heard off this. The area got its name because of the Cholera outbreak in 1853. It is said that this was where many people attempting to get to the Georgetown hospital for treatment, died and were hastily buried.
Cholera arrived from Asia in the 1830s carried by immigrant labour and a regional pandemic was initiated in the 1850s. St Vincent recorded about 15,000 deaths. In Barbados, more than 20,000 died. Cholera hit the poor much harder than the wealthy.
In the 19th-century Caribbean, human excrement was disposed of casually if at all and the poor were most likely to drink from the contaminated water as the rich had their own private, much safer, cisterns and wells.
The symptoms included acute vomiting, very acute diarrhea, muscle cramps, ruptured capillaries that made skin appear blue, and lethargy. Death usually came quickly and brutally. Sadly, those who underwent medical treatment were far more likely to die. The treatment at the time was bloodletting and purging by inducing diarrhea and vomiting, which is diametrically opposed to the rehydration that is now used to cure the disease. The photo above is from the 2010 outbreak in Haiti.
The meaning of the SVG flag colours.
Following June 1984 elections won by the New Democratic Party, Prime Minister James Mitchell commissioned a new flag. Swiss graphic artist Julien van der Wal created a version with the narrow white stripes omitted, leaving a simple vertical 
tricolour of blue-yellow-green. 
The arms and breadfruit leaf, difficult to distinguish at a distance, were replaced by three green diamonds arranged in the form of a V. They suggest three gems (the islands are known as the “Gems of the Antilles” or the “Jewels of the Caribbean”), and the V shape is an indirect reference to the first letter of Vincent. The colour symbolism is unchanged from the original flag. Green is for the rich vegetation of the islands and the vitality of their people; yellow stands for golden sands and personal warmth; and blue is for sea and sky. The new flag was officially hoisted on October 22, 1985.
Is it by coincidence that our national bird has simular coloured feathers as the flag?
The Silk Cotton Tree
The huge and imposing silk cotton tree is found in many parts of the Caribbean forest. It also grows in West Africa and the East Indies. Silk cotton wood has been used to make coffins, cricket bats, and much earlier, canoes. One of the Spanish names for the tree is “ceiba” which comes from the Spanish name for canoe.
The silk cotton has never become commercially important in the Caribbean, but it is significant that it has been held in great dread by people from several cultural backgrounds. The tree has been held sacred by the ancient Mayas, by people who have originated in Africa In some Caribbean countries. The silk cotton tree was often called the “God tree’ or the “Devil tree.” In Guyana, it has been called the “Jumbie tree.” The tree has been regarded by some as having a soul or a resident spirit. But it was most often considered to be associated with the souls of the dead, living possibly in its roots and branches.
In Jamaica, it was said that the Spanish would bury treasure under a silk cotton tree, then kill the slave who buried it, so that the slave’s spirit would guard the treasure and no one would dare dig for it. The same story is told in Guyana, except that it was the Dutch, rather than the Spanish, who would use this method to guard treasure. The Halfway Tree, which gave its name to a district in Kingston, was a silk cotton tree which dated from the British Conquest of 1655 and survived until the late 19th Century. 
According to legend, Gang Gang Sara, the African witch of Tobago, climbed a silk cotton tree in Les Coteaux and tried to fly back to Africa. She forgot that because she had eaten salt (reminiscent of the ol’ higue or hag or sucouyant) she could no longer fly. Gang Gang Sara, died instantly. Her grave is one of the tourist sites in Tobago.
Obeah men claimed to be able to cast a spell by driving a nail into a silk cotton tree, then call on an evil spirit to cause someone’s soul to leave his body and live in the tree.
In some areas no one would dare cut down a silk cotton tree. In others, before cutting down a silk cotton tree, village folk would pour a libation on its roots or ceremonially make an offering of corn, or sacrifice a chicken.
Commercially, the silk cotton tree, is cultivated in some tropical regions for its fiber, known as kapok. The cotton-like kapok is exposed when the fruits burst open while still on the tree. Because the fiber is short, elastic and brittle, it cannot be spun like cotton but is used in various ways in upholstery and in making floss. Its light and water-repellent properties make it suitable for use in life preservers and as stuffing and insulation.
Information taken from silvertorch.com
