The Ravenstones

It’s January now; the holidays are over and, up here in Canada at least, we’re in for a few more months of either gloomy skies or frigid temperatures. I’d say it’s time for a warm weather story.

In the spring of 1980 I was scheduled to move to Bridgetown, Barbados.

Back then, I was a young and ambitious foreign service officer, working in Ottawa at the Department of External Affairs, ready and waiting for my next assignment. Being pretty excited at the prospect of life in a brand new (and sunny) locale, I immediately started preparing.

But first off, to commemorate the event, I went out and bought an antique map:

Barbados lies at the intersection of latitude 15 degrees and longitude 60 degrees, at the map’s far right

For more detail about this map and my love of maps in general, see my earlier post:

Maps

Then I began to explore what would be involved in living there, starting with some colleagues who’d recently returned.

The first one asked me if I liked to read. Say no more, I replied, it’s one of my favourite pastimes. In short order, I went out and purchased 13 hard-cover books. The one book that sticks in my mind was Graham Greene’s memoirs (volume 2, Ways of Escape, which seemed like an appropriate title, given my destination).

Lester, Orpen & Dennys: Toronto, 1980

The next colleagues, a couple I spoke to asked me if I liked gardening. Hmm. Well, that was something new: perhaps I could get into that. They suggested I bring a whole slew of seeds with me.

Then they told me how excited they’d been when they’d first arrived. They immediately rented a car and drove around the whole island. By noon, the pair said, they’d nothing left to see. Hmm. Perhaps an exaggeration, but still, a warning light.

From my National Geographic Atlas of the World, 8th Edition, 2004, p. 47

Finally, I spoke to another colleague, who was also scheduled to take up a position at the Bridgetown High Commission, on the exact same rotation. Not quite as young and somewhat more senior in rank. But, certainly, just as ambitious. We discussed the newly appointed High Commissioner, of whom it was reputed he was not really given to delegating work.

Conclusion: it was going to be a long four years in a very quiet place with not a lot to do. And I was going to be last in line to get major responsibilities.

It wasn’t long before both my colleague and I began to search (surreptitiously and separately) for other options, ones with more to offer.

A month before my scheduled departure for the island I took a position with the Province of Alberta, as their Senior Intergovernmental Officer for Europe (yes, all of it). My colleague left with but days to go, for another position within another federal government department.

The dismayed High Commissioner asked whether he was to blame.

Over the course of my life since then, I’ve been to a few of the tropical islands the West Indies have to offer. But I’ve never travelled to Barbados and suspect that, amongst Caribbean destinations, it remains one of the best spots to visit. One day, perhaps I’ll get there and drop in on the High Commission to see what might have been.

Although the move to Edmonton proved to be a temporary way station in what evolved into a long career in intergovernmental relations, my interest in Alberta events and politics lives on. After several months spent in London, England in 1981 on Canada’s constitutional repatriation file and another long year in Edmonton, I returned to Ottawa to take up a more senior position with the Privy Council Office working on federal-provincial matters. But that’s another story.

Over the course of many more years, I stepped in and out of the international sphere more than once, the last time as advisor to the Premier of British Columbia in the late 1980’s. But that, let me assure you, is one more story best left for another day.