Queensbury memories…

Despite being born into a family who have for generations made their living through agriculture, I am entirely without agricultural instincts. Plants and animals make good scenery in my estimation but I don’t wish to take care of them, nor would anyone trust me to do so! But, I do have happy memories of excitedly running down what I think is the north-eastern side of Twenty Hill, through Uncle Langley’s banana fields, across the river and along the Valley Road to scamper up the steep incline to Queensbury Old House, where we would be allowed to assist in collecting the eggs from Auntie Eileen’s chickens. No one else we knew had a commercial chicken operation and we considered it quite the privilege to have this access!

Cuz would always provide us with snacks and drinks, but I was terrified of her! She could be really quite fierce in demeanour. While Auntie Eileen never demonstrated any disapproval of us, Daddy’s second family, I was never sure that Cuz was as comfortable with the permissiveness of us traipsing through her mistress’s domain. Mark and John spent more time at Queensbury than I did, and I think both had childhood jobs with Auntie Eileen.

Cuz adored the Queensbury siblings, but I think was quite stern with them too. There was a story that used to be told about her insistence that the children speak standard English and not the English patois we all were comfortable with when consorting with the estate workers. We might, for example, say, “Ah we ah go dung de road”. So, when Robin one day asked his mother, “Mummy, are we going to town?” Cuz immediately admonished him, “Mister Rabbins, yuh mus not said ah we, yuh must said, ‘Mammy, is we going to town’”!

I think it must have been Cuz that one time answered the telephone and told Daddy that Brenda Hazell was on the line for him. Daddy, busy with something, told her to say he wasn’t at home, and she went back and reported that “Mister Chris say to tell you he not at home”!

Cuz, childless, must have been in her sixties when she married her long-time companion, Queensbury overseer St.Clair “Tin” Samuel, after his wife died. Our whole family attended the traditional wedding. Cuz was attired in bridal white complete with veil. When the minister extended the blessing that the marriage be as fruitful as the grape vines, Mummy, in one of the front pews, shook with barely suppressed giggles, which guests from the villages apparently took as emotional wedding sobs, and evidence that it was a successful “nice wedding”.

One other Cuz story I remember was when she asked one of the “yard boys” who attended her to get her “two breadfruit”. He did as she asked and she was furious that he had brought her “two, bare two, breadfruit” – two simply meant to indicate more than one! 

Those estate homes were not luxurious but they had wonderful atmosphere, and I cherish those memories of Queensbury. After Auntie Eileen built her lovely modern home, an elderly couple, the Müllers I think, lived in the old house.  I believe he was brother to Archie Casson’s mother, from Schleswig Holstein, Germany.  The story goes that, after they had moved on to Britain, the octogenarian gentleman was found chasing a chambermaid!   I had a very pleasant relationship with the lady and several times went up and sat with her reading and chatting, but I was so young it’s just an outline of a memory really.

One last story – this time one about the Cassons, whose name had been Corea. Apparently, on the day that the name change was effected, uncomprehending people in the courtyard were heard to comment on how scandalous it was that “all dis time Mistah Casson believe he puppa was Mistah Corea and only now he mumma tell he he really name Casson”!

These are trivial anecdotes that amused us but I really don’t know that they stand the test of time and context.  I guess I leave that to each of you to decide!

One Love,
Lisbie x

Chris Punnett on floor at Queensbury, with Polish friend Maciej Zweirs, doctor at Pembroke