-The unfinished story of Rudolf Prescod

I KNEW his father before I knew Rudy. His father was the janitor and in charge of sanitation supervision at the Guyana Rice Board where I was employed for some years. We called him ‘Nature Boy’, he had a permanent bad temper and I understood it completely. Between plant, wharf and the bonds, GRB housed some 300 factory staff around, at times, a 24-hour shift. We were an unruly crowd, pure waterfront, rough, physical and hardworking- not an easy lot for a sanitation officer to manage to his standard. But ‘Nature Boy’ had the means to do it. I don’t know who the chemist is that created formalin. I later understood that its purpose is to preserve organic specimens in labs, specifically human corpses. ‘Nature Boy’ would saturate the facilities with formalin and we didn’t have to be told it was bad stuff; you entered the squeaky clean toilet facility and ran out immediately. Everyone headed for T&HD, so from time to time, we took complaints against him to our sleepy union representative, Mr Clarke.

Rudolph Prescod worked in the welding shop, was polite and cool and always busy, but the first time we took serious stock of Rudy was when the Store Manager showed me a Chronicle Newspaper from a few years earlier (the GRB era was in the mid-1970s) which featured Rudy’s work. He had made some models of military hardware (tanks etc.) that worked. Some years later, Dennis Nichols had done an article that went further, explaining how Rudy had made mechanical toys and sold to Guyana Stores. He had also entered an exhibition in 1972; it was there that his battle tank model received commendations. That was what the store manager took out of his drawer.

At GRB we all understood then that he had special talents. I had engaged him back then. We were all young men a few years out of school and I was astonished at the ideas that were flowing through this colleague. His inner world was crafted by innovative ideas about engineering developments, practical alternatives to more expensive machinery used in the industry across Guyana. The only problem then and now is that Guyana had no systematic initiative that could be referred to for engagement in the context of a mind like Rudolf’s that incorporated any legal system of protection to secure his interests should he collaborate with a would-be investor or the individuals that were running the Institute of Applied Science and Technology [IAST]. The national science facility was run by intellectuals and as far as I was made to understand then from an employee, there was no legal framework to even secure what was done there within a national pool. Some has changed but much still has to be done. After the GRB factory was politically burnt down in 1977, we all drifted into other directions.

I recently saw Rudy and we spoke about something he had mentioned to me some years ago and which Dennis Nichols had also mentioned in his article. It was the invention of an ‘Air Engine’ a motor that will generate its energy from air rather than from fossil fuel, this would fit entirely into the innovative ‘Green Guyana’ future that the President is directing Guyana towards, and a landmark local invention. I went to the Campbellville Housing Scheme residence of Rudy to witness a trial of his machine, which he is still perfecting. He showed me the drawings of the prototype, not to say that I easily understood them, but I thought it relevant to tell him not to leave his drawings where his workshop was located. I also told him not to show or leave with any other human being his engineering drawings, which are his life’s work.

We discussed the real world of dishonesty and deception when it came to creative work like his. I am still to find out how to go about patenting his material locally, if that is possible, and how he can do that for himself, rather than through a third party. There are other projects that Rudy and his brother are working on. From what he has pioneered in the past represents, if expanded, the launch of a local industry. His expertise has also produced other industrial machinery such as a table model circle saw, a drill press, a tap for threading bolts and nuts, and he has produced parts for machinery that include original bolts and nuts.

Like most creative minds the business aspect of his operation is not formulated even as a concept to confront the real world of commerce and marketing, but I shared what I understood is needed with him; that his inventions would have to be tested and vetted to attract the necessary investment that can launch his products into the marketplace as ‘Prescod-Machinery and Spares’ and before that is done his inventions have to be patented and a legal framework must exist to facilitate any collaborations.