One of the first things that struck me when I arrived on Bequia in the 70’s was the lack of telephones, something I had pretty much taken for granted growing up in Canada. Those who DID own telephones guarded them religiously; an overseas call was difficult to make as well as very costly, and no-one wanted to receive an astronomical bill at month’s end. People weren’t able to call each other so messages were passed verbally, a somewhat unreliable system that often ended in confusion at the receiving end!
Mac and I got our first telephone in 1980, and our number was simply 474. They were still a rarity on the island and expensive to use, but as we hardly ever made long-distance calls the expense was minimal. It didn’t take long before telephones became a common household item on Bequia, and the Cable & Wireless directory grew in size accordingly.
The first cell phone I ever saw belonged to my husband Nik, and that was in 1995. Boatphone was the only cellular service in the Caribbean at that time, and Nik used it to conduct business from his tug-boat. The phone was convenient as well as necessary but NOT cheap! Nik’s bill at the end of the month was usually pretty outrageous, making me glad his company was footing the bill! Boatphone became more or less obsolete when Cable & Wireless put up a cellular service, the expense was still high but not AS high. Nik was able to replace his quite bulky Boatphone with a smaller Nokia cell-phone, a seemingly miraculous device which today would be considered almost pre-historic!
One year Nik and I had to be away from Bequia at a time when my services as ship’s agent were required, and I trained my daughter Rachel to work in my place. We bought her a cell phone, and gave the number to the ships so they would be able to contact her easily. Rachel kept that phone, and had it with her the day she and her hiking group got stranded at the Falls of Baleine. The excursion had gone fine until torrential rain had flooded the trail, making getting out from the falls virtually impossible. Rachel had tried to use her phone, but wasn’t able to get a signal from such a remote location. However, she WAS able to reach a Cable & Wireless operator in St. Lucia. The operator kindly called the St. Vincent Coast Guard to alert them about the stranded hikers, and the group was rescued the following morning by sea. Rachel’s cell phone had saved the day, and I was grateful when the coast guard delivered my daughter all the way home to Bequia
With the arrival of Digicel and its new cellular service the industry took off at an unprecedented pace. Cell phones went from being a rarely seen luxury to a “must-have”, and it wasn’t long before every Tom, Dick and Harry owned one. Cable & Wireless no longer had a monopoly, and the cost of owning and using a cell phone dropped dramatically once there was competition in the country. Land and water taxis no longer had to rely on their VHF radios for business, people could call them on their cell phones. The cell phones became invaluable to fishermen, they could now organize a market for that day’s catch from their boats. Home-owners began to cancel what are now referred to as “land-lines”, figuring they were obsolete and a waste of money. Times were changing, and they were changing fast.
Cell phone technology has developed at an astonishing rate, to the extent that they now have the capability of a computer with the added bonus of being able to take pictures thanks to the internet. Movies can be streamed, books written and self-published, children schooled, shopping done and offices run, all with the use of a hand-held device. Tech companies make fortunes as users vie for the latest models available, ditching their old (and perfectly good) cell phones in their pursuit of that what is considered the absolute BEST. Mankind has become heavily dependent on a device that cannot really be called just a “phone” anymore,
I am saddened when I go to restaurants and watch families scrolling through their cell phones instead of communicating with each other. It saddens me when a young person without a cell phone is looked upon with pity or, even worse, derision. It’s sad how many people die each year due to texting while driving, or when teens are bullied via social media. Cell phones ARE a necessary evil in this modern world, and I have to admit I would be lost without mine! However, a part of me really REALLY misses getting that old-fashioned, verbal message from Paget Farm telling me, “your fish done eat” when the actual message was “come get de fish!”
