Time was when Linden was widely perceived as a ‘spoilt’ township, a community pampered on the luxury of a bauxite industry from which it derived paid employment and sundry other attendant privileges including ridiculously subsidized electricity and sundry other perks and privileges most of which were associated with the presence of a world-renowned bauxite mining company.
It had been felt, as well, that the amenities associated with bauxite mining had had the effect of blinding the community to its other blessings, not least the agricultural potential which the nearby intermediate savannahs afforded. In truth, there had always been modest clusters of intrepid farmers in the community but it was always painfully apparent that potential outweighed evidence of genuine effort.
Few people, too, appeared to mind the ‘export’ of fresh fruit and vegetables from other distant communities into Linden and the attendant patently dangerous and embarrassing situation that had arisen out of this monopoly. In times of the plenty which bauxite afforded the community it appeared that not a great deal of attention was paid to this anomaly. Incrementally, the layers of vulnerability of the community to ‘outside’ pressures were being peeled away.
