T. ALBERT MARRYSHOW AND HIS MEMORIAL FESTIVAL

Marryshow of Grenada: it is a name to conjure with - a name which immediately evokes in those who knew him a figure of a man of many facets, a man who was at the same time journalist, politician, poet, philosopher, philanderer, gardener, singer, spendthrift, traveller, fighter. He was in short, a man who was larger than life, a man who lived life to the full and who. even in death, refuses to be relegated to his resting place with his Franco foster-parents in the St. George's cemetery overlooking the Caribbean, or even to the pages of the history books. For it was the fact of his existence, the strength of his personality and the reality of his achievement which brought into being the Marryshow Memorial Festival, held in Grenada from November 4-9 1974, just eighty-seven years after his birth in 1887.

Indeed, those working at or visiting the Extra-Mural Department of the University of the West Indies in Grenada, located in the house Marryshow built and called 'The Rosery', now renamed Marryshow House, must be acutely aware of the spirit of T. Albert Marryshow. As they survey the view of the Carenage from the bay window of the drawing room where he sat and entertained such visitors as C. L. R. James, Bertie Gomes, Gordon Lewis and many others from the Caribbean and elsewhere, as they sit and type where he wrote his articles for the West Indian with a pen frequently dipped in vitriol, as they walk through the dining room where he ate his gargantuan meals, and as they look out at the garden where once he tended his roses with such loving care - sometimes they must catch a glimpse of that tall, thin, slightly shambling figure watching their activities with a smile on his broad lips and a twinkle in his lively brown eyes. Perhaps, on occasion, he may correct their spelling mistakes or improve the English of their compositions, for he is well-disposed towards the present occupants of his home and he must have observed the Festival organised in his memory with a certain whimsical pleasure.

Not all the changes in the house and grounds would have appealed to him - he must particularly have abhorred the concrete parking place where once his roses grew but he would have appreciated the fact that the inside of the house, at least, was filled with flowers, including several special arrangements of roses. He may well have thought that the extension to the house, added since his time, might have been differently designed, but he would have been intrigued by the Exhibition held in one of its rooms and wondered somewhat at the difficulty of trying to give an account of his life through paper and ink, and photographs, placards and other inanimate objects. But when he turned to the catalogue he would have realised that a considerable effort had been made to give those memorabilia some meaning by relating them to the events of his life, inadequate though this may have seemed to him who really knew the story.

Again, on the Thursday evening, his birthday, when a crowd of nearly a hundred people, most of whom had known and loved him, thronged his dining room for the Historical Evening to hear accounts of various aspects of his life and work, and to add their particular memories, he must have laughed at some of the inaccuracies inadvertently contained in those interpretations. But he would have been glad to note the emphasis given to his efforts to improve the lot of the poor in the contribution on his role in the trade union movement and he was perhaps slightly flattered, even if he thought it was no more than his due, to know that a thesis on his part in bringing about the demise of Crown Colony Government was about to be published by the University of the West Indies - an Organisation the establishment of which he had himself fully supported. He must also have smiled wryly to be reminded of the Governor's view of him in the first ten years or so of the West Indian as a dangerous agitator and anti-white propagandist and marvelled at the lack of understanding exhibited by representatives of that nation whose culture and traditions he in fact admired and frequently extolled. He must also have been pleased to see his eldest son and daughter take part in the proceedings ­ the one as Chairman of the evening's events and the other as the singer of one of his favourite songs, "Mighty Lak' a Rose".

The final evening, the Literary evening, on the Saturday, he may well have found particularly interesting on account of its introduction of new arrivals on the scene or, at least, arrivals since his time - who had their own contributions to make to the understanding of the concept of West Indianism or, as it is called today, Caribbean identity. He would have been vastly amused, as all non-Barbadians are, by the use of Bajan dialect in poetry - so much at variance with his own rather heroic style of versifying. He would certainly have been impressed by the voice and delivery of the poet from St. Lucia. He would have been touched by the efforts of those who read his poems and sang his favourite Negro spirituals but he would undoubtably have felt an urge to take over and continue the performance himself.

The events at Marryshow House were not all that went on during that week. The two excellent programmes produced by Radio Grenada, consisting of various excerpts concerning his life, would have pleased and perhaps even surprised him with their ingenuity and startled him with their recordings of his own voice. The Essay and Poetry competitions provided an opportunity for school children and for poets of any age to exercise their skills. He would have found the essays, with the exception of the prize-winning one, frankly dull - one can imagine him wondering rather glumly why so little of the essentially vibrant nature of his personality had penetrated to the youth of Grenada - though he would have realised that something of his spirit had in fact manifested itself in practical terms in recent events even though the school children involved may not have realised from whence it came.

All in all he would have been pleased with his Memorial Festival and specially happy to know that it is conceived essentially as a living festival and that the intention is to make it an annual event. For if there was a man ever whose numerous interests and activities lend themselves to perpetuation in the form of cultural events of every kind that man is Marryshow. And if there should be a hint of sadness in the recollection that some of the battles which Marryshow fought do not, at this point in time, seem to have had any lasting success, let us remember, as he himself said in a broadcast to the West Indies on that first Federation Day, in 1958, when issuing a warning against over-enthusiasm at the achievement of Federation: "It will be no smooth asphalt way at all but broken roads full of hazards and perils which shall put many an unbearable strain on the courage and moral resources of the best of us".