Dear Editor,
I do acknowledge Mr Nick Jackson of Guysuco’s response (‘Guysuco will not stand in the way of the community renovating Leonora Park’ SN, 28.5.08) to my letter ‘What is the status of the Leonora Park cricket ground?’ dated 3.5.08. I am disappointed.
The Leonora Park falls within the NDC – CI to Stewartville District Council in Region 3. I had spoken to councillors before I spoke at that particular meeting mentioned in the letter.
A councillor was good enough to tell me that the administration of the Leonora Park falls within the chairmanship of Region 3. Having spoken to Mr Faerber at that particular meeting, I decided to write my letter to the press.
In the 1960s any work done by a machine at the Leonora Park came directly under the caption of a Sugar Industry Labour Welfare Fund (SILWF) charge. The accounts were submitted to the SILWF and recovered by Leonora Estate.
At present Leonora Estate supplies canes. From every ton of sugar produced SILWF gets a percentage.
The SILWF, as I know it, is still responsible for social infrastructural works on all sugar estates.
Why over the years did the SILWF not make any effort to ensure the clipping of the park to make it an accessible playfield?
As I have pointed out, it was through the Moyne Commission, by virtue of the sweat, blood and tears of our forebears that these amenities have been won.
It is a shame to observe the machinery of state of a working class government paralyzing what the workers have won.
I would like to ask these people if these very amenities had been won by Cheddi Jagan in 1948, would they have allowed them to go to pasture?
The sugar plantations were the battlefields for much turmoil in Guyana. It is fair to say that under the period of Sir Jock Campbell much effort was made to neutralize the antagonism that existed on the estates.
Never can we say that from the plantations in the expatriate period we were not moving to moments of sublimation. It was in the expatriate period that cricket brought tremendous glory to Guyana. Nay, the West Indies as well. Clem Seecharran’s book on Sir Jock Campbell Sweetening Bitter Sugar quotes Gordon Rohlehr (page 437) as saying: “Now that cricket was being used to sublimate the violent energies and protest generated by plantation society, clubs arose out of the estates and rapidly developed into power centres of social activity in the communities which had been devoid of physical recreation. A new era had been created in which social prestige could be won” (emphasis mine). Do I have to say that Guysuco has undertaken the task of killing social prestige on the sugar estates, starting at Leonora?
I should tell you I know cricket at Leonora was and is destabilized.
My appeal now is to the cricket fraternity to raise their voices against the hypocritical gimmick that now goes on.
There was a time when all Berbice as well as Port Mourant would come to the Leonora Park; there was a time when teams from the East Coast Cricket Board would spare Sundays with us. I can never forget East Bank Demerara. May I ask that great East Bank opening batsman Ivor King to lend us a voice.
May I also ask the ever great Mr Basil Bu tcher to lend us his voice too. Your word, Sir, would be weighty on this matter. And what about Mr Beni Sankar from the Essequibo Coast. Sir, as a boy you used to live at the Leonora Park. To Mr Chetram Singh, Sir, you and I had a chat on the improvement of cricket in Guyana at Parika.
Sir, you are the head of Guyana’s cricket – Leonora Park stood then second in importance to Bourda.
I beseech you to air your voice against the killing of the park, nay, killing of cricket in the most prominent environment at one time – Leonora. Gentlemen, when I look at those who want to kill cricket, I say they don’t know the joys of cricket.
Yours faithfully,
Vaidram Persaud
