Living at peace

HAROLD Fredericks is a local of Lichfield Village, West Coast Berbice and he has lived all his life in the community where he is a security guard at the health centre in the village.

The 76-year-old, on his night shift, would cultivate the yard where he has bora ochro, boulanger, fine-leaf thyme, broadleaf thyme and other crops which he would share with the staffers.

This gentleman is as nice as they come and his age doesn’t prevent him from being the best he can be; and he does whatever yard work and chores there are to stay active and enjoy a healthy life.

Fredericks has a nice little cottage in Lichfield which overlooks the pasture near the foreshore and has his kitchen garden, his chickens and is a lover of music.

During the day, after resting, he will ensure that the yard is clean and chores are completed before going to work and would even have just the right time to sit in his verandah to enjoy a bit of music from his small but adequate stereo system in his home.

This elder likes curry and he would prepare fish and chicken curry when his wife, Maylene Richardson, is not at home or is out running errands.

Fredericks told the Pepperpot Magazine that he was a carpenter, a rice factory worker in his younger days and spent some time working in the interior as a miner.

He even used to weed drains and canals for a living in the village at one time and as he began to advance in age, he became a security guard, working nights at the Lichfield Health Centre, which is close to home.

The pensioner stated that he doesn’t like to sit by idly and is always doing something to occupy his time. Once he has his music, he is good all the time.

He added that life in Lichfield is good, but the village needs to be spruced up a bit because bushes overrun some streets since it was once a top-ranking village back in the days; he would like to see that again.

Fredericks reported that the village also produced a lot of good people, sportsmen and women and even scholars, a lot of police officers and soldiers.

The Lichfield resident pointed out that in his younger days, he had his time partying and liked to dance to his music and at times he would reward himself by taking a ‘drink.’

“In life, you must know how to live for you to enjoy a peaceful time, so I would stay at home when I am not working and play my music without disturbing anyone and enjoy my own company,” he said.

His favourite place is to sit on the verandah to get the breeze and when it is time to take a nap, he would venture downstairs in the backyard where he has a bedroom outfitted with a television and a bed for his own comfort.

He is a very friendly, down-to-earth kind of person, who is always using his hands to do things such as farming.

That day when the team visited, he was preparing to go to the nearby village to uplift his one-off cash grant of $25,000 as a pensioner, a token by the current administration.

“I feel very happy about this gift and it will be used to buy things that is[sic] needed in the home and for myself. It will be spent wisely and I am grateful for it,” he said.

Meanwhile, in honour of the lives lost on October 6, 1976, during the Cubana Air Disaster, a total of 73 passengers perished, including 11 Guyanese, 57 Cubans, and five Koreans. Fredericks, being patriotic in his own little way, made ‘from scratch’ a windmill with things he found around the home and nailed it up on his fence.

It is in memory of the victims, and he affixed it there as a reminder of the people we lost in that air accident in 1976.

Fredericks is a very pleasant man and when he is not gardening, he is making roti and curry to appease his craving for curry.