By Stanley Collymore
Happy Independence Day Barbados! And warm exultations
from every Bajan, who is quite jubilantly, justifiably
and sincerely immensely proud of what you’ve
assiduously and magnificently done for all
of us – your loyal citizens – in the past, as you are still
now doing and will go on as before, I’m absolutely
sure, to capably, impressively, beneficially and
determinedly continue achieving in respect
of the untrammelled good, individually
and communally, of all Barbadians;
as well as our most praiseworthy,
adored, Caribbean and tropical
paradisiacal island home we
passionately love, hold in
immense affection, and
is duly referred to as
Beautiful Barbados
by everyone of us.
Actions so inherently routine and uncompromising
with you Barbados that with unequivocal surety
I’m totally convinced you will unwaveringly,
as ever, continue unabated with them well
into the distant future! And accounts for why as an
appreciative and loyal Bajan who indisputably
is indebted so much to you I intensely, in
conjuction with my earnest salutations,
wish you a perfectly cultural Bajan
anniversary day, a superb, and a
truly unforgettable fifty third
Independence celebrations
in every conceivable way!
© Stanley V. Collymore
18 November 2019.
Author’s Remarks:
Unforgettable Recollections: As the thundering chimes signalling midnight rang out and reverberated across the entire landscape of Barbados on Tuesday 29th November 1966 and in so doing heralded in the start of November 30, 1966 the Broken Trident: the new, national flag of Barbados and the inestimable symbol of Barbadian Pride and Industry, rose majestically to the pinnacle of flag staffs across our sacred land in boisterous conjunction with the tumultuous acclaim of Barbados’ first minutes of national independence on Wednesday the 30th November 1966.
Fifty three years on from that glorious day and coupled with the genuine and inspiration genius of the Father of the Barbados Nation, our first Prime Minister and himself an acclaimed and statutory National Hero of our Nation, the late and great iconic figure Errol Walton “Dipper” Barrow, Barbados and its people commendably to him have much to be grateful for.
Although visited several times previously by the Portuguese after Christopher Columbus’ landfall in the region, it wasn’t until the 14th May 1625 that the first English ship sailed into and moored in the territorial waters of a distinctly Arawak and Carib indigenously populated Barbados.
However in 1627 the English were back again and thus became the first and only Europeans, on behalf of their country England, to establish a lasting and continuous settlement in Barbados which, thereafter, remained English, and unchanged so, for the next 339 consecutive years until Barbados’ independence on the 30th November 1966. In the process of this according Barbados the purportedly legendary distinction of being the only English and much later after the creation of the United Kingdom, British colony never to have ever changed colonialists’ hands.
And with exceptionally good reasons too on the part of the English regime and its people back in Europe and the rest of the British after the creation of the UK. Since, among other crucial things, it was Barbados’ money and labour as England’s wealthiest colony that fully financed the English Industrial Revolution and both literally and virtually overnight transformed a wholly nondescript and unimportant offshore European entity called England into the spearhead of the global British Empire that it subsequently became.
So feel immensely proud of who and what you are my fellow Bajans as you joyously celebrate our Independence Anniversary Day in true Barbadian style and with the utmost self-assurance, dignity and gratitude that we’re all present and correct to do so.
