Dear Editor,
Please allow my correction to the caption of a photograph in your Sunday edition of January 17th last, accompanying an article announcing the death of ‘attorney and independence campaigner’ Llewellyn John.
Noting that you cited the PNCR Facebook page as your source for the photograph, and possibly for its caption as well, l must add that it was on the PNCR page that I first saw this photo, previously unknown to me, some two years ago, in a shared post by Vanessa Merriman, the late Claude Merriman’s daughter.
Most of the small collection of photos and some documents related to these events that my family possesses are from the first Independence conference, held in London in 1962.The photo in question however is very much from the second conference in 1963.
Each of the three parties attending the conferences, represented in the British Guiana legislature at the time, that is, the PPP, the PNC and the UF, were allowed four delegates each, and additionally advisers; though l am not sure of numbers stipulated for the latter. Photos l shared with the Stabroek News in 2015-16 and even before, show the first conference’s PNC delegates: Forbes Burnham, party leader, my father, Neville Bissember, WOR Kendall and John Carter; their advisers were Claude Merriman, Eugene Correia and HME Cholmondeley.
In fact my father and Forbes Burnham were the only two PNC delegates who attended both conferences, (otherwise referred to as constitutional conferences), in 1962 and 1963. In the latter however, two other delegates, namely Mrs. Winifred Gaskin and Mr. Llewellyn John, replaced Messrs. Carter and Kendall; and l note only one adviser per party was listed, Mr. Cholmondeley returning in this capacity for the PNC in ‘63.
The photo that prompted my letter very accurately illustrates this, (copy of your newspaper image attached) as does the last page of the 1963 conference report which lists all the official attendees, most particularly of interest all those of the Br. Guiana delegates and their advisers from the three parties.
Indeed the five names listed as representing the PNC are exactly those persons in the photograph in question, though with the addition of Eugene Correia, all of them reflecting the gravity of the task in hand and ahead of them in late 1963, but definitely not in London ‘just before independence in 1966’.
I do hope this clears up any lingering queries about the time and place of the photo that had come up from amongst the cordial and appreciative comments on the PNCR page some two years ago; I had attempted then to briefly supply the information shared above, but one gentleman some hours or days later had courteously replied to state that he had to disagree with me. I had not been able to reply to this challenge until now!
Finally, ‘just before Independence in1966’? Surely at that time the Prime Minister and all his ministers, and all those working with them and below them, not to mention the private sector, and workers and citizens everywhere, would have been in various stages of frenzy and concentration in making all final preparations for the welcome of the representative of the British Queen, the Duke of Kent, accompanied by his wife, to hand over the instruments of power and of full self-government to the Prime Minister of Guyana, and all the other representatives of the people witnessing this, in the newly christened Parliament of Guyana in May 1966!
Best wishes to all my fellow Guyanese!
Yours sincerely,
Elfrieda Bissember
