I lived in Kitty between 1967 and 1989. It had to be during the mid or late 60s that my first encounter with Wordsworth Mc Andrew took place. The fact that so many others – his closer buddies – knew him much earlier does not preclude me from sharing these reflections, for reasons that will unfold hereunder.
In 1966 I won a prize for short story writing in the Chronicle Christmas Annual. Later I ‘copped’ the first prize which the then National History and Arts Council awarded in the same literary category. Naturally I felt that I was God’s gift to the local short story writing genre.
Then, in the bars and byways of Kitty, I met Wordsworth.
Short stories in creole………. That’s how our association began – discussing the art of short story writing with all its necessary elements of plot, characterization, dialogue, setting, time and so on. A proper and full short story is a demanding literary art form to do it well in Guyanese creole dialect is another challenging matter. Many were the discussions, debates and arguments with Mac. Though he was the wiser head I used to be stubborn, holding strong to what is a plot, a developing incident or good character delineation. Mac would educate me as to what was a language and what was dialect. Of course, all would know by now how passionate he was about the integrity of our colourful creole.
Mac improved my earlier creolese stories and read them on local radio in a captivating series – “Creole Short Stories” – which he produced and presented on Wednesday nights (I think). There were only foreign radio plays in those days; and stories from the BBC. There was no video, no television. The nation looked forward to local stories read by Mc Andrew in his inimitable style. The only others who came close in those days, in that oral form, were Mark Matthews, Henry Muttoo, Ken Corsbie, Pauline Thomas (Auntie Cumsee) and the late drummer, Art Broomes.
The Mc Andrew Short Story series unearthed good prize-winning writers too. Roplall Monar, Ovid Isaacs, Roy Brummel, Somnauth Narine, Shana Yardan, Kissoon Bactawar and Ronald Waddell are only a few of the dozens discovered.
“Scouter” Mac and the academics/linguists
You would have hardly known from Wordsworth that he had been “a QC boy.” Not that he was modest, but he communicated his preference for “the University of the streets.”
That is why he traversed the entire country exploring and unearthing authentic folkloric beliefs, rituals, proverbs and unique creole which we tend to describe as ‘creolese.”
How high in esteem he held up the creole. An actual quote from him was – “if we throw out creolese, we throw out a vital part of ourselves.” So on his old, reel-to-reel tape recorder, forever in that battered knapsack, he recorded the beauty of the people’s first language.
Almost single-handedly in those days, he took on the academics who would scoff at the creole expressions and deem them ‘low class,’ ‘not a language,’ ‘the talk of the illiterate.”
I was there at one of the better symposia on Guyanese language ever held in this country. It was the Festival of Guyana Words held at the Critchlow Labour College in Georgetown on December 14, 1975. The event was sponsored by the University of Guyana and coordinated and chaired by John R. Rickford, an academic who, by virtue of his linguistic discipline, could not derogate any form of a people’s oral expression.
What a linguistic and literary feast the symposium turned out to be! Papers and contributions from scholars and students, the curious and the man-in-the-street. Rickford, AJ. Seymour, Maude Bullen, Satnarine Persaud, Barbara Greaves, Keane Gibson and Richard Allsopp led explorations into the origins, creation, use and meanings of the Guyanese language, its words, its various forms, even its misuse.
Wordsworth was there to champion the cause of creolese. He took on Derek Bickerton who had claimed that creolese did not and could not cater for ‘abstractions.’ Wordsworth submitted “botheration’ and another twenty-odd examples. His own Papers at the encounter – ‘Some Possible Africanisms in Guyanese Speech’, ‘Guyanese Folksongs’ and his glossaries – enriched the festival.
Mac would always then savour the lifting up, into literary prominence, the creole poems and stories of such greats as Louise Bennett ( Miss Lou from Jamaica), Sam Selvon from Trinidad, Vic Reid (Jamaica) in his famous New Day and our own giants – Marc Mathews, Peter Kempadoo, Pauline Thomas, Ken Corsbie, Mootoo, Farrier et al.
His Other Works
Mac’s passing must resuscitate his epic poems like ‘Old Higue’, ‘ ‘Barriat’ and ‘Lines to a Cartman Pushing;’ are there recordings of his radio series ‘ Creole Mecheh- Mecheh’?
He explored and explained our proverbs, our folksongs and ethnic celebratory rituals. It would indeed be fitting that his works be brought alive at Carifesta X in August.
From Berbice to Charity he discovered East Indian ‘blen-tunes’ – the real orgin of today’s Chutney, he exposed Mannie Hanif’s Guyana Baboo , he brought folksongs, folkspirits and ring games to radio in their purest form.
Worthsworth exasperated older more accomplished pan-players when he topped them at the famous Music Festivals of the fifties and sixties. The ‘professional’ pan men cussed out both Mac and the British adjudicator when Mac won.
WHEN WE ‘FALL OUT’
Mac could be single–minded, headstrong. Mac wore sandals and dashikis a lot. I swear I inculcated my ‘no socks’ habit from him.
On the streets and bars in Kitty we would argue ‘ politics. In retrospect, I realize that I was too inexperienced to appreciate Mac’s foresight.
Mac and I remained close friends as I lived on Lamaha Street near Pike Street. He lived then on D’Andrade Street, Newtown, then David Street, Subryanville. I recall that my cultural pride was severely bruised when Mac’s English wife Rosemary – whom he took away from church on his Volosolex bike on their wedding day – taught me to play ‘ Tom Gone Away’ on their first pan. Nights were spent at a few of his David Street soirees – . folksongs, rum, conkee and ‘metem; sitting flat on the floor with enamel cups and calabash. I must truncate these personal encounters now.
STAAN GOOD MAC……
Sir Ron Sanders, Mac’s one-time General Manager at the radio station has described working with Mac as, at times, ‘an exasperating pleasure and an affectionate frustration’.
Dr Vibert Cambridge will ensure that Mac is appropriately honoured. But there is a point which Ron Saunders made that resonates with me. It is that Wordsworth’s voluminous works were never published. I suspect that this was due mainly to Mac’s own idiosyncratic obstinacy. As we pay tribute to Mac’s legacy the legacy we must resolve to correct that anomaly ………. either here in Georgetown or in New York.
Staan Good Mac….Until……
