Endowed by nature with white sandy beaches, blue skies, and trees bearing coconut and breadfruit, this town radiates an ambience of tranquility. It lies on the northwestern coast of the Caribbean island of St. Lucia, and has for centuries been known as Gros Islet.

Gros Islet’s modern history dates back to 1782, for it was from neighboring Pigeon Island on the dawn of April 8 of that year that the British set sail to pursue and defeat the French for possession of St. Lucia.

My earliest memories of Gros Islet have often evoked images from archaic times. But it is with the utmost pride and affection that I reminisce upon the once antiquated settings of my hometown.

Having been born in the sixties, I have always thought of myself as belonging to the last generation of that era. Those were the long nights of pitch darkness, street lanterns, and stories of evil spirits, commonly refereed to as la-jah-bless, which roamed the streets.

Mornings were usually greeted by the shrill cries of cocks crowing, the sights of older women on feast days dressed in their eighteenth-century formal garments, their “Wob dwiyet,” and the solitary proclamations of a town crier pervading the morning air.

Then there were the frequent stops of Mr. Matiween and his donkey-cart, as they made the early morning rounds of garbage collection.

I remember also the configuration of those old, wooden houses, which were lined along the narrow, sandy streets. There was a uniformity about them. Most of the rooftops were triangular, and the entrance to each home was decorated with conch shells, which formed an arch-like structure on either side of the doorway. They were in fact ornaments wrapped in a shawl of secrecy that only the people of Gros Islet knew.

As a child I had been told many stories about the conch shell. But none was able to captivate my interest like the claims that they were once employed as weapons during the heyday of vigilantism in Gros Islet. Although I was much too young to have borne witness to those various conflicts, I am convinced that scores of alien vagabonds and ruffians were wounded and driven out of Gros Islet with the aid of the conch shell. To this day, that perception has not changed, and has remained as true as my pro-found convictions that within my veins flows the mixed blood of my African and Carib ancestors.

Life in Gros Islet was always filled with intrigue, but nothing there generates greater interest than we, the people of Gros Islet. For many generations we survived off the bounty of the sea by engaging in a thriving fishing industry, which became the epitome of our cultural pride. Every boy and girl, man and woman was a fisherman at heart. We were all bound together by this great economic influence, which symbolized our past, present, and future.

I can still recall the long stretch of boathouses, which were covered with dry coconut palms. There, under a blazing sun, the nets would be mended and fish pots crafted out of dry bamboo stalks. Occasionally, at the command of nature, a gentle breeze would rise from the sea. Then, like a most, powerful apparition, it seemed to cause the clouds to darken and the rain to fall. Although it’s been years, these feelings of refreshment still cause my heart to stall in its beating...