Desmond Roberts bore the enviable privilege of being asked to raise the flag, later to be named the Golden Arrowhead, at midnight on May 25, 1966 to mark the birth of the new nation Guyana. 50 years later, he shares stories of his early life, the eventful night, and his hope for the future of country

I was born in Second Street, Albertown in Georgetown just after World War II ended. Our house was a two storied structure: Our family lived on the top floor and the bottom was converted into a furniture factory. I can still smell the varnish and French polish and the sounds of saws and shaving planes of all types.
My father also owned a popular and successful furniture mart at the corner of Camp and D’Urban Streets, opposite the Georgetown jail. My father had studied and passed the Royal Health Inspector’s exam. Once qualified to work, he had to make the choice between His Majesty’s Service and private enterprise. Unlike some of his cohorts, including Claude Merriman, who operated a successful funeral home business (and later became the Mayor of Georgetown), my father opted for public service, leaving the business to be managed by his brother.
My brother Walter (Junior), older by two years, and I were war babies. My sister was born five years after, in 1950, the same year that my parents, Walter and Isabel, were sent to the West Bank of Demerara. My father was the Public health Inspector (Sanitary Inspector) and my mother, a Nurse-Midwife-Health Visitor. We lived at La Retraite village, obliquely opposite the Church of Scotland School, where my brother (who, incidentally, was born on May 26) and I attended school.
We were Catholics and attended church at Malgre Tout, a seemingly long seven miles away. There were so few cars on the road in those days that I mesmerized my father by lying in bed and identifying each passing car by its sound.
My father had two old Morris Oxford cars, making him a “big thing” in the village and encouraged his eternal love for fiddling inside engines. We spent a lovely five years on the West Bank living in a yard that was like the Garden of Eden.
Every fruit tree was in that yard – from star-apples to sapodillas to “fat pork”, all kinds of guavas, psidium, awarra, coconuts etc. My father also raised fowls and planted a garden which created chores for us but supplied fresh food for daily and holiday consumption.
My father also loved to entertain and the house was always full of fellow public servants from as far as the West Coast, playing cards and dominoes; and my father playing all-comers and boasting that he was the champion in draughts for the entire West Demerara. He sometimes gave me the honor of partnering him in troopchaal (poor man’s bridge).

LIFE LESSONS
Despite my father’s warnings – and severe applications of his belt – my brother and I could not resist racing the boys in the villages on the red, burnt brick roads (we lived briefly too in Stanleytown on the No.2 Canal Road). Invariably, there was that piece of burnt earth that was not sufficiently crushed which would make contact with skimming feet; and there would go our big toe caps, spilt open like a genip (also in the yard).
Two reasons had been established for a flogging – running barefoot and racing on the road. These races, though, may have toughened my feet for long marches later in the Army. We were lucky also to have most of the cap guns (things no longer seen) in the village for playing “Cowboys and Indians” or “Police and thief”.
We also owned the bat, ball and stumps, with my father as coach. So, our yard was the place where all the boys in the village played and all the activity took place. I learned a valuable lesson in that yard playing cricket.
With the number of boys from the neighborhood participating, if you were out early, you had to wait a long time to bat again. I remember one day that I was dismissed quickly but refused to give up the bat. My father interceded, saying “let him bat again, he is small.” It had been my older brother’s turn to bat and he cried bitterly in frustration. I felt badly for him and forever more in my life, I never tried to claim or gain unfair advantage because of privilege, position or in a game.
When I was either six or seven, my parents sent us boys off to the British Guiana Educational Trust College (popularly called “Trust”, a prep school, where I have heard it said that Walter Rodney and Rupert Roopnarine also attended) headed by a quartet of educators and famous Guyanese: R E Cheeks, who became the Chairman of the United Force led by businessman Peter D’Aguiar; A P Alleyne, who was appointed Speaker of the Guyana Parliament under the People’s National Congress; R R Baird, the gravel voiced elder with higher educated children (doctors, architect) and ‘Pirate’ Alexander, an organizer of track and cycling.
R R Baird’s wife also held lessons in English, which my brother and I attended a couple times per week. Missing one of those lessons to watch my eldest brother (fathered by Walter before marrying my mother) paly soft shoe football, led to a flogging from all four senior masters – for missing private lessons! The beating was so traumatic that I never skipped a class again in high school or college. Strange bedfellows indeed but a powerful conglomerate of educators, in a period when several private high schools were established and run by highly regarded, experienced local teachers.

QUEEN’S COLLEGE
The main public high schools were Queen’s College for boys and Bishop’s High School for girls, established originally as places of excellence for the children of expatriates in public service or on the sugar estates. The equivalent private high schools of excellence were under the Catholic Church – St. Stanislaus for boys and St. Rose’s for girls.
I was doing pretty well at Trust but competition for the few scholarship places was fierce in 1950s. My brother and I also attended Math lessons at Claude Vieira and we suffered the Saturday religious classes given by strict nuns at the Ursuline Convent on Church Street. Although the quartet felt that I could have won a scholarship, my parents were taking no chances. So, I took and passed the entrance exams to both Queen’s College and St. Stanislaus College. My father insisted that I attend QC and I enjoyed the Prep Form. Hamley Case, our ambassador to the Court of St. James and the Rev John Smith came in through Prep Form in 1954 too.
I had a wonderful experience at Queens’ College, academically, with great teachers. I represented the school in football, rugby, track and field and volleyball and Nobbs House in those, as well as cricket and table tennis. In the clubs, I was Assistant editor of the school newspaper, the Lictor, and a debater for Nobbs. In my time, the great debater was Walter Rodney, a senior and also a record-breaking high jumper.

THE ARMY
After being in Queens for 10 years, I left in 1964. I did not accept the scholarships to India and the USSR offered by the PPP government to my aggressive mother; and I did not want to go to the fledgling Inter American University that dozens of my friends and the better athletes had been recruited to support. The late Rawle Farley and Sir Arthur Lewis, Noble prize winner for economics, were spearheading the drive to bring new students to IAU in Puerto Rico. I wanted to go to the London School of Economics, though my grades did not support my ambition. I knocked around for a while, being part of the winning Patrick Dargan Debating Team and working in the Public Service for a short period, before drifting into the Special Service Unit (SSU). I had been a finalist for the Booker’s scholarship before blowing the opportunity with casual over-confidence (called nervousness in other circles). Destiny led me to the military in 1965, where I thought I would go and have some fun for three years or so.
With the violent disturbances in the cities, one of the solutions was to have a new uniformed unit with 50-50 division between the two main ethnic groups (with allowance for the minor ethnicities). The first six officers recruited were evenly divided ethnically. The first three officers went off to Mons Officer Cadet School (MOCS) early in 1965 and my batch of three – Asad Ishoof, Vibart Boodhoo and I – left for MOCS in May 1965, joining them in England.

INDEPENDENCE NIGHT
I was doing well at my military studies as well as representing MOCS at track and field. I was also good at drill and was selected to be the stick Orderly for the Inspecting Officer at my three Guyanese comrades’ passing out parade.
That might have contributed to my being selected for the flag raising duties. I was a 2nd Lieutenant then.
I didn’t think of it as something special; it was just something to do. The rehearsals were tough. There was a British Army Colonel called me a novice and I was pulled off the parade. They said it was the Prime Minister Forbes Burnham who gave the instruction, but I doubt that. It was the same British officer. Then then Chief of Staff called me and asked me if I was nervous and I told him I wasn’t.
I don’t know what happened, but a day or two before the event, I was back in the parade. But it wasn’t the same flag that we were rehearsing. This was a new flag which entailed a completely different system of getting it up.
I suppose that is why Lieutenant Ulric Pilgrim was assigned with me. The flag was much larger than the original one.
On the night, the park (National Park) was packed to capacity.
I was nervous about getting it right. The flag started to go up rather slowly, but then when it was almost at the top, the wind did the trick and it flew beautifully.
It was really a beautiful flag. Nobody had ever seen it. People were gasping and some even started crying.
Then, Prime Minister Burnham called up Dr Cheddi Jagan and the two embraced. It was really a remarkable moment. It set in motion all kinds of ideas that the whole nation will come together. At the time it looked hopeful.
We have to change this nonsense about race and ethnicity for this country to develop.
We have no reason to be poor. I hope that one day everyone would be wealthy in Guyana – and by that I mean, able to live a comfortable life. We have everything to make it possible.