In­nis Fran­cis

in­nis_fran­cis@ya­hoo.com

It was a love that rose above chal­lenges and prej­u­dices and blos­somed and grew stronger over decades.

 Now, 60 years lat­er, love let­ters from young lovers have turned out as a source of read­ing ma­te­r­i­al in a book re­lat­ing “the good ole days”, the chal­lenges, strug­gles, and bliss.

For the Love of Ogie by Er­rol Wild­man, 77, shares the sto­ry of this union in a love that binds. At a sim­ple launch of the book at J-ZZ’S In­ter­na­tion­al Steak House Lim­it­ed in Cou­va re­cent­ly, Wild­man re­vealed the book of love let­ters from his de­ceased wife.

Wild­man shares mo­ments of their ro­mance in the book, from lov­ing stares ex­changed with his high school crush, Bis­soon­daye Soon­dar­lal, fond­ly called “Ogie” af­ter school at the door­way at a drug store at La Plique Road in San Fer­nan­do, to the gig­gling, blush­ing and the com­ing to­geth­er in a union that en­dured.

The strug­gles he faced as a 16-year-old Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege boy falling in love with a Na­pari­ma Girls’ High School lass is doc­u­ment­ed in the book.

He said, “We would meet at Warton Drug Store at the bot­tom of La Pique and on evenings she would oc­cu­py one side of the door and I on the oth­er. We just stand up and you ex­change looks and smiles. No touch­ing hands and we would just gig­gle. One day she was in her usu­al spot and on the oth­er side a young boy stand up in my spot. I get so vex I walked down to the Wharf to catch a bus to go home, vex ... !

“The next day, the same thing. I asked her, ‘You know him?’ She smiled and nod­ded. I gone by him and say “Ex­cuse me, I see you yes­ter­day and to­day again, what you here for, you check­ing out some­body? You like that gyul dey? I say you see that gyul dey, that is my woman, so make tracks! He dust it.”

Wild­man shared the har­row­ing strug­gles of prej­u­dice that ce­ment­ed the cou­ple in love, mar­riage, and par­ent­ing two sons and three grand­chil­dren. The let­ters she sent him were tes­ti­mo­ny to the love they fought for. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, Wild­man’s re­spons­es were not saved, due to un­war­rant­ed fam­i­ly in­ter­ven­tion and the pres­sure placed on her back when they court­ed.

When Ogie died of a heart at­tack 18 months ago, Wild­man was about to place all the let­ters he kept from her, dat­ing back to 1962, in­to the fur­ness with her as she was about to be cre­mat­ed.

But his niece-in-law Deanne Mo­hammed in­ter­vened and stopped him.

He said Mo­hammed held his hands and re­fused to al­low him to part with the let­ters. Wild­man is to­day grate­ful for her in­ter­ven­tion as it has led to the pub­li­ca­tion of the book.

As im­ages ran from an over­head pro­jec­tor of the cou­ple’s hum­ble be­gin­nings and youth­ful ren­dezvous, the Bee Gees 1978 Too Much Heav­en soft­ly played in the back­ground.

 Wild­man said, “I’ll read snip­pets of a few let­ters. You can ra­tio­nalise and think about how it was. My sons sup­port­ed me and asked me if the let­ters were per­son­al, I said, ‘Not too per­son­al that I don’t want the whole world to know.’

“I nev­er had pup­py love in my life. I on­ly love one woman, I had a lot of girl­friends, but on­ly one who I love, and it’s Ogie.

“I al­ways won­dered why I kept all those let­ters she wrote to me dat­ing back to 1962. Things passed and my wife was work­ing at Cou­va Hos­pi­tal and I worked shift at Point Lisas. She say, “I meet a fel­la to­day, the man you tell to make tracks.’

“Well, he is a po­lice­man and he came to Cou­va and he saw her name and recog­nised her and he was nice and asked her if she mar­ried the man who told him to make tracks.

“I feel much bet­ter do­ing this book. I was about to put the let­ters to burn with her and Deanne say ‘No, it have more to come.’”

Wild­man read snip­pets from Ogie’s let­ters dat­ing back to 1962, in­clud­ing two un­pub­lished ones in 1970 of the sim­ple, com­pas­sion­ate, and car­ing sen­ti­ments ex­pressed of her un­wa­ver­ing love for him.

“At Home, 19th Sept, 1962, Hel­lo Sweet­heart, I hope you had a won­der­ful day yes­ter­day. Well I think that’s it not too late to still wish you a hap­py birth­day. I hope you don’t mind my late wish­es ... Yes­ter­day af­ter­noon I wished to stay and speak to you but you see I didn’t want any­one to sus­pect any­thing so I didn’t tell you much ... Be­cause you know dar­ling that I love you just as you love me and I hope that some good day we will be able to tell it to each oth­er dear­ly ...With lots of love and kiss­es from your own true love.”

“24 Jan, 1963 Dear Er­rol, I am sor­ry for what I have caused you, but I think there was no cause for wor­ry­ing. You seem to think that there are no oth­er girls in the place for you be­sides me. But I don’t feel that this is true ... Well even if you had an­oth­er girl I would not be vexed be­cause of our age we are sup­posed to have two or three friends. You al­so feel that there is an­oth­er boy in my life but I can as­sure you that there isn’t any ... All’s well, with love and best wish­es, As usu­al Ogie”

Lon­don-born au­thor, ed­i­tor, and spe­cial­ist in Caribbean Cul­ture and His­to­ry Si­mon Lee, who wrote the uni­ver­sal ap­peal in the 206-page book, re­ferred to it as a “pure Romeo and Juli­et sto­ry trans­plant­ed in south­ern Trinidad”.

Lee said in many forms the book ex­em­pli­fied the man­i­fes­ta­tion of the ex­tra­or­di­nary love sto­ry sep­a­rat­ed by prej­u­dice and with­in there is an in­ter­est­ing sto­ry.

Lee told Wild­man’s fam­i­ly to trea­sure the mo­ment be­cause of the sac­ri­fices Wild­man and Ogie made that in­clud­ed them in the his­to­ry-mak­ing event.

He said, “Love and mem­o­ry ex­ist in the hu­man heart. It re­al­ly doesn’t mat­ter where you are. The se­ries of let­ters in the book is based on and writ­ten when two lovers were sep­a­rat­ed. From a fam­i­ly per­spec­tive, you are read­ing the sto­ries of your fam­i­ly and record­ing what ap­pears as mun­dane mem­o­ries. When you look at the sto­ries con­tained in let­ters it be­comes a rich text …

“Ogie was from a strict Hin­du fam­i­ly. When ro­mance reared its head, then it be­came un­ac­cept­able. For Er­rol, this was love at first sight. He was not a pure Hin­du, he was mixed race. One of his par­ents was East In­di­an, this was not ac­cept­able. This tells us so much about an area of south­ern and cen­tral Trinidad.

“Her fa­ther and broth­ers act as po­lice forces. Er­rol took a brave step for these stolen mo­ments that they shared to­geth­er. When she was get­ting these pres­sures at home, she re­al­ly couldn’t deal with it, so she took the op­por­tu­ni­ty of­fered by the moth­er coun­try to go and study nurs­ing. A new an­gle is seen in the let­ters that many Trinidad and Caribbean peo­ple go through.”

Lee said the book has an ap­peal tai­lored to his­to­ri­ans and an­thro­pol­o­gists with a vest­ed in­ter­est in the doc­u­men­ta­tion of so­ci­eties and the post-colo­nial pe­ri­od, and the sto­ries that pro­ceed. He said it was im­por­tant that “nor­mal” peo­ple have their sto­ries doc­u­ment­ed, like Wild­man and Ogie’s sto­ry that mea­sures “big­otry, prej­u­dice, and dis­crim­i­na­tion be­tween re­li­gious de­nom­i­na­tions”.

Mo­hammed not­ed, “I told Un­cle to keep the let­ter. She de­stroyed his let­ter be­cause of her broth­er; he treat­ed her so bad­ly! He was dig­ging up in her busi­ness, throw­ing things in her face. Un­cle Er­rol wasn’t good enough, but two sons and three grand­chil­dren lat­er, Un­cle Er­rol, you are more than good enough. This book has giv­en him a new lease on life.”

She said in a fol­low-up to the book, Wild­man would write a re­sponse be­cause all his let­ters were de­stroyed. The book can be found on the Canopi, Ebook dig­i­tal plat­form for pur­chase.