43 years ago today...

 ... Christopher Alexander Punnett "shuffl'd off this mortal coil", but remains present in the hearts and memories of many of us who adored him.  So present, that there have been grandchildren born after he died who have vivid memories of him!  From time to time, family at home will meet up someone who still talks about him.  His contemporaries have mostly all trod on, but some of those young people in the villages who hailed him as Daddy Chris do, I trust, still recall him lovingly.  He was extraordinary in the most ordinary of ways.

I recently learned the word topophilia... it means love of place (From Greek topos "place" and -philia, "love of").  It suggests a strong sense of place, which often becomes mixed with the sense of cultural identity among certain people and a love of certain aspects of such a place.  W. H. Auden used the term in his 1948 introduction to John Betjeman's poetry book Slick but Not Streamlined, stressing that the term "has little in common with nature love" but depended upon a landscape infused with a sense of history.  It seemed to me to describe that ineffable connection that we Punnetts have with the landscape of our Valley, and of our country, as distanced as many of us now are.

​ “The poetry of a people comes from the deep recesses of the unconscious,

the irrational and the collective body of our ancestral memories.”

Margaret Walker

"There is St. Vincent, the most beautiful of the Caribee isles, with it’s bold, sharp, and abrupt mountains, its deep intervening romantic glens, and its lofty and rocky coasts. The delicious valley of Buccament is the admiration of all travellers. The famed botanic garden is the theme of general praise; and the island stands high in reputation as a healthy station."
Simmond's Colonial Magazine and Foreign Miscellany, Volume 1 ~ 1844

"… a visit to the delicious valley of Buccament..."
Between Slavery and Freedom: Special Magistrate John Anderson's Journal of St Vincent During the Apprenticeship

I was delighted to stumble upon our Valley being described as "delicious"! Of course, this was before Grandad acquired the estates, but our relationship with that land feels timeless to me.

Daddy loved his country, and had a passionate relationship with the mountains and Valleys adjoining Buccament. He was a strong believer, but not a churchgoer, so these words of Aldous Huxley always seemed written about my father.

“My father considered a walk among the mountains 
as the equivalent of churchgoing.”

Daddy and, later, his sons (Colin especially) regularly hunted in those mountains. Years ago when Mummy was still alive we (John, Mark and I with Mummy, as I recall) stopped on a drive to North Leeward and stretched our legs on an interior road near Rose Hall (I think), and a gentleman on a donkey asked if we were "Mister Chrissy children"... he told us stories of Daddy's hunting, and he even remembered the names of his faithful hunting dogs! 

The Nature Trail at Daddy's beloved Dalaway, and the newer Cumberland Trail have opened up some of his old stomping grounds to less intrepid nature lovers. I'd love to take this walk...

Cumberland Trail http://discoversvg.com/

"Located in the upper Cumberland Valley, the mountain trail was once used by villagers as part of linking to the upper Vermont Valley. The area was popular for the movement of animals, and was a “Mourning” ground for the Spiritual Baptists Religion. The Forestry Department acquired some lands from farmers in the 1960’s and this assisted significantly in maintaining the trail. The reforestation involved the planting of trees like Caribbean Pine and Blue Mahoe. The Cumberland Trail is also one of the habitats for the St. Vincent Parrot (Amazonia Guildingii).

The Cumberland Nature Trail is rested in the Cumberland Valley, traversing a variety of Forest Vegetation and Farm lands. At the initial section, the trail runs next to a wooden water pipe transporting water to a hydro-electricity power plant located in the Cumberland Valley. 

From its head at Grove, the trail winds its way eastwards for 1Km before veering to the south for another km. This 2-Km section of the trail actually mimics the curves and contours of the wooden pipe that conducts water from the Youngman's Valley to three (3) hydro-electricity generating units located at several points along the Cumberland River with the last one sited at lower Cumberland. Hydro-electricity generation and transmission is therefore an interesting element of the trail."

Cumberland Bay

Daddy was well known for a complete lack of talent for, and interest in, dancing, having apparently ended up on the dance floor with Lady Graham when she foolhardily insisted he accompany her in a dance! But, along with stories of tea meetings and other island traditions, he talked about country people dancing the quadrille, so I looked and found a YouTube clip of Caribbean people putting their spin on the quadrille.

quadrille - Caribbean style https://youtu.be/3eSHbXFl4aA

quadrille - European style https://youtu.be/OGgdGBMLFxE

My "ancestral memories" are filled with Daddy's tales of St.Vincent adventures and ghost stories, riding the rails in Canada, the quality of his attention, his enormous quiet kindness and insistent ethics, walks and drives at his side. He loved his family, and loved each person within it in a very particular and all-encompassing way, and we all loved him deeply. In my years with him, I knew a simple man of simple tastes and habits. His routine was predictable - he had raw eggs and coffee for breakfast, a lunch of meat with a selection of 'provisions' and a dish of peas or beans. After his afternoon rest he read Robert Service or Kahlil Gibran, and his cowboy novels (Louis L'Amour and Zane Grey), had a dish of fruit or a couple squares of dark chocolate, went for a walk, and came home for the first rum of the afternoon, and company. Dinner was steamed fish or soup, every evening.

He was talented, brave, kind, and eminently decent. He revered Abraham Lincoln. He was non-judgmental, he was fair, he was honest, he was funny. He was full of love. He was full of love. The Heavens are richer for his stardust.

Chrissy and his kids

Sending you all love today, and every day.  May you be safe and happy.