Barbados, racing in, tonight

krizon

krizon

At the Start
Joined
May 2, 2003
Messages
16,263
Location
Dahn sarf
BBC4, Freeview 9, Freesat 107, Sky 116, Virgin 107:

Storyville: Barbados at the Races 10.00 - 10.30 pm

Documentary which looks like a splash of sunshine to raise our winter-drenched spirits - with lush scenery and a buoyant sountrack - but with a serious undercurrent. Reminders of the island's enslaved past are all around as we meet black, white, rich and poor Barbadians for whom horses are a way of life. Particularly engaging is knows-her-own-mind Patricia, 46. Even though she's been working with horses for 20 years she still has a "mare" trying to break in one animal that's like a tornado on legs.
 
Last edited:
Quite a quirky documentary, but enjoyable. One of the more arresting lines was from Patricia about how she had five children, and "each one of them has their own father".

It's still a rather segregated society where white bosses bawl out their black minions and sit in a separate stand at the races.
 
I think they said there's some more next week? I hope a bit more focus on the racing, rather than the army - not that I didn't enjoy the tremendous good humour of being on parade! There's a tremendous history of the island waiting to be much more fully told, I feel. The film certainly made me feel I'd love to go and spend some time there, exploring its history - what was that about the first slaves there being white? I guess they were indentured servants, or were they the 'transported' crims who didn't draw the straw for Australia?
 
The trainer guy said the first of his ancestors to settle in Barbados went there as an indentured servant 350 years ago. Transportation came later, I think, starting in the second half of the 18th century, but I'm open to correction on that.
 
You did a better job of decoding his strong Bajan accent than I did! Ah, thanks for the historical bit - 'transportation for life' - when I was a kid, I thought that meant you were sent on some bizarre endless voyage which never stopped, rather like the Flying Dutchman, forced to sail the seven seas!
 
I can imagine your version of 'transportation for life' coming into its own when space travel starts to get going properly.
 
Back
Top