Sadness

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It is with great sadness that I report the following.  One of the many public complaints against the outgoing Anguilla Administration has been its gross over-emphasis on economic development at the cost of the under-development of our social services.  It seems that whenever there has been a choice between any of culture, social development, the environment, transparency, accountability or integrity on the one hand and the financial interest of the land developer on the other, the land developer won each time.  It appears to be the commonest complaint one hears both on the calypsos and on the opposition platforms.  Now, I hear a very sad story that I want to tell you about.  First, a little history.

Portrait of Dr SB Jones MD

Dr Samuel B Jones, famous as the first black medical doctor in the Leeward Islands, served as Warden, doctor, and Magistrate of Anguilla from August 1918 to May 1923.  He wrote the first published history of Anguilla, The Annals of Anguilla (1931).

Dr SB Jones OBE of Anguilla

During the time Dr Jones was in charge of Anguilla, the island experienced four consecutive years of drought, food shortages, a hurricane and a quarantine period.  The last of these endured for several months due to the presence of 400 contacts and 19 cases of mild smallpox imported from the Dominican Republic.  In response to the threat, Dr Jones built a quarantine station on the tip of the point of the Shannon Hill which lies to the north of Sandy Ground Bay. 

View of the point at Shannon Hill where Dr Jones built the Anguilla Quarantine station

All schooners returning to Anguilla bringing the annual temporary cane cutters from the Dominican Republic back to Anguilla were made to tie up to the great iron ring that still to this day remains cemented on the small cliff.  There, the crew and passengers were detained in quarantine until they were cleared of all infection and were permitted to join their families.  They were the 400 “contacts”.  Dr Jones ensured that no serious case of smallpox escaped from the quarantine station.  It is said that he built a fence across the Shannon Hill point, from shore to shore, and put guards at the gate to keep the men in and the girlfriends out.  No Anguillians died during the epidemic that raged in the islands around.  For his achievement in preserving the islanders from serious infection he was awarded the OBE.  The ruins of the foundations of the cottages that made up the quarantine hospital could, at least until about five years ago, still be seen there.  Now they have been bulldozed by some demented Philistine developer, and the site has gone back to its previous state of abandonment, but without the historic foundations.  There remained one link with Dr Jones’ historic achievement.

Bulldozed foundations of the quarantine station at the point of the Shannon Hill

The cottages that he built on the foundations at the point on the Shannon Hill were subsequently, when he finally lifted the quarantine, transported by truck and by cart to the top of Crocus Hill.  There they were installed on new foundations.  They formed the first wards of The Old Cottage Hospital.  Over the years, the original chattel house buildings were gradually replaced by the concrete and galvanized-roof buildings that are there now.

The back view of the Old Cottage Hospital

Anguilla’s hospital has moved on to its present location in Pope Hill where it is now known as the Princess Alexandra Hospital.  The Old Cottage Hospital buildings are presently occupied only by WISE and by the Anguilla branch of the Red Cross. 

The front view of the Old Cottage Hospital

WISE stands for Workshop Initiative for Support in Education.  The name rather conceals the purpose of the institution.  This is where Anguilla’s children who have behavioural issues, or who have chronic learning problems, come to complete their education.  Members of the public have equipped it with wood working equipment and metal working tools.  There is a modern, well equipped teaching kitchen.  Language and mathematics skills are developed.  Above all, there is shelter, care and concern showered on the students while they are there.  WISE is a division of the Ministry of Education, and is one of the most important social developments that have taken place in Anguilla over the past decade.  The management and staff of WISE are widely recognized throughout the island for their selfless devotion to, and love for, their wards.  Many of them have graduated and gone on to be productive and useful members of Anguilla society.

The WISE classrooms at the Old Cottage Hospital

Now, the school children tell me that members of a certain political party have promised the Crocus Bay Development people that, if they should win the upcoming general election, they will sell them the Old Cottage Hospital buildings.  The developers have, apparently, applied to some of these politicians for the property to be sold to them.  Once they open their villas for sale, they do not want the school to continue on their doorstep, so to say.  I am told that the original Old Folks Home on the grounds of the Cottage Hospital was turned over to the Fisheries Department when the old folks were removed to their new home at Pope Hill.  This building has already been occupied by the developers.  If this is true, there will be precedent for this proposed transfer.

The Old Folks Home at the Cottage Hospital, now occupied by the developer

Given what, in my opinion, appears to be the cattle-truck style of construction pursued by Crocus Bay Development, I doubt that there can be any question of a surplus bundle of money being available to the company for it to build a suitable replacement college building for WISE. 

The Crocus Bay Development

It is not clear whether any, and if so, how much of a campaign contribution was solicited or donated in exchange for this promise.  Given the presently apparently semi-abandoned state of the project, it is highly unlikely that there would be any substance to such a base thought.  As is apparent from the photographs, construction appears to be almost at a standstill.  On the Saturday I visited, there was one workman hammering away at the back of the site.  The fronts of the half-constructed buildings were covered with weeds.  It did not seem to be under active construction.  A July 2009 article in The Anguillian Newspaper quotes the owners as saying that the first of the buildings would have been available for sale last year.  The next seven were to be ready by December of 2010.  It would appear that things are not progressing as planned.  Even the website appears to be only partially constructed.

Weeds growing out of the front of the Crocus Bay Development, suggesting a degree of abandonment

Will WISE have to close down, or will they be able to remove their equipment, students and staff, to a new and adequate location provided to them?

Whatever the fate or fortune of Crocus Bay Development, if there is any substance to the story of the imminent demise of our Old Cottage Hospital building at the request of a real estate developer and speculator, all those who are concerned ought to be ashamed of themselves.

Agincourt

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Who were the true fighters of the Anguilla Revolution of 1967? I read in History Today News that a searchable database containing 250,000 service records of English soldiers who saw active duty in the latter phases of the Hundred Years War was published online yesterday, July 20^th 2009. The database is part of a research project about soldiers in English royal armies between 1369 and 1453 led by Dr Adrian Bell at the International Capital Market Association, University of Reading, and Professor Anne Curry from the University of Southampton.

Based on the study of historic records, such as the proceedings of the Court of Chivalry, muster rolls records in the National Archives at Kew, and archives at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, researchers have created complex profiles of individual soldiers in what is now considered England’s first professional army. The database notably includes the names of many archers who served with King Henry V at Agincourt, details of where individual soldiers fought and for how long, which campaigns they fought in, how much they were paid, who was ill and unable to fight, who was knighted and who advanced in rank as a result of military success.

Is it not amazing this kind of detail can be reproduced after over six hundred years?

Can we in Anguilla put together a similar database of the local militia who fought in our Anguilla Revolution forty-two years ago?

In the Anguilla of today there is hardly anyone of the Revolution era who does not claim to have risked their life to defend Anguilla. How many of them are fraudsters who ran off to St Kitts with the Customs records or whatever?

Even if the Peacekeeping Committee of 1967 had had a formal army, with pay and other records, some civil servant would have burned them by now, claiming they were confidential. Or, perhaps the space was needed in the filing cabinets. The truly confidential records, like the day books containing the most detailed records of people’s intimate medical conditions, when they farted, and when they had a bowel movement, were abandoned at the Cottage Hospital when it was vacated. They were rescued and donated to the National Archives. I hope they are still there in the room behind the court house. How much longer will they survive neglect and carelessness?

Who would have known otherwise that Neil Rogers acted as Dr Arjoon Jagan’s surgical assistant as he washed his hands and operated on patients in what we now call the good old days?

Education

Guest Editorial: Anguilla’s Failing Education System.

Anyone who is familiar the education systems of the West Indies would agree with me that Anguilla’s is one of the worst. It is a despair to me that we are turning out year after year a bunch of uneducated, indisciplined, unemployable young men. There are a few bright and welcome exceptions, but, they remain exceptions. One of my readers has contributed this essay, which I am happy to publish as a guest editorial:

Caribbean Net News recently carried a good article on the need to focus on child protection for youth at risk. A team came to Anguilla to research the issue of child protection, and assist with the development and implementation of action plans to strengthen the services for children. These people have now come and gone in Anguilla, and we have heard nothing of their conclusions and recommendations.

"Youth at risk" means if we don't deal with them in primary school, we get to deal with them after they murder shop keepers in Little Dix. Unfortunately, a decision has been taken at the highest level to deal with the symptoms instead of the problems. All claims to the contrary are lies, like transparency at Social Security. Look at what our leaders do, not what they say.

The bright star in this mess is the WISE programme at the Cottage Hospital. Even with the increased budget, it is vastly underfunded, and unable to accommodate the hundreds of young people who need its services.

The Place 2 Be has a truly excellent programme for helping primary school children deal with problems. They, too, come and gone in Anguilla. They trained 15 teachers. An excellent start, but only a beginning. This programme has been put on the same shelf with the constitutional review and the coroner's report on the police officer who drove into the court house.

All what they left behind is a Minister who offers the excuse that he's on a learning curve. A minister of education is not expected to be an expert in educational psychology and the intricacies of classroom techniques, any more than the administrator of the Health Authority has to be a brain surgeon. His job is to listen to the advice of those who have spent a lifetime learning specialised skills, and work with these experts to bring better services to the people. Even a minister who works a four day week should have time to tell the Permanent Secretary, "OK - let's go for it!" What we are lacking is leadership.