By OSWALD T. BROWN
WASHINGTON, D.C., April 18, 2024 — I was extremely disappointed in the sales of my novel WOES OF LIFE that was published in 2017, so I have abandoned plans to write a sequel, which was tentatively titled WOES OF LIFE: THE ROAD TO INDEPENDENCE. I fully expected that WOES OF LIFE, a fictionalized treatise of political developments in The Bahamas when it was colony of Great Britain, would have been a best-seller and would have provided me with the kind of economic wherewithal to comfortably enjoy the senior years of my life.
The reality, however, is the exact opposite. Indeed, having been blessed by my Lord and Savior with more than four -score years on his earth, I am struggling to “make ends meet,” as the colloquial saying goes. But in the twilight of my sojourn here on earth, my Lord and Savior has also blessed me with a sound mind, clarity of thought and the writing skills to produce a factual account of political developments in The Bahamas, not for monetary gain, but for future generations of young Bahamians to know about the evolution of The Bahamas during my lifetime from being a slave colony of Great Britain, where racism was rigidly practiced and enforced by a white minority until the Progressive Liberal Party’s historic political victory in the January 10, 1967 general election, which established a Black majority rule government in The Bahamas for the first time.
Although WOES OF LIFE is indeed a fictionalized account of some of my experiences growing up in The Bahamas, many of the characters in it are based on actual persons I encountered during my developmental years. As the promotional blurb on its back cover notes, “WOES OF LIFE is the story of an emerging island nation in the 1940s and 1950s. It is a story of the struggle against colonialism and racism, the rise to power of Byron Boyd, a young black man from humble beginnings, intertwined with the tragic relationship between a rich and spoiled young white woman and a black playboy club owner. As the story unfolds, oppression, the Black Power Movement, political intrigue, a suicide and a murder plot are all woven together, with the drama of the struggle for majority rule and equality.”
For anyone who may wish to read it, WOES OF LIFE is still available on Amazon for a greatly reduced price from what it was sold for when it was published in 2017. During my promotional tour in The Bahamas shortly after it was published, there were robust sales for a couple months in both Freeport and Nassau, but since then my hopes and dreams that it would be a financial bonanza and even selected by Tyler Perry to develop into a movie have fizzled. In fact, I have not received any royalty payments from Amazon in several years.
I have not yet selected a title for my fact-based historical account of political developments in The Bahamas, and I probably shall not do so until an appropriate title emerges while I am writing it. However, I shall begin with details of my early years growing up at Stanyard Creek, Andros, with my grandparents, Benjamin and Mabel Elliott.
Papa was a giant of a man — or so it seemed to me as a six-year-old boy clutching his hand as we walked through a narrow track road from the Elliott estate leading to a cove called “Pa Ben Landing” on the Western Ridge of a tranquil creek that separates the West and East ridges of Stanyard Creek, which was often referred to as the Garden of Andros.
I have told the story on more than one occasion in columns and commentaries I have written about the loving care my grandparents provided for seven grandchildren who grew up with them at Stanyard Creek. In addition to myself, the other six grandchildren were Sylvia Elliott, a daughter of my Uncle Clarence Elliott; cousins Agnes, Beryl and John, children of Uncle Lee; my late sister Elthreada Brown McPhee; and my late cousin Alphonso “Boogaloo” Elliott, a son of my late Uncle Audley.
Although she was my first-cousin, I grew up calling Sylvia Elliott-Ross, who died in 2012, Aunt Sylvia because she and Papa and Mama’s youngest daughter — Aunt Maria Elliott-Forbes, who died in August of 2019 — were around the same age and they grew up like sisters.
Consequently, all of the other grandchildren who were left in the care of Papa and Mama, while our parents were on “The Contract” in the United States or working somewhere else in The Bahamas, were fortunate to have two very gifted and imaginative persons like Aunt Sylvia and Aunt Maria as mentors. Both were “monitors” at Stanyard Creek All-Age School, which meant that us younger grandchildren had the benefit of two “teachers” living in the same house with us. They both ended up choosing teaching as their life-long careers, and there are unquestionably many of their former students in The Bahamas who can vouch, as I certainly can, for the fact that Maria Elliott Forbes and Sylvia Elliott Ross were two excellent teachers.
We all grew up in a very strict Roman Catholic family. My grandfather was the catechist at St. Rita’s Roman Catholic Church, where I was baptized and christened, and attending church every Sunday was mandatory. In fact, in addition to Sunday morning Mass and Evening Service, the grandchildren also went to Sunday School in the afternoon when the teachings of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ were nurtured by Bible study, prayer and other spiritual disciplines.
The various settlements of Andros were not easily accessible by roads back then, and we had a priest named Father Alto who used to make the rounds of the various settlements by sea in a sailboat called The Star. Because Andros is the largest of the Bahama Islands, Father Alto visited Stanyard Creek once every three weeks or so, and on those Sundays when he was not there, Papa was responsible for conducting church services.
My early childhood growing up at Andros will be well-documented in the opening chapters of my historical account of political developments in The Bahamas and will set the stage for my teenage years growing up in Nassau and my subsequent introduction to politics after I joined the staff of the Nassau Daily Tribune in May of 1960 when I first met Sir Arthur A. Foulkes, who was then the City Editor at The Tribune.
I have noted on more than one occasion that Sir Arthur has been as influential in my life as a young adult as my grandfather Benjamin Elliott was in my youthful years. Aside from being my journalistic mentor, Sir Arthur was also my political mentor and one of a cabal of young Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) members in the late 1950s and the 1960s who were members of an activist group within the PLP known as the National Committee for Positive Action (NCPA) that in my view was one of the main reasons for the PLP’s historic victory at the polls on January 10, 1967.
It is vitally important that this era of The Bahamas’ political development be historically documented because many current young political activists — and young Bahamians generally, for that matter — do not fully understand the significance of The Bahamas’ political evolution since the formation of the PLP in 1953. In fact, prior to the formation of the PLP, there were no political parties in The Bahamas and the “internal political affairs” of this former colony of Great Britain were ostensibly controlled – under the supervision of a British Governor – by a group of white men known as the Bay Street Boys, who only decided to organize themselves as the United Bahamian Party (UBP) after the PLP’s impressive performance as a political party in the 1956 general election.
Of course, as an Androsian, the fact that in 1956 PLP candidates Clarence A. Bain and Cyril St. John Stevenson soundly defeated two Bay Street Boys who had been long-time representatives for Andros — signaling the likelihood that a similar political warning was on the horizon for the other Out Islands, as the Family Islands were called at the time – will be fodder for my literary excursion into historical facts while writing my book.
Hopefully, my current personal problems that have created some “mountains to climb” in my life will soon dissipate and I can shortly begin to write my historical recollection of political developments in The Bahamas.
