Dear Editor,
It was inevitable that so many significant cultural journalists and observers should rush to pay homage to Wordsworth McAndrew, a genuine embodiment of the creolese environment, moreso within the context of the colonial society in which he and his contemporaries were born. Young ‘Mac,’ the name to which he readily responded, was a natural creator and communicator. His intellectualism was not the more obvious product of the academic. He simply ignited, and those of us who imbibed with him in those fledgling years could not help but be singed by the instinctive heat which he generated.
In that very colonial context not all of his poems were well received, certainly not by those who led the formal literary establishment at the time. In a programme titled ‘Poetry I Like’ which I produced, I had arranged a reading of a number of Mac’s poems, including the famous ‘Old Higue’ and what turned out to be the infamous ‘Magdalena.’
The reading was done by Joyce Trotman (sister of Donald and aunt of Raphael), formerly of the Teachers Training College, who later migrated to the United King-dom where she has since been recognised for her published collections of Guyanese proverbs, as well as other cultural efforts.
‘Magdalena’ titled after the biblical Mary Magdalene, in nuanced creolese profiled local prostitution at the time, stealthily plied along that part of High Street that fronted, of all places, the Victoria Law Courts. Its broadcast revolted ‘civilised’ sensibilities of which AJ Seymour was the acknowledged preserver. He was also at the time the Chief Information Officer of the Guyana Information Services (GIS), and he officially berated me for initiating such a glaring indiscretion.
However, his innate kindness kept me on the job of Broadcasting Officer – alongside Carlotta Croal-Thomasson of Theatre Guild legacy, and such other stalwarts as Lloyd Searwar and Vic Forsythe.
Mac and I had forged a close friendship, and from time to time I would tease out his responses to my reminder that the englishness in ‘Wordsworth’ did not quite reconcile with the ‘Mac’ creolese. His responses varied, depending on our state of inebriation, as those occasions were usually over drinks at a domestic watering hole just across the road from the High Street broadcasting station – Radio Demerara.
By that time Mac had became a reader of the scripts I produced weekly for the GIS. One was called ‘Rural Notebook’ and covered agricultural developments across the country. Some of the District Information Officers whose reports contributed to that programme, included Verney Jones, a former Daily Argosy journalist, Maurice Dundas and Basil DeRusche.
We were given one hour to record the half-hour programme, which meant precise editing, and even more precise elocution on Mac’s part, with hardly any creolese references. Mac had to be good, as he was following a hard act in Wilbert Holder who was one of the finest actors of the day on stage or radio, but had already migrated to Trinidad.
After meeting that pressurised deadline it was inevitable that we had to let off steam, oftentimes joined by Clarence Walcott (known as ‘Little Sport’) who was in administration at the GIS. It was considered almost an act of effrontery when bypassing the Civil Service Regulations, AJ Seymour acquiesced to my persuasion that Wordsworth McAndrew should be my replacement on my resigning from the Civil Service to join the then Bookers Sugar Estates.
Mac got the job and the rest of the history will continue to be told by others, including another of my colleagues in spirituous poetry reading – Vibert Cambridge.
Yours faithfully,
Earl John
