22 | The Tribune | Weekend Friday, December 16, 2016 literary lives sir orville turnquest
What manner of man is this? Sir Orville Turnquest’s new biography of the Duke of Windsor is unique and a must- read for all Bahamians,
Sir A detail of the cover of Sir Orville Turnquest’s new biography of the Duke of Former Governor General Sir Windsor reveals the sharply dressed, diffident Duke in stark contrast to the Christopher Orville Turnquest Bahamians around him.
marry a twice-divorced commoner, and to a small, remote island colony Ondaatje then reluctantly accepted a position of the British Empire during as Governor of the Bahamas. This is “His personal such a dramatic period in world says a book that everyone in the Bahamas history led the United States should read. attitude of and Britain to place a special The Bahamas was then a colony, focus on the Bahamas. Why Sir and for the Duke it meant banishment superiority, together Orville Turnquest is so quali- hat is extraordinary about and a geographical position far away fied to write about this man and the biography ‘What from European and German influence. with his constant this period is that he eventually Manner of Man Is This?’ After renouncing the throne as King became the 70th in the chain is that it was written by Edward VIII of Great Britain, Ireland display of class of succession to the important Wa black Bahamian who was born in and the British Dominions (the only Governor’s job. Grant’s Town on July 19, 1929, who other job he had ever had) on Decem- prejudice and While all of the other books earned his way from “Over the Hill” - ber 10, 1936, he assumed his new title about the Duke and Duchess of the poor section of Nassau - to become Duke of Windsor and was free to marry obvious ingrained Windsor have sought to praise the fifth Governor General of an his mistress, the American Mrs Wallis the couple’s positive involve- independent Bahamas where he served Simpson. bigotry against ment in Bahamian life during from January 3, 1994, until his retire- It may have been the love story of the difficult years of World War ment on November 13, 2001. the age but it was also the scandal of labourers and blacks, II, without exception they have The author, therefore, is well the century. The Duke arrived in the all been written by non-Baha- qualified to write about the Duke of Bahamas in August, 1940, and was exposed his true mians, telling their stories from Windsor who, after only ten months as sworn in as the 55th Governor, and the secondary sources. Sir Orville, King of England, gave up his throne to fact that such a famous man was posted nature as a racist.” on the other hand, has written Friday, December 16, 2016 The Tribune | Weekend | 23
his biography from the point of view The Duke of a black Bahamian who was only 11 “The Duke is and Duch- when the Duke of Winder assumed his ess of position. He was privy to a multitude of exposed as a Windsor happenings during the Duke’s five-year in Bermu- term as Governor. racially biased da in 1940, Sir Orville also had the privilege of en route serving not only as a Bahamian Cabinet individual who to the minister, and later as Governor Gen- Bahamas eral, but has interacted with members fell far short of where the of the Royal Family at both Bucking- Duke was ham Palace and Windsor Castle. His implementing to take up book examines in detail the lives, the the post of record, and the actions of the Duke and any social Governor. Duchess in their roles as Governor and First Lady during one of the most tur- change, bulent periods in Bahamas and world history. With the advantage of firsthand preferring to perspective Sir Orville credits the Duke as doing much to improve the economic mix with the base of the country - but he exposes areas of the Duke’s governance that white oligarchic were abject failures. He also exposes him as a racially minority which biased individual who fell far short of implementing any social change, prefer- comprised only ring to mix with the white oligarchic minority which comprised only 15 per 15 per cent of cent of the Bahamian population, and to accept strictly enforced discrimina- the Bahamian tory practices. In Sir Sidney Poitier’s exceptional population, introduction to Sir Orville Turnquest’s biography he says: and to accept “What makes this book stand out from the many books about the Duke strictly enforced and Duchess of Windsor is that Sir Orville describes the hard life that the discriminatory majority of black Bahamians experi- enced during those years - the racist practices.” culture, the lack of good education, the The Duke and Duchess were unhappy with the living conditions in Govern- subsistence-level jobs if they were lucky ment House and undertook an expensive renovation. “Small, hideous, hardly enough to have one, the dire living any furniture - all unsatisfactory”, the Duchess had written in a letter before conditions and the lack of full voting arriving in the Bahamas rights and adequate representation to address these very issues - he speaks of Bahamian history. One of its goals only white officials, their wives and their feelings be known, moved out knowledgeably and with the authentic- is to intertwine the unique history and prominent individuals in the white com- of Government House after only one ity that only someone from that time geography of the islands with the his- munity. Nevertheless, at a ceremony week, and in one of his first meetings and place can provide. When he takes tory and legacy of one man. It succeeds at Clifford Park, the black commu- the Duke proposed that the building the former King to task for doing little in doing this, and sometimes makes nity turned out in their thousands to be renovated at some considerable to nothing to address the racial dispar- startling revelations. Even before ar- welcome the new Royal Governor. expense while the Royal couple first ity that existed at that time, he speaks riving to take up his post in 1940, the They made it a festive occasion and the moved into a palatial residence on passionately from the deep well of Duke wrote to his London solicitor Duke then assiduously set about his Prospect Ridge owned by the Brit- personal experience that only a young George Allen describing his feelings task of governance and to preside over ish millionaire Frederick Sigrist, and black boy from ‘Over the Hill’ can feel about “taking up this wretched appoint- the regular meetings of the Executive later that summer to Westbourne - the ... And when he analyses the few ac- ment” and saying that he viewed “the Council. The Duchess started her own country mansion owned by Sir Harry complishments and many failures of the prospect of an indefinite period of exile duties as First Lady - including the Oakes - until the refurbishments were Duke of Windsor’s tenure in the office on those islands with profound gloom task of renovating Government House completed. A new three-storey west of Governor of the Bahamas he speaks and despondency”. He further wrote to on Mount Fitzwilliam which the Duke wing was added to Government House authoritatively from the experience of Winston Churchill saying that it “leaves and Duchess found to be completely with four guest suites to accommodate someone who has hands-on knowledge no doubt in my mind but that my ban- unbefitting as their living quarters. “I his personal staff. Expensive air-con- of the manner of the office that both of ishment to these islands was as good a have awful reports of the house - small, ditioning units were installed in each these men held.” war time expedience for a hopeless and hideous, hardly any furniture - all un- of the major rooms including the west Banishment insoluble situation as could be found”. satisfactory”, the Duchess had written wing. It was not a good beginning. ‘What Manner of Man Is This?’ is an All the arrangements for the official in a letter before arriving. unvarnished account of a crucial stage welcome of the new Governor included The Windsors therefore, letting Continued on page 24 24| The Tribune | Weekend Friday, December 16, 2016
Photo: AAron DAvis Continued from page 23
Damning insight The next year the Duke, in a confidential letter written on July 26, 1941, to the Right Honourable Walter Moyne - the Secretary of State for the Colonies - wrote that “the Membership of the Council I have inherited in the Bahamas leaves much to be desired”. Nevertheless, on August 21, 1940, the Duke used his power to convince his Executive Council to make an interest- free war loan to Britain of £250,000 (equivalent to US$1 million) from the colony’s surplus funds. Hardly an arms- length transaction. He also wrote in the same letter “any suggestion of the appointment of a coloured member to Executive Council would not only be unwelcome but meet with the utmost hostility”. This is a candid portrayal of the Duke of Windsor’s assessment of the Bahamian local leadership of that period. A damning insight. In Sir Orville’s incisive and historical biography he describes the collapse of the Bahamian tourist industry in the months following the Japanese bomb- ing of Pearl Harbour in December, 1941, resulting in serious unemploy- ment as a major problem. However the British and American governments had agreed to build a number of military Sir Orville Turnquest’s son, Tommy, watches over his father at a book signing at Logos bookstore, Harbour Bay Shop- bases in the West Indies, one being ping Plaza. ‘What Manner of Man Is This’ has been breaking records for sales since its release on December 5. New Providence which developed two sites: Main Field (later named Oakes Field) and another Satellite Field near he made an immediate and successful some of them are being laid off”. Her Harry Oakes the western end of the island. Twenty- national broadcast urging calm, and observations were correct. Unemploy- During the early morning of Thurs- five hundred Bahamian labourers were followed it with a negotiated wage in- ment was growing at an alarming rate day, July 8, 1943, the bludgeoned and hired and placed under the direction of crease with a free midday meal. He also because of the recent completion of burned body of Sir Harry Oakes was two white Bahamians. Other Bahami- established a commission of inquiry to the two airfields. The Duke therefore discovered in Westbourne, his palatial ans flocked to New Providence hoping review the causes and the effects of the negotiated an agreement with Washing- house in Nassau, by his close friend to get higher paid work from these two riots. ton for the recruitment of up to 5,000 Harold Christie. It was, at the time, the foreign projects. In 1942 the total population of the Bahamians to be employed as farm world’s most celebrated murder and is But this did not happen. Bahamian Bahamas was 70,000. In an enormously labourers in the United States. still unsolved. unskilled workers were being paid one- important meeting following the riot Dr It was probably one of the most out- The Duke, ignoring local advice, third of their American counterparts C R Walker, together with a delega- standing achievements of his governor- arranged for the transfer of the Com- and the semi-skilled workers one-tenth tion of three members of the Bahamas ship. missioner of Police in the Bahamas to of what the same-skilled American Federation of Labour, in an audience The Bahamians needed jobs, and Trinidad, and hired two Miami Police worker was making. The disquiet with the Governor and his Executive the United States needed labourers. officers, Captain E W Melchen and eventually erupted into dissatisfaction Council, went a long way to abating The details of what became known Captain James O Barker, to come to which escalated into the Burma Road the antipathy between white and black as “The Contract” were read into the Nassau and head the investigation. It Riot on June 1, 1942. The Duke of Bahamians, and to improve the dispro- records of the Bahamian Parliament was a ridiculously inept decision which Windsor was at the time attending a portionate systems relating to suffrage, on March 31, 1943. In the end a total of led to the arrest and imprisonment of meeting in New York and the acting land ownership, job opportunities, fair 5,762 Bahamians were employed in the Count Alfred de Marigny, Oakes’ son- governor Heape was unable to stop the wages and education. These were all United States - one-twelfth of the entire in-law, who had secretly married his police shooting into the crowd. One serious Bahamian problems. population. And although the farm la- teenaged daughter, and with whom he worker was killed, and others seriously ‘The Contract’ bour programme had a major economic was not on good terms. wounded. In September, three months after impact on the Bahamas, increasing the De Marigny was charged with the On arriving back in Nassau the Duke the violent riot and a devastating Bay economic worth of the vast majority murder and in a sensational trial which extended the existing curfew and the Street fire, the Duchess of Windsor of the population, it had a negative began on October 14, 1943, and ended following morning met with black lead- wrote to her Aunt Bessie Merryman of effect on the Out Islands, as many of the following month, was acquitted. ers who urged him to act quickly and Baltimore, Maryland, saying “The ne- the men remained in the United States De Marigny’s acquittal was a severe to publicly rebuke oppression, inequal- groes here are busy complaining, now or Nassau, leaving women and children embarrassment for the Governor, and ity and poverty. To the Duke’s credit that the base is nearing completion and behind. the murder of Sir Harry will always Friday, December 16, 2016 The Tribune | Weekend | 25 Forgotten facts Paul C Aranha
be remembered as the single most infamous unsolved crime of the century. It marred the Windsor years in the William Aranha, Mr and Mrs John Archbold Bahamas. The novelty (heir to another Standard Oil fortune), Roy Dislike and disgust Arteaga, Lord Beaverbrook, Eugene Dupuch, In the final two chapters of his admirable book, Sir Errol Flynn, Dr William Foulkes (father of Orville has written on the legacy of the Duke of Wind- and glamour Sir Arthur), Wallace Groves (bought Little sor and his wife. Although the Duchess involved herself Whale Cay in 1936 and, later, developed in the British Red Cross, the Imperial Order of the Freeport), Mr and Mrs Hensley, of London, Daughters of the Empire, volunteered for activities at a of early fying Ontario, Canada, the Misses Barbara and US military canteen and established two infant-welfare Stephanie Hensley, Nassau’s Dr A Hugh clinics in Nassau, she never liked the Bahamas or its efore I write any more about Johnson, Austin T Levy, the developer of people. Bahamas Airways Ltd (BAL), I Hatchet Bay Plantations (who had been a More than that, her correspondence to her favourite must correct a glaring error that passenger on Pan American’s January 2, 1929, aunt, Mrs Bessie Merryman, provides an insight to her my good friend, Orrie Sands, inaugural Miami-Nassau flight), Mr and Mrs feelings of dislike and even disgust. “Naturally we loathe brought to my attention. The air- Valentine Macy (he was another Standard Oil the job, but it was the only way out of a difficult situa- Bline went out of business on October 9, 1970. heir), John Maura (Bahamian, who became a tion - as we did not want to return to England except In 1936, the local press had firmly sup- World War II RAF pilot), John T McCutch- under our conditions.” ported the need for a local airline and the eon (famous American cartoonist and owner The Duke, too, expressed equally negative sentiments Governor of the colony, Sir Bede Clifford, of Treasure Island/Salt Cay), David Morrison about his appointment and tenure in the Bahamas, but was one of the first to make use of Bahamas (injured on a barge at Spanish Wells), Mrs nevertheless set about establishing positive roles for Airways’ services. He was invited by Harry Samuel Nickerson, Mrs J Pasche, artist Diana themselves in the hope of getting another appointment Oakes for an aerial cruise over the Exumas Pullinger, of London, Dr A Quackenbush, as an Ambassador to the United States, or even Gover- and Andros. Mrs Stuart Radie, Robert Ripley (of ‘Believe nor General of Canada. Flying was such a novelty - it was only 33 it or not’), Axel Wenner-Gren (Swedish indus- Despite his special qualifications and exceptional years after the Wright Brothers’ first flight - trialist, with a huge estate on Hog Island), Mrs influence, Sir Orville states, “his personal attitude of that the press recorded each and every flight D Fairchild Wheeler and numerous movie superiority, together with his constant display of class - not only of Bahamas Airways but of Pan stars. The list goes on. prejudice and obvious ingrained bigotry against labour- American’s Miami-Nassau-Miami flights too, Eleven Governors of the Bahamas graced ers and blacks, exposed his true nature as a racist”. giving names of passengers and pilot. the cabins of the colony’s first airline, Sir Both he and the Duchess approached their job with Long before airlines coined the expression Bede Clifford being the first, followed by Sir a negative attitude and with loathing instead of a sense ‘frequent flyers’, BAL established a regular Charles Dundas, the Duke of Windsor, Sir of purpose. The Duke was weak. He was not only clientele, led by the infamous Standard Oil William Murphy, Sir George Sandford (who prejudiced but disloyal. Some other writers have even heiress, Marion B Carstairs (1900-1993), died in Nassau in 1950 and is buried in the described him as a traitor who had pro-Nazi leanings owner of Whale Cay in the Berry Islands, Eastern Cemetery), Sir Robert Neville, the and who was involved in illegal financial and currency and her less-flashy brother, Francis Francis Earl of Ranfurly, Sir Raynor Arthur, Sir Rob- exchange dealings prohibited by wartime exchange (1906-1982), owner of neighbouring Bird Cay. ert Stapledon, Sir Ralph Grey and Sir Francis control regulations. The list grew to read like a “Who’s Who” of Cumming-Bruce. At 12.45pm on April 29, 1945 - a Sunday - the Duke Bahamian and international society. Harold Christie had fathered aviation in broadcast his formal farewell speech to the people of the On January 2, 1935, Col Cleveland C Lan- the Bahamas, but his mind never wandered Bahamas. That same day, the Duke and Duchess paid a sing had bought White Bay Cay, an island in from selling land as the accompanying adver- farewell visit to the United States canteen where a large the Exuma Cays now known as Lansing Cay tisements below show. In The Guardian of number of Royal Air Force men and canteen workers (Report on The Exumas, by W N Aranha, January 18, 1941, Harold Christie advertised were present. They were presented with gifts. The fol- p286), and used Bahamas Airways to get to BAL, five days after he placed an advert for lowing day there was a farewell gathering at the Infant and fro. David McCullough, President of the the sale of a cottage at the Lyford Cay Club Welfare Clinic, and that evening they hosted a farewell Bath and Tennis Club, Palm Beach, flew to for £2,200, a far cry from the Lyford Cay Club cocktail party on the terrace of Government House. Nassau with his family (David and Kayros) to and community that E P Taylor developed Two days later, the Duke and Duchess left the Bahamas visit Harold Christie. after 1959. en route to the United States. Other early passengers on BAL included The Duke of Windsor was never again given another (in alphabetical order) Norman Aranha, UÊÃ>`>À>J}>°V ambassadorial position. ‘What Manner of Man is This, The Duke of Wind- sor’s Years in The Bahamas’, published by Grant’s Town Press, is available at all major book stores in New Providence, Grand Bahama, Harbour Island and Abaco as well as the National Art Gallery of The Bahamas and The Linen Shop on Bay Street. Hardcover edition $35, paperback for $25.20, and the eBook on Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, iBooks and other eBook retailers worldwide. NEXT WEEK: Philip Van Doren Stern, whose work inspired the Christmas classic film ‘Its a Wonderful Life’
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