New book highlights untold stories of historic Barbados

Renowned Historian  Sir Henry Fraser has nailed the art of cultural and historical storytelling in his newest book Did You Know People, Places and Untold Stories of Historic Barbados.

During a book signing at The Carters Hardware store in Wildey on Saturday he recalled where the inspiration came from.

“I’m a storyteller and over the lifetime I’ve collected so many hundreds of stories and my library is huge and it’s full of stories and I talk to people and I read, so putting together a series of radio talks about Did You Know has been exciting for me and everyone that I meet just loves my radio talks and someone said why don’t you put it in a book?”

Sir Henry explained that he met up with Sally Miller of Miller Publishing and they decided to put the Did You Know radio series, which runs on Capital Media 99.3, in a book.

The former university lecturer has managed to produce 166 stories, which he explained are for each square mile of Barbados.

“The first 166 of these stories are in this book, Did You Know People Places and Untold Stories of Historic Barbados because  quite a few are stories about people and places that most Barbadians don’t know, have never heard of and places that they have never been. People going back to the 18th Century and places hidden in the country that people in Bridgetown have just never discovered.”

Sir Henry sung high praises for Miller, who he said produced “the most amazing array of photographs,” which really make the book what it is.

Stories of famous places such as Farley Hill and national heroes are included in the book.

However, although Rihanna was not included in the book, the prominent historian promised that she will be in his future work.

The stories took Sir Henry a year to produce as he explained he wrote three stories on the weekend and recorded them on Mondays.

There was a meticulous method to sort the book by parish, people and places, which Sir Henry said was relatively easy.

“The biggest problem was today with COVID. The book was printed in November but they took ages to get here because of the shipping problems during COVID so it’s now hot off the press but it actually got printed four months ago and took four months by sea to get here,” he explained.

The well respected author called the book signing a success as in less than half hour several dozen books were sold.

“I think it’s great fun because you meet people who have heard you on radio but you don’t necessarily know and sometimes you meet old friends and then you make new friends. The only thing, as I’ve said, a book signing like this is great fun because of the people that you meet,” he added.

Up next for Sir Henry would be the book launch of his autobiography Henry Fraser A Life in the Medicine and the Arts, which he said is available at Cloister BookStore.

Also upcoming is a project with CBC’s Sherwood McCaskie and Kerry Hall on Presenting the Cultural History of Barbados. (MR)