The recent launch of my docutext Nostalgias took me last October to Vancouver, British Columbia (BC) for a fascinating experience. After entertaining the Guyanese Posse in Richmond, British Columbia, Canada, Clyde Duncan, their President, insisted on an extended tour of the city.
Finally we went up a hill in the suburbs of the city to Fort Langley, cold bussing tail. This ‘short pants’ tropical mudlander did not walk with warm clothing, but his trembling heart ignited, as a tall, sombre statue loomed in the shadow of the car’s beaming headlight.
The bronze memorial plaque read: “Sir James Douglas 1803-1877 / As the first Governor of British Columbia 1858-1864 James Douglas proclaimed the new crown colony at Fort Langley, on Nov 19, 1858.”
And then the biggest surprise of my life since I passed Scholarship, June 1948 at Smith Church, Clyde presented me with a paperback. In the dark pine shadows I barely discerned the title on the grey tones of the cover, but I managed to make out Old Square-Toes and his Lady: The Life of James and Amelia Douglas.
I knew Clyde was familiar with my voracious appetite for reading, but then he calmly mentioned, with that glint of pride which we mudlanders proudly proclaim at every opportunity wherever and whenever our Golden Arrowhead flies: “Sir James is Guyanese.”
He coulda knocked me over with a feather, but the grass was wet as a baby’s diaper in the biting 42
