I arrived in Georgetown, British Guiana on Tuesday, December 4, 1961 from England on a cargo ship called Arakaka. I was recruited by the British Colonial Office to work as Assistant Conservator of Forests in charge of Forest Surveys. After graduating with a B.Sc. degree in Forestry from the University of Edinburgh, and completing a training course in aerial photo interpretation and map making at the Directorate of Overseas Surveys in Tolworth, England I was ready to take on my first professional assignment in the country that still had large areas of undisturbed rain forests. My job was to lead a surveying expedition into the jungles each year for 3 months during the dry season with a crew of 45 men for the purpose of collecting ground survey data in support of making forest cover maps.
The period I spent in British Guiana was politically unstable, was marked by strikes, riots, political unrests and racial tensions. The reason for the disturbances was due to the belief by the British and American governments that the democratically elected Prime Minister, Dr. Cheddi Jagan was a communist and would lead his country to be another Cuba.
I was there during those disturbing times and watched the development of events with great interest. I got my job through the Colonial Office but I was part of technical aid to the government of British Guiana from Britain. Hence, I reported to the head of the British Guiana Forest Service, the Conservator of Forests. I witnessed in February 1962 the fires where a significant part of the business section in Georgetown was burned down and there was no doubt in my mind that the disturbances leading up to the destructions were instigated by radical opposition members and right wing foreign agencies for the purpose of unseating the Jagan Government.
Initially, I found my situation in British Guiana to be somewhat uncomfortable. I was a former freedom fighter from Hungary, an anticommunist, recruited by the Colonial Service of the British Government and assigned to work with the local Government who was branded by the key western powers as communist. But as I got to know some of the Cabinet members of the Jagan Government, they were far from being communist. They were dedicated to free their country from colonial rule and to make better living conditions for the working class. By classical definition, the Jagan Government was socialist, following some Marxist philosophy.
My neighbour in Georgetown was Dr. Morrison Sharp, head of the History Department of the newly established University of British Guiana. He was an academic of liberal views and lost his university position in the U.S. during the McCarthy era. He was recruited to come to Georgetown by Sir Lancelot Hogben, Vice Chancellor of the University of British Guiana. Friendly discussions as neighbours revealed that we were both moderate in our views. Dr Sharp was a member of a think tank run by Sir Lancelot, advising the Jagan Government on political science issues. I had the privilege of being invited to join this group that met every Saturday afternoon to give balance to their left leading discussions. Being part of the think tank was the highlight of my stay in British Guiana. The members were real intellectual and very compassionate in their ideology. I learned from them that extremism to the left or to the right is equally destructive, regardless if it is politically or religiously motivated. I also realized that that the communists in Hungary (the country where I lived until age 18) were not true to the teachings of Marx and Lenin; they used or abused the ideology to get into power and then suppressed those who supported them to remain in control.
I also realized that I had grown up with some values that were not a good fit with the lifestyles of the colonial system. When my wife Audrey and infant son Michael arrived in Georgetown and we rented a house, and one of my colleagues offered his help to find a domestic servant to do the cooking and cleaning. I said that it will not be necessary because I grew up in an environment where we did our own cooking and cleaning. After all there were just the 3 of us and my wife did not have a job outside the home so we did not need servants. To my surprise I was told that it would be looked upon by the local people as being selfish for not wanting to share my above average income with those who were less fortunate. So we engaged the services of an Amerindian girl who was a single mother of a 3 year old little girl. We provided room and board and a small income for Lena and her little girl who enjoyed playing with our one year old son.
We were fortunate to have a good circle of friends, mostly local colleagues and some expatriates. I was increasingly uncomfortable when we went out to a restaurant with some of the older expatriates, especially when they addressed a middle age waiter as “Hey boy”. On the fun side, with Lena living in our home, we had a built in babysitter and we went out with our local friends to night clubs and often danced calypso until 5 in the morning. My favourite pastime was taking our son to the Botanical Gardens in Georgetown.
Then in 1964 the disturbances intensified again as the country was preparing for the December elections. In June 1964 I sent my wife and son back to Scotland (where her parents lived). When the rioters were overturning and burning cars, I sold our Hillman station wagon and bought a scooter. So each time I saw a rowdy group of people coming towards me, I was able to turn around quickly with the scooter and head for safety.
At the end of November I packed our modest belongings and shipped it back to Scotland. The government purchased for me a return air ticket so that I could leave the country at the end of my 3 year contract.
But, there was a general strike and I could not cross the picket line to get to the airport. After a few days of waiting in a hotel, I met in the bar a former neighbour who was an airline stewardess with Air France. After a few rum and coke drinks we developed a strategy. Next morning I bought a shirt and pants that were the same colour as what Air France employees were wearing and I sat behind Miss DeFreitas (dressed in her Air France uniform) on her scooter and we managed to get through the picket lines. That evening I managed to get a flight from Georgetown to Trinidad.
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