A Valentine Romance…
THE YEAR was 1954.
He was a policeman, working in New Amsterdam, Berbice.
She was a ward-maid at the New Amsterdam Hospital. On a particular day, he was playing football on the grounds of the Mental Asylum when  he fell and hurt himself.
He ended up on a bed in the Policemen’s Ward at the New Amsterdam Hospital.
She, as ward-maid, was on duty there, moving around; busy, nice, medium-sized… cute in her uniform. He lay on the bed watching her.
She turned around.
She looked at him.
He looked at her… directly.
Their eyes locked.
He felt a sudden emotion. He suddenly found that he could not fight off a certain thought, a sudden feeling of resignation to fate.
“This is the one!” he thought. “This is she; this is it!”
As she would later confide: “I felt him looking at me and I looked at him and… Whoo! I believe I looked at him just a little bit longer than I should. But I couldn’t help it, couldn’t resist looking at him longer than I should. That was it.” 
This event fifty-seven years ago was recalled last week by Mr. and Mrs. Reginald McKinnon, who took the plunge and tied the knot just a year after their unorthodox meeting.
Now, 11 children and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren later, they’re still married, and just as in love with each other as ever.
At their home on Heath Street, Golden Grove East Coast Demerara last week, Mrs. McKinnon, whose full name Marie Joyce McKinnon nee David, looked fondly at her husband, Reginald Hereward Fitzgerald McKinnon, and said: “We fell in love. We understand marriage to be a lifelong covenant. Over the years, it wasn’t easy, but we not only talked the talk, we walked the talk.”
In my opinion, there’s no other name for that but TRUE LOVE.
I decided to do a feature on the couple for this year’s VALENTINE’S DAY,  after seeing an advertisement congratulating them on achieving their 56th year together as husband and wife.*
Amidst a great deal of laughter and not minding the inclusion a few intimate details, they spoke, and some of what they had to say has been recorded hereunder in their own words:

Their lives
HE: “I have plenty call-names, but most people about the place call me ‘Reggie’. I was born on  September 14, 1930 at the Georgetown Hospital. My father was Reginald McKinnon from Leguan; my  mother was Henrietta Rebecca McKinnon, nee Downer, from Kingelly, West Coast Berbice. I joined the Police Force on January 15, 1952 at 22 years, 5 months, and one day of age.
SHE: “Yes! He is Reggie jnr., and his Force Number was #5596. As for me, I am 78 years old. I was  born at Enmore, East Coast Demerara. My mother was Clarice Wood, nee Ward.
HE: “Her father was George Ignatius David of Golden Grove.”
SHE: “I never lived with my father.  He, Reggie, was a patient in the Police Ward, and that is how we saw each other.”
HE: “Well, you know young people… you know (Ha! Ha! Ha!) not all sickness does interfere with eye. Two pairs of eyes contacting each other; two  pairs of eyes make contact, and that was it. There was no separating us from then, no separating us…  Yeah! Like we were fully approved for each other.”
SHE:  “(Ha! Ha!) We liked each other; we liked each other. It was just that.
HE: “Nah! I didn’t have to write home and so on; we were big people. She was 23, and I was 26. The people around us at the time just decided: ‘Okay! You all want do you all thing; go long; go long [and] do you all thing.’ We get married at the St. James-the-Less Church on David Street, Kitty on the 29th of January,1955.”
SHE: “Before I get married, I was a dance fool; I used to leave New Amsterdam  and come to Nabaclis and dance with the Syncopators… you know Tom Charles and the Syncopators… and  then travel back on the early morning train to catch work. Even now music playing, I can’t sit down. But married life wasn’t easy. I make 11 children with him. This whole yard, from front to back, was garden. I planted it.  I used to tell he: ‘Reggie, sharpen the hoe for me.’ He sharpen the hoe, and when the children go to school, I used to go downstairs, and I used to weed and plant. I did other work… wasn’t easy.”

Making ‘married life’ work
HE:  “I grew up having big men as friends. And my ‘big-men’ friends had some advice to give to me very important. They say: ‘First of all, if you working, you pocket gon get money; if you pocket get money, you must learn to give your mother money; if you can give you mother money…
SHE: “…you can give your wife…”
HE: “If you can give you mother money when you grow to become a man and have a family, you will give your wife money. Me ‘big-men’ friends used to tell me if you got a girlfriend and you all going steady, don’t worry with the boys who gon call you paymaster. If she ask you for a raise, push you hand in your pocket and give she a raise; because there will come a time when you gon say to she: ‘Gimme a raise,’ and she gon give you a raise. And that become embedded in me: That the more you give, the more you get.  Once you can give your mother, your wife wouldn’t get any problems with you, because you gon give she, too, without hesitation. I believe this. And that is what I does tell young people nowadays. ‘You strong,  be generous,  the more you give, the more you will get.’”
SHE: “We want something, we plan we work; we just don’t run to it like that; we plan we work. When we want to do something, I used say: ‘Reggie, we gotta do so, so, so, so.’ Sometimes he may say ‘No, not so; let we do so, so, so, so,’ and we agree. And that is how me and my husband live all those years, up to now.”
HE: “Yes! Everything is ‘Boy, what you think?’ Or ‘Girl, what you think?’ I should add, though, that this property here is one thing that I didn’t  tell she about beforehand. I wanted it to be a surprise.  1964, we  living at Nabaclis at the time, when I decide to purchase this land.  She hadn’t a clue of what I  doing… she ent had a clue. Ha! Ha!  I buy the land. When  I come home, I say ‘Look! I buy a piece of land.’ She say, ‘What?’  I say, ‘I buy a piece of land.’ She say, ‘Where?’  I say, ‘Golden Grove.’ She mouth lef open. (Ha! Ha! Ha!) And that was a surprise. We start to build this house in Heath Street in 1966. It is 45 years old. We live here for forty-four years.”
SHE: “At one time he used to party a lot… come home late and so on. I didn’t like that. We had we fights and so on, but hitting never came in; just mouth-to-mouth. But we get over that.”
HE: “That hitting nonsense is about upbringing and respect; hitting is totally out of the question.”
SHE: “We had plenty bluffing too: Bluffing about moving out; leffing one another. But that was just bluff; no real intentions. Ha! Ha!  Then after we make some styles with one another, we make up back again.”
HE: “Yeah! Just bluff around a bit and then make up back. Making up back sweet!”

Final words on ‘married life’
HE: “Any marriage… and you make a note of it… Any marriage that extremely cozy is not a good marriage. I know for a fact, one, one times me wife used to pick a row with me for nothing at all, and you know, I used to pick a row, too. I stop talk to me wife for about two weeks, and I ent say a word to she… two whole weeks. And she mek lil tears, and I then play a little hard-to-get, and then we make up back like brand new. Sometimes you got to break up to make up… the making up part is the sweetest part… that  is what marriage is all about; not no permanent break-up; just a little show-off-pon-mattie one, one time.  But know when to call it off.”
SHE: “We shared, too; we share whatever we get. Sometimes my family would come and give me a ‘small-piece’, and when they gone, I would share it half-and-half with him. And we like planning together, too. Every day he would ask: ‘Girl, what we cooking tomorrow?’ I say, ‘I ent know.’  He say, ‘Well, I feel to eat metem.’   I say, ‘Alright; I go cook that tomorrow.’ Every day we asking one another what we eating today, and what we eating next day and so on. And that works for us.”
HE: “Some people say talk is cheap, but it is also dangerous. The most dangerous part of a human body is the tongue; beware of the mischief makers.”

Author’s note: Happy Valentine’s Day to Mr. and Mrs. Reginald McKinnon of Golden Grove Village, East Coast Demerara. May you live to see many more…together!