Grenada - "Morne Rouge Beach Club" or "BBC" ?

Grenada, oh so sweet Grenada
Just to imagine you is as laying with my love
Your warm and all embracing fragrant air
Does take my breath away, so truly sweet you are

Recently on holiday in Grenada I happened to overhear a fellow talking to tourists about the Island`s beautiful beaches. Yes, the 2 mile stretch of Grand Anse they were visiting was certainly a spectacular example of one, but, Grenada also had many other smaller but equally impressive sandy beaches nearby. Another for instance was to be found just a ten minute walk over the hill by The Flamboyant Hotel and down to the lovely arc of Morne Rouge Bay, known locally he added as BBC (pic 1973).

What really caught my ear and had me interested was his explanation and suggestion that this beach had possibly became known as BBC due to the fact that a local radio station had at one time started up broadcasting from that area.

I remembered that I had a scan back home of an old picture postcard showing a building clearly named "Morne Rouge Beach Club" (pic undated).

Wilfred Redhead in his book "A City on a Hill" reveals that the Morne Rouge Beach Club was originally built and operated by the popular Grenada business man Dudley Slinger.

I can also recall that in 1973, my first visit to Grenada, my wife Theresa and I attended a Saturday night dance at a venue on that beach (pic 1973). The Club in question and partly visible below the balcony was at that time known as "Blanco`s".

From enquiries made since returning home I am led to believe that someone by the name of Blanco did arrive from Aruba to run a Night Club on that beach at Morne Rouge. I`m not able to say if the building we visited that night is the same as the one pictured on the postcard, it certainly doesn`t look like it from that angle. However, it may be that the original structure was changed over the years and altered by additional building work. Regardless of what did happen in that respect, we can at least be sure that a change of name for that establishment did take place -- "Morne Rouge Beach Club" to one of "Blanco`s Beach Club". I`m wondering if this could be a more plausible reason and explanation as to why there is now general usage of the tag "BBC" when referring to Morne Rouge Beach?.

The radio station previously mentioned was in fact WIBS (Windward Islands Broadcasting Service) which evidently did start to broadcast from a studio at a Morne Rouge address in the mid 1950s. It was changed later to Radio Grenada.

Grenada - A blackout on The Carenage

My wife Theresa and I spent a few weeks on The Carenage, in St. George`s, Grenada living in the family bungalow right there on the wharf. "The Gap" as it is known, next to the then cinema The Empire, was in those days a very bright and busy place to be living. I`m referring to the period around 1985 or 1986. The house had been empty for a while after the Revo and since my sister in law Agnes Johnson-Padmore who had been in residence had sadly passed away.

I had started carrying on holiday with me one or two items I`d learnt from previous experiences may just come in handy - electrical screw driver, fuse wire and pliers etc.. There always seemed to be something that could do to be fixed, tightened or repaired.

Let me tell you why from that date in the mid 80s about a happening that decided me to give up my "Bob the builder" and "Jim will fix it" ideas and to just mind my own business in future!.

One night I was left alone to cool off on the gallery as Theresa had gone out for the evening to visit sister Geraldine in Tyrrel Street. I had seen an old portable TV sitting on the floor of the bedroom all week, we had been led to believe it was broken as although it could warm up they said it would give no picture or sound. Nobody could ever complain about the beautiful shimmering view there is to be enjoyed in the evening as seen from our gallery across the placid inner harbour water to The Fort. I however must have got a little restless and instead of just admiring that view suddenly decided that I should try and make myself more useful around the place, what if I could fix that TV?. It was possible a new approach might just have some effect, maybe a few taps on the side of the cabinet might get it going, (that always did the trick on an old temperamental wireless I used to have).

So I picked up the TV set, dusted it down, plugged in and switched on, sure enough the tube did light up but that was all. I then gave it a few jolting slaps on either side and a kind of good shaking too, but, still no good. Plan B was to maybe fiddle around inside with my electrical screwdriver and see if something might just be a bit loose. I started touching the various connections and switching off and on a few times while I tried to act the engineer when suddenly......no, it didn`t go off bang!......but everything just went dark. By that I mean our house lights went out along with everyone else`s on our side of the Carenage. I looked outside the door and was only greeted by moonlight. Panicking now I unplugged the set with the intention of hiding the evidence back where I found it on the bedroom floor. I quickly got back onto the gallery and decided to sit there in that moonlight and act all innocent. Then I got to thinking, perhaps they might be able to trace the fault back to our bungalow and wondered if I should get in first and own up to it. As I tried to decide what course to take, a few generators were starting up nearby along the Wharf and a few lights appearing which for some reason made me feel a bit calmer.

It was strange that nobody passing by seemed to be in the least bit worried or commenting about this sudden darkness. It suddenly dawned on me that it could have been just pure coincidence that there had been a natural power cut and nothing to do with my dodgy electrical work?. After all I hadn`t caused a flash or a bang whilst messing about in the back of that TV.

It turns out, that is exactly what did happen, much to my relief. The Company had apparently been doing some maintenance and had simply cut the supply for a short period of time whilst this was being carried out. Evidently this was known to happen on occasions and consequently nobody except me had been surprised by it. Looking back it seems that for 10 worrying minutes I had found myself guilty purely on circumstantial evidence. Yes your Honour, I was messing about holding a screwdriver with a hand inside a TV set when all the lights on The Carenage went out but it wasn`t my fault, I`m innocent! - honest Guv!.

I mentioned earlier that I no longer carry any "handy" tools with me to Grenada, the hotel I always use now has it`s own very "handy man", I`ve learned my lesson!.




The family Bungalow with a view from it across the harbour.

Pearls Airport Grenada - 1970`s revisited

Having recently returned from holiday in Grenada I offer apologies for my non response to any emails received during that 3 week absence. I know technology makes it possible to keep in constant touch with the home PC but I did want to have a complete break away from any keyboard.

Grenada certainly used to be the ideal place where you could get the feeling that you were cut off from the rest of the world. In those days, the 1970`s, it could take 2 days to reach there from the UK. Depending on flight times and with no night landings in Grenada the journey usually required an overnight stop over in either Trinidad or Barbados. That last hop aboard the LIAT flight (pic) next morning bound for Pearls Airport (pic) in Grenada was always to be savoured for being the 1st day of a real secluded holiday.

Pearls Airport was Grenada`s only airport at that time and very much pre the building of their present Point Salines International Airport. However, nowadays the big difference is that you can be testing out the lovely water on Grand Anse beach 10 hours after leaving the UK, even less from the USA as both now fly direct services to the island.

Although always anxious to reach and start the holiday as quickly as possible, never the less, looking back at some of the interesting situations encountered during overnights and some of the LIAT flights somehow made the 1 day delay worthwhile.

----------Photo taken at Pearls during the late 1970s----------

---------Pearls Airport Building from 1950s postcard ---------



On one early `70s visit we booked to overnight at The Bel Air Hotel right there at Trinidad`s Piarco airport, handy for the morning. My wife Theresa, young daughter Jacinta and my Mother made up the group. I had arranged for us to use 2 separate adjoining but self contained rooms for the night. Quite a few of our Trinidad family and friends came up for the evening to say hello and we did enjoy a good get together with the help of room service. This all took place in my room with Jacinta and Mum coming in after slamming their door locked shut. A wrong thing to do unless you are definitely sure you have taken the key with you!. They unfortunately didn`t but we were not to find this out until our party had broken up after midnight.

I thought well not to worry, just call the desk to open up their room for them. Not so easy, remember this is Trinidad, I was informed that the Manager had the only set of spare keys and he was now off duty and on his way home to Barataria or some place. This was of course in the days before the mobile phone had come into being so contact could not be made until he had reached home. OK, we could all 4 of us have stayed in comfort in the one remaining room but my Mother was worried about her things especially leaving her handbag despite it being (locked) in that next room for the rest of the night. So I made representations to the staff who had been left in charge pointing out that they were obliged to have access to all rooms in cases of emergency. Now was an emergency, my Mum needed her handbag so what were they going to do about it. Despite the fact it was practically the middle of the night by this time and all around us were asleep some member of the staff went outside and reappeared brandishing a garden spade and promptly started to prod and jemmy the locked door. After much banging, loud talking and sounds of splintering, the door finally burst open from its frame, not before several other guests along that corridor had been awoken and had come running out to see just who was attacking who, I know it must have sounded that way.

Well we finally did manage to vacate that other room and transferred all their belongings into ours where the 4 of us spent what was left of the night hoping Bel Air could then get back to sleep. I know that after all that excitement we didn`t get much. It wasn`t long anyway before we were to get an early call for breakfast and prepare for the LIAT flight to Grenada. We were then soon to leave our trail of mayhem behind although not before managing a little photo shoot by the pool (pics) as a reminder of that visit. The hotel was very good and nothing was ever mentioned regarding any disturbance, noise or damage, I just paid for the 2 rooms plus food, breathed a sigh and left.

Some LIAT encounters

I remember another year on a flight over to Grenada was made in one of their smaller quick turn round aircraft. With only a few fellow passengers with us there was not much luggage to unload. On landing these planes would taxi up to the little airport building where we would jump out and go through to get the passports stamped while waiting for a hand trolley containing those cases. All very laid back and informal usually. However on this occasion Theresa imagined that she could not see one of our suitcases on this trolley and disappeared whilst I was still at a desk filling up some form or other. From there I heard a slight commotion out on the tarmac, Theresa had decided they still had a suitcase of ours on this plane and was not going to let them take off with it. The pilot was in his seat already with Theresa standing in front of the plane with a hand up like some traffic warden on a crossing. Of course all our cases had been unloaded, it was just that 1 had been lifted off and put with someone else's. This little episode certainly did liven up our arrival at Pearls that year, nobody seemed fussed about it, just smiles all around, after all it was the 70`s and this was Grenada. I can imagine a similar performance these days landing at Point Salines International might just get us all locked up.

Another time on holiday in Grenada we had arranged to travel over to Trinidad for a week to stay with family there. It happens that travelling on our flight from Pearls was to be an unaccompanied dog. That might have been OK except that apparently this dog had been put in the hold, not in a cage or even tied to anything, but just left loose with the luggage. Not that we knew anything about this until after landing when we seem to have been parked up and just left for ages to sweat. It transpired that Piarco baggage handlers spotted the animal was loose and were reluctant to open the door fully until someone could decide the best way to proceed. Presumably they thought the dog might be a danger if it was to make a run for it across the airfield. I don`t think any of the passengers found out just how this dog saga got resolved, we certainly didn`t. Although thinking about it now the whole dog thing was quite amusing I also know that nearly an hour on a parked plane with no A/C is definitely no joke!.

We returned from Trinidad another year during the 1970s, this time just Theresa and myself. We got booked in at Piarco and boarded the LIAT flight for Grenada. Our 2 Seats were together and situated 3 rows behind the then Prime Minister Eric Gairy accompanied by a couple of his Ministers who were returning from some Trinidad conference. We seem to be all aboard and ready for take off when some fellow put his head in the doorway opposite me and said this is for the P.M. and slid a brown paper package under a seat before slamming the door shut. Theresa and I usually hold hands during take offs and landings, on this occasion we held extra tight whilst staring at that "hopefully" innocent package. Just another example of being made to sweat on a plane.


The last time we visited Pearls was about 5 years ago. The old airfield is still there and dotted around with odd bits of wreckage left over from the 1979/1983 Revolution. It has been left with the runway clear however for possible use as an emergency landing field. On this visit we were treated to a last experience of the place by racing the length of the runway at 70MPH with our friendly taxi driver acting out being the "The Pilot".

Grenada The Lighthouse at Point Saline

Grenada, oh so sweet Grenada

Just to imagine you is as laying with my love

Your warm and all embracing fragrant air

Does take my breath away, so truly sweet you are

Family photographs taken at Point Saline, Grenada in 1974. Three viewed from the top of the lighthouse with the rest taken on and around the 2 beautiful different beaches of white and black sand that ran parallel and just 100 or so yards apart. I know the Caribbean Sea must meet the Atlantic somewhere in Grenada, but, at the end of the airport runway?. Hardly that same romantic picnic spot that I so well remember from our 1974 visit!.

(Graham & Theresa Johnstone, Jacinta & Mum)

It`s not a message in a bottle!

No, this is a message under a bottle and certainly not just one of those cheeky notes left out by a housewife for her milkman. On view is the "Dimple" whisky bottle in question with a real nice and cleverly constructed sailing ship inside it (didn`t we all in our younger days just wonder how the heck that was done?).

Well there is something I still question and that being the label that`s been pasted below these particular waves?. What could it mean?... does it make sense?... is it there just to keep everybody guessing or what?. I must say that in the 40 years it`s been in my possession it has always been a good talking point. Visitors seeing the bottle at home invariably pick it up for a closer look and on spotting the writing usually ask me "could I explain it?" and unfortunately no has always had to be my short answer.

Hopefully there is someone out there in the wider blog world who may be able to shed some light on this particular message under a bottle.

Mighty Sparrow - His 25 titles that still remain a mystery!

The Mighty Sparrow AZ Catalogue page: http://www.grenadamusic.demon.co.uk/page100.html still contains the mystery of................"Sparrow - Titles requiring further info".

These calypso? titles were identified from an unsigned document that did originate from Sparrow`s office in 1991, they were included in his list of 306 singles he referred to as "Existing Masters".

A few of the "unknown" titles on this list turned out to have been performed and recorded by Natasha. Luckily for me Dmitri Subotsky of http://calypsoarchives.co.uk/ managed to compare and confirm that these titles did relate to the tracks published by Natasha and importantly took the time to inform me of this fact.

There still remains approx 25 titles that could not definitely be linked to any Sparrow recording known to me. Links below will take you to the 2 relevant AZ Catalogue pages. http://www.grenadamusic.demon.co.uk/page55.html http://www.grenadamusic.demon.co.uk/page56.html

Suggestions/ideas on the subject would be welcome to Graham Johnstone: trade@grenadamusic.demon.co.uk

Grenada - a glance at still life

Here`s looking at you three eyes!

Having just purchased a digital camera this happened to be the first practice shot I tried with it. Fancy, all the way from the Windward Islands, possibly Grenada, only to get snapped up by some paparazzi newcomer here in London.