Dear Editor,
I agree with Carl Veecock: Donald Drayton’s piece on Albouystown was indeed a “good write,” and my husband and I both enjoyed reading it, though we wondered whether some of the people named might be sensitive about their origins being mentioned. We both recognised some of the names, and I wondered whether Donald Drayton was the pleasant, well-mannered young man, who worked as a Class II clerk at the Georgetown Prisons in the early 1950s. I remember this chap.
In those days, the British class system was entrenched in the colonial territories and social origins were important; one took one’s social status from the male head of the family. In Guyana (then British Guiana), at job interviews, one of the first questions asked of youngsters would be what work their fathers did. Married women with professional husbands would be placed at the top of employers’ list. This was certainly the case with the largest group of companies operating in Guyana at the time. Most of us were aware that this was unfair but felt powerless to change the system. It should not be surprising that some of us still carry a hang-up from those days.
