Words
In years gone by, children were more timid and inclined to be more compliant with
the discipline instilled by their parents. Maybe that was because of the known
consequences of their deviant behaviour, which was severe punishment in one
form or another. If they neglected to go to school, and their parents could not
control them, they would be picked up by an enforcement officer, who would take
them to a detention institution called “Skerritt’s,” which was annexed to Her
Majesty’s Prison, called “1735,” where they would be severely reprimanded or
flogged.
Skerritt’s was where all Bad Boys were housed; where the lawless and disorderly
juveniles were ensconced. Its purpose was to rehabilitate the delinquents of
society, with the expectation of having them reintegrated as productive individuals.
Bad Gals were not as prevalent as boys. They were few in numbers, and were
usually only prone to promiscuous behavior, a condition from which they appeared
to cure themselves, by the time they got into their late teens; so I do not remember
there being any houses of detention for girls at that time.
The Skerritt Boys attended the public St. John’s Boy School, wearing their khaki
shirts and pants, without shoes, but a rolled-up exercise book and black lead
(pencil) in their hands.
Other boys detested having to sit with them in class since there was an anti-social
stigma attached to them. But after a while, boys being what they are, started co-
mingling. The boys were on a rigid schedule. They arrived at school, located just a
stone’s throw from their quarters, at 9 in the morning. At midday, they walked
diligently back to their dorm for lunch, then returned to school at 1 pm.
Competitive sports at school were compulsory, and the Skerrit’s boys were very
good athletes, who excelled in all areas of the games. At their residence, they were
taught such crafts as carpentry, wood carving, rope making, and grass mat making.
They were kept under close supervision, by the Warden, and any unacceptable
behaviour was met with severely appropriate punishment.
The rehabilitation at Skerritt’s appeared to have been successful because about
eighty percent of the boys were reformed as young men. Some went on to become
successful professionals and businessmen, in the society today. Conversely, 1735
which was set up solely as a penal institution for adult criminals, had different
statistics. Maybe only about twenty percent of the inmates ever made good after
being incarcerated. Many of them became serial offenders, making repeat visits to
jail during the ensuing years. They were perpetually locked away, only to be seen
when pushing their cart in public, piled high with firewood for their fuel, going
back to the prison; conspicuously dressed in their white flour-bag shirt and
dungaree pants, with matching caps, and their personally made shoes, from old car
tyres.
In the old days, though there was less violence and crime, there was much disorder
among us ordinary people. Order seemed to have dwelt more, among the colonials
and upper echelon of society. They appeared to conduct themselves with more
dignity and decorum, while we were frequently rabble-rousing. Perhaps it was a
carry-over from slavery and colonial times when we were conditioned to
antagonize each other and inform the slave masters of the goings on among us, as
he practiced his control by the strategy of divide and rule. We were mortally afraid
of the white man.
I remember as a young boy, there was always pushing and shoving, wherever there
was a gathering of people for any reason. When a lot of people gathered at a
standpipe in the street catching water to take home, there was always much
fighting. Some would forcibly remove others’ buckets and place theirs under the
tap to get theirs filled before the others who were ahead of them. At Deluxe, to see
a cowboy movie with Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, or Rocky Lane, the crowd would
be fighting among themselves to be first to get into the cinema, and at the end of
the film, there would be violent pushing and shoving to be the first to get out. We
seemed to have been in a perpetual state of disorder!
Before I became a teenager, we boys used to roam around the streets at Christmas
time, taking in the spectacle displayed by the clowns, john-bulls, etc., and one of
the most disturbing sites was to see the white people upstairs at Morris Michael’s
gallery on Redcliffe Street, throwing down their pennies and half-pennies to the
crowd of black people in the street below, who were trampling each other, like a
stampede wrestling, walking on each other’s neck, combating for the small change
raining down from above. The spectators, being thus entertained would be joined
by some local collar-and-tie blacks, who in today’s parlance would be called “nuff
and edge-up.” These, and other distasteful memories are still with me as a senior
citizen today. We have not only been order-less on our own accord but we have
also been disordered by the higher-ups.
To be cont–
Cecil E. W. Wade
