When I went off to university at the tender age of 17, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. Four years later, I graduated with a degree in English and History and STILL had no idea! My mother and father urged me to go to Bequia for a year to help at the local high school, perhaps time away from Canada would help me figure out what to do with the rest of my life!. My sister Mary and her husband Dave were already on the Island as CUSO volunteers ( the Canadian version of Peace Corps ), so I would not be entirely alone in a strange place.
My mother and father had discovered Bequia several years earlier, and had decided to aim for early retirement in order to live on the island. Dad, an Anglican Minister, had once held the post of Director of the Canadian Hearing Society and was therefore an authority on deafness. Mom worked as an executive at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education and was a force to be reckoned with. Together they started the School for the Deaf, which in turn became the Bequia School for the Handicapped and then the School for Special Needs. Today it’s called the Sunshine School. This was accomplished under the umbrella of the Bequia Mission, an organization the two of them founded and ran with love and dedication for many years. The Mission arranged for scholarships locally as well as abroad, helped equip hospitals throughout the Grenadines and made much-needed repairs to homes and churches. There was much more to the Bequia Mission, this is just an outline of what it was and how it all started.
Bequia is the largest of the Grenadines in the Windward Islands, nine miles across the channel from the mainland, St. Vincent. It is only seven square miles and has a population of about five thousand. To get there I would have to fly from Toronto to Barbados, then catch a regional airline to St. Vincent. Bequia had no airport, so I would be overnighting on the mainland and taking the ferry to Bequia the following day.
With a bit of money and a small suitcase I left Canada in October of 1977 to spend what I thought would be one year on the tiny Island of Bequia. I had seen pictures and heard stories over the years but had no clear notion of what living on the Island would be like. Dad had snapped photos of scantily clad children with goats beside a shack, wild waves on the windward side of the Island, the ferry being off-loaded and of course lots of church pictures. When the Friendship Rose ferry rounded the point the first thing I saw were several beautiful yachts at anchor in Admiralty Bay, and I felt a wave of relief ….. not so primitive after all!
The hustle and bustle on the wharf as the ferry arrived was somewhat daunting. Bequia was full of colorful characters and each one made a point of being on the jetty at boat time. The old wooden schooner was heavily loaded with an interesting (and I DO mean interesting!) mix of cargo, which was being claimed with noisy enthusiasm. As my sister was welcoming me to the Island the heavens opened up and it started to rain, and WHAT a rain it was! It was a torrential downpour so strong I was in danger of being knocked over. It continued to pour for two days, evidently normal during the rainy season. When the sun made its appearance on the third day I saw the Island for the first time, and was blown away by its tropical beauty. For the next year I would be living in Paradise!
Welcome to the blogosphere!
Thanks! New at this, consider it a work in progress. I’ll be posting again tomorrow xxoo
Congrats on the blog! Can’t wait to read more!
Thanks Nads! We’ll get better as we go along, a real learning curve this end!
Love that you are doing this blog! Congrats Judy!💜💜
This is amazing. It’s really nice to get to know my island back then from your experience. I’m excited and eager to read these stories.
So happy to hear you like the stories – keep reading!
enjoying this read. good memories for me too
Thanks for the stories, brings back alot of memories of our first days in Bequia in the early 80s. My father would have loved to have a read as well i’m sure. I must visit one day, been over 20yrs 🙁
I AM MOVE TO WRITE!!
Hello Miss Armstrong, as I had to address you then when you were my English teacher at the Bequia Anglican High School (BAHS). Now I know how you happened to come to Bequia. We remembered being told that Fr. Armstrong’s youngest daughter was going to come to teach us. You were a great. You are an unforgettable teacher Judy! You made a lasting impression on our young minds. I have never forgotten and will never forget your outloud reading skills. Who can forget, with your excellent reading of the book, Charlie and the chocolate factory.” The way you jumped up and shouted the “yeeee peee,” of grandpa Joe, was out of this world! Teachers do mould impressionable young minds for life. I watched the related movie with my young daughter a few years ago and of course I related my school’s reading experience to hear. It was thrilling to see what you read to us after all those years on a TV screen.
I stumbled on your stories whilst researching the Bequia Mission. Keep up the writing.
Continue to do good wherever in the world you are at the moment. Enjoy life and do keep extra safe. My Bequia nickname is Puntz, I know that you would recognise it. Take good care.
Hi Brennetta – I remember you well! Thanks for your kind words, they mean a lot to me. I have retired and still live on Bequia, it’s my home….
Hi Judy. Thank you so much for these stories, and especially for the one on George and Vera and their Tor Helge. We were on the Tor in Oct., 1979 – our first time out of Canada!. During our time on board, George mentioned more than once that he was happy that there was shortly going to be a pizza place in Bequia. Was that yours? We live in Ontario, and a few years later – I don’t recall the year – we decided one Sunday to attend the church the minister who married us was then at, and that day a visiting minister gave a talk and we were shocked to hear him speak about our George and Vera!! About Vera staying with his family — your family, I guess – before giving birth. It truly is a small world!! Are you in touch with George or Vera, by chance? We received Tor newsletters for a while, but we moved & mustn’t have let them know our new address. I know they moved to the outer islands in B.C., and I searched out his mom, and learned that she’d moved there as well, and that she passed a few years ago. And I found an article on the sad demise of the Tor. When we were there, the thought crossed our mind that we should stay – we were young, my guy worked on diesel generators and helped George with his on the Tor while we were there. We didn’t stay, but reading your stories makes us think we maybe should have. After our week on the Tor, we stayed in a tree house at the Frangipani Hotel for several days. I had a tiny lizard that liked to sleep in my sandals. I have to read more of your stories to see if Bequia, like everywhere else, has become just a mess of la-de-dah resorts. I sure hope it hasn’t.
Hi Jackie – glad you are enjoying the stories! I am still in contact with George, he visited Bequia a few years ago after so many years away and is still the same charismatic character. He and Vera sadly split up after building a restaurant and small inn on Galliano Island in B.C. I don’t have direct contact with Very but yes, she DID stay at our house for that last anxious week before the birth of their first son Adam! My father baptized Adam on board Tor, and Mac was his God-father. My parents were very fond of Mildred (George’s mom). Bequia has changed a lot over the years but I cannot imagine calling anyplace else “home”, it’s still a magical place….
Hi Judy,
I found your stories after booking a trip to Bequia and want to express how much I’ve enjoyed steadily reading through them. Since I’ve started, it’s felt like you’ve been my personal virtual tour guide, so I guess this is me filling out a comment card so your boss knows you’re doing a killer job! Thank you so much for weaving your personal experiences with the island’s history and cultural insights. As a dumb American, I had no idea what to expect when visiting Bequia and I still don’t, but now I know to at least watch out for motherfucking centipedes!
Me and my girlfriend are arriving next Saturday and are DYING to know if it’s plum season! Can you please share where tourists like us can get our greedy little hands on some?
Thank you!
DK
Hi Dennis – so glad you like the stories! Plums are ripening now, saw a tree with fruit just outside Dawn’s restaurant at Lower Bay so you might ask her. You can also check in with Darky at her fruit stand in Port Elizabeth, plums aren’t usually sold by fruit vendors but they can source ’em for you I am sure. And yes, watch out for those centipedes!