KINDLY PERMIT ME a few lines in your good newspaper to comment on what we as annual visitors found to be interesting ways to experience and live aspects of your island’s history and heritage while on holiday.
On arrival at our guest house, one of the first things we do is grab copies of your Daily Nation.
We also turn on the TV set to the local channels to enjoy its presentation of the people’s culture. We have been vacationing in Barbados every winter for the last six years.
During that time we have been fortunate to watch many of the local TV programmes such as Good Morning Barbados, Q In The Community, and the Religiously Talking (which no longer shows unfortunately), and last, but not at all least, the wonderful programmes presented by Sherwood McCaskie for which I now give high commendation.
Mr Editor, I really enjoy watching the Silent Sentinels programmes every week. Although we have personally congratulated the producer, we thought that we should publicly express our appreciation of his work and special talents in a widely read publication like the Nation newspaper, where it would be recorded forever. I followed historic preservation and anthropology in Europe and have worked in the media.
From my experience, I know that Mr McCaskie’s programme is very well thought out and well done. It has a great, unassuming concept that communicates a lot of information and engages the viewers. I have been following his work, and I particularly like how he uses the very simple and unnoticed as the subjects in his programmes.
The present series of the Trees Of Barbados is a very good example of this. The idea of driving around the island and having experts talk about trees and their ethnobotany is very good. However, presenting that in a lively and engaging manner makes the programme very educational. Whenever we visit your beautiful island, we are fortunate to see a new series on the local station.
A few years ago we were enthralled at the manner in which he used the tombs and memorials in the island’s graveyards to “bring alive the dead”.
Last year we were glued to our TV set every Tuesday night as we watched how he used the social, economic, political, and religious history of Speightstown to engage us in that wonderful series Speightstown – The Forgotten Treasure.
It was no surprise that he was awarded for it. Our Monday’s schedule on the island now includes a treasure search for those trees talked about in Sunday night’s programme. We enjoyed travelling to Maycocks Beach in St Lucy, and Cane Field Gully in St Thomas, just to name a few.
Once again, we commend Mr McCaskie for presenting the history and heritage of our favourite island in such an engaging and informative manner. Just as researchers consult old copies of the Daily Nation regularly, we believe that future generations will do the same with Mr McCaskie’s work.
– Elizabeth Bennett
