No retirement in sight for 90-year-old fuel pump specialist ‘Uncle Joe’

Harold Edwards
Harold Edwards

At 90, Harold Edwards, better known as ‘Uncle Joe,’ of Soesdyke, can be described as remarkable. Age does not stop this mechanic from being one of the most sought after for his work.

Drivers from many regions across the country travel to Soesdyke to have Uncle Joe fix their fuel pumps.

Uncle Joe not only specialises in fixing fuel pumps but he said that fixing them is complex, while adding that regular mechanics usually do not know how to fix fuel pumps and only have knowledge of fixing engines.

He credits his longevity to the bush tea he makes from plants growing in his yard: pungapung, sweet sage, and dandelion to which he adds a bit of tonic. Most of his meals are ground provisions, split peas and fish and of course he stays active with work. More than anything else, he believes it is the great ‘Supreme Being’ who sustains him.

Uncle Joe grew up in the Roman Catholic faith and is an ardent church-goer. He was married three times and had started attending the Methodist Church with his second wife, which he did for ten years every Sunday, before returning to the Roman Catholic Church. He attends the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception and since returning to the church, he has never missed a Sunday except for three weeks ago when he sprayed his room for mosquitoes on a Saturday night with a sanitizing spray as he did not have an insect spray. He slept in the room that night and woke up Sunday morning with a swollen face. However, it did not take long for him to return to his normal self and by the next Sunday, he was back in church.

Asked whether he experiences any illnesses at his ripe age, Uncle Joe joked that he only has hearing problems when he is not being paid the right amount for his services. “If the money not enough, ah doesn’t hear good, but anything greenish [$5,000] and up, you could be till by my gate and say it, how quick ah does hear, fast, fast,” the affable man quipped.

Sadly with not enough contributions for NIS, Uncle Joe said he only has his old age pension to rely on but having to pay utility bills among other expenses, it cannot suffice, which is why he intends to continue working as long as he has strength.

Certified

He set out on his professional journey almost 70 years ago, Uncle Joe was one of the young apprentices learning the trade at the then Booker’s Garage, which was later known as Guyana Stores; he left in 1954. However, his experience in mechanics was further advanced when he worked at Sand Hills, a grant in the Demerara River owned by a Mr Sills (only name given). He also completed an international correspondence course in automobile mechanics from the United States, for which he paid $5 a month. He was awarded a certificate at the end. After leaving Sand Hills, he bought four trucks which he operated in the interior.

At his workshop, Uncle Joe has a small fuel injection pump machine that he made himself by welding parts from one of his trucks which had crashed.

He explained that he settled for working for a small income after realizing that while he was earning a huge income operating his trucks in the interior, most of it ended up being spent on the trucks. “After losing a whole truck in the interior, I said, nah, lemme come back to doing my trade and we can get rice to eat every day,” he said.

As a driver, Uncle Joe had been outstanding. On the wall of his workshop is a framed certificate which reads, “Best Driver Award… Awarded to Harold Edwards in recognition of the courteous and safe driving on the roads of Guyana – 1979”. The signature is faded now, but the certificate was signed by then police commissioner Balram Raghubir. Uncle Joe is also a certified boat captain and back in the day, he operated speedboats between Georgetown and Vreed-en-Hoop and Timehri and Linden.

The average cost to assemble a fuel pump is $12,000. Customers sometimes purchase their own spare parts, which are expensive. According to the man, having operated trucks before, he understands how expensive they are to maintain. As such, he values the money customers spend and does his best fixing their fuel pumps so that they are not put into further expense. “…If you don’t do a good job and it breaks in two weeks’ time, you have to buy parts again. They rather come from far, pay a money and come from Linden, Ituni, Bartica… till hey for me to fix the pumps,” he noted.

An eye for detail

Aside from diligence, honesty is another of his attributes. It is one of the reasons why he is widely recommended. Drivers have related countless stories of buying brand new parts for their vehicles only to have other mechanics swap them with old parts. This does not occur at Uncle Joe’s workshop. He records the customer’s name, the date, the item(s) brought, the serial number, and what the customer says. He stamps the letters and numbers on the item.

“When I first started doing pumps, a man had three trucks giving problems. He come and bring one pump for me to service. I service the pump and he put on the pump. The pump work well. He come next two days, he say ‘man Uncle Joe, me gat a problem with this pump that you do’. I said ‘what problem?’ He said ‘man, it hard starting and the thing smoking plenty. He never knew that I used to grind these edges. All the pumps would come with the sharp edge and I would grind them to mark it. As soon as I look at the pump, I know is not the pump I did. I show him this book and what I brand the pump as…,” he shared.

His daughters, who were nearby, spoke about an overseas-based Guyanese who took a pump to be fixed then left the country. When the man returned he told Uncle Joe that he was there to collect the pump he had paid for. Uncle Joe responded, “I’m not saying that you owe me, but you didn’t pay for the pump”. He then went back to one of his record books, found the date that the pump was taken to be fixed and showed the customer. The man had told Uncle Joe that he should “mark it pon the ice”, a term meaning that the service was done for free. Uncle Joe’s daughters laughed as they added that the customer was shocked that their father had recorded every detail down to his words.

Uncle Joe has even stamped his pressure pots and tools, because someone once borrowed a tool and never returned it. “Everything he records, which is why we are careful what we say,” one of his daughters said.

Branding the pumps has also helped in instances where they have been stolen. Uncle Joe said he has had the police request his help in the past in verifying details of the serial number and branding of a pump he fixed that was stolen from a customer. This is how he keeps his good reputation.

After so many years in the trade, there can still be challenges. “If somebody bring in a new pump from outside, and I don’t know about it—It have a certain amount of calibration you have to put in it. If you don’t do the calibration right, you can destroy that new pump. Too much fuel can do damage and too little can do damage also—I would have to feel my way in making enquiries about who got similar kind of vehicle and ask them if it working well, get the number of the make of the vehicle then contact somebody who doing the same fuel pump work and ask about how much calibration they’d use,” he shared.

Naturalized

The elderly man is well loved by his friends and family for many reasons, especially his humorous nature. Uncle Joe shared that he is Guyanese by naturalization. His parents, both St Lucians, were on their way to Guyana in 1930 when he was born on the boat. His parents, he added, always debated whether he was born in Guyana’s waters or international waters, an answer he still does not know.

However, he has lived here all his life. The man noted that he visited St Lucia on several occasions to meet his relatives living there but never stayed. “I go to live and I don’t like the place at all, at all,” he explained. “I see one set of old truck and old lorry, and they got a house like that empty and another house like that empty…money not circulating.

“And then the fish there, we custom to we snapper and grouper and thing, and all they had was sheer small fish that was bony and I ain’t custom to that. After two or three weeks there, I said, ‘Miss look, please book my ticket so I can go back to Guyana’. Hear she telling the lady, ‘…and look at this man, this man family belong to here and he said he don’t like his mother and father place; he want to go back in Guyana’. I said, ‘Guyana bright far more than hey man’.” Uncle Joe chuckled as he shared the memory while his two daughters laughed in the background.

Growing up he attended the St Mary’s Roman Catholic School. The second of four siblings, Uncle Joe’s older brother has since passed on. He has an 87-year-old sister, Olive Green, who is the mother of former boxer Dick ‘Tiger’ Green and mother-in-law of former mayor Patricia Chase-Green. He also has a brother in Trinidad who he has never met. Uncle Joe is a father of seven, grandfather of 17, great-grandfather of 17, and great-great-grandfather of seven.