Strathspey on the East Coast of Demerara is home to a skillful craftsman who has been building a reputation in the creation of eye-catching furniture for more than two decades.
Kelvin Wilson, known to friends as “Junior”, has been practising his craft after leaving school at the age of fifteen. Seeking a marketable trade he registered at the Linden Technical Institute in the hope of learning the skills necessary to become an electrician. It was while waiting for feedback regarding his admission or otherwise to the Institute that his grandmother, with whom he was living at the time, encouraged him to ‘work along’ with one of her friends, a carpenter, as an apprentice. It worked insofar as he made a decision to put his initial ambition of becoming a carpenter behind him.
Two years later, having gained some measure of skill and experience ‘Junior’ parted company with the man who had afforded him ‘a break’ in his new trade. Afterwards, his life’s journey took a detour. He seized the opportunity afforded by an offer to employment as a hired hand on a Caribbean cruise liner though, eventually, homesickness saw him return to Guyana.
