DISTINGUISHED Florist Mr Compton Julian Young is still communicating affection and warming the hearts of fortunate recipients of his floral arrangements, some 44 years after establishing his business!

Now 71, Young said he grew up at the corner of South Road and Orange Walk, in the Georgetown ward of Bourda, and he opened the business at a small place on North Road, where his staff made paper flowers and he paid $10 a month as rental.

Floral founder
It is quite accurate to regard Compton Julian Young as the founder of the floral industry in Guyana; because, when he started, no one else was involved in that type of business.
The Flower Shop, as his business is now called, is presently located on Middle Street, and Mr. Young would put together the arrangements himself, while his helper, a young lady named Asha, would take the orders and guide him through preparing them with the right colours, etc.
Even when he served as Mayor of Georgetown for five years in the 1980s, Mr. Young was still very much involved in the operation of his flower shop. Asked why he so loves this kind of work, he responded: “I don’t know. It’s just an art that I have. When I got into this business, nobody did it. It’s a gift along the way.
“That is the gift God gave me. I was born with it. Look, right now, I am working on this (an arrangement) without any book. And this is what a real artist is all about.”

Philosophy
“My philosophy in life is that you must discover your gift in life that God has given to you. Everyone has a gift. People have not discovered their gifts as yet, but I discovered mine early in my life. No one taught me to do this.”
Mr. Young was personal florist to late President Desmond Hoyte, who had frequented The Flower Shop to pick up flowers for his wife, and even his two children used to go in sometimes to pick up the arrangements. This was, of course, before they both died in an accident, Young recalled.
Among the most expensive floral arrangements in the shop is one called St. Sylvany, named after his now deceased mother, Mrs. Sylvany Fraser. His father was the late Joseph Young, and of his seven siblings, one is deceased.

Love blooms
Young said his parents met when his father was coming to Guyana from China on a ship that stopped at Grenada to board passengers, one of whom was his mother. “The ship stopped at every country, apparently, in those days. He saw her, a young girl. When she arrived in Guyana, she stayed at someone she knew from Grenada in Lombard Street, where the ‘Islanders’ lived. The next day, they sent her to a Chinese shop on Lombard Street, and when she went in, she saw my dad. And that’s how it started.”
As for how things got started with him and his wife, Mr. Young told us that Linda, a Chinese woman, used to be a Carmelite sister. “But I didn’t take her out of convent,” he laughed.
“I knew her as a nun, because she was ‘Sister Louisa’. She stayed at a Catholic home for girls on Lamaha Street. One day, I went to pick up flowers and I saw her walking down Lamaha Street, but she wasn’t in her habit, and I stopped the car and said, ‘Sister Louisa?!’ and she said, ‘Yes, Mr. Young.’ I asked her what happened, and she replied, ‘Nothing, I just taking some time off from the convent.’ I asked her where she was going, and she said to the hostel. And that’s how it began,” he recalled fondly.
His wife presently lives in New York. She worked at the United Nations Office in Guyana, and continued her employment with the UN when she went to New York.
“I would go up (occasionally) to visit her, but I am not going to leave this (the flower business) and go (live in New York). And do what in New York? This is my gift!”
Their marriage has produced one child, Terrence Patrick Young.

Inspiration
Mr. Young says his entire inspiration has been God and his Christian faith. “My faith took me along the way. I still believe in God, I still trust in God. I pray for two hours every morning, and I have been doing that for years,” he said.