On behalf of my four siblings, I would like to take this opportunity to publicly say thanks to God for the life and times of my father, Joseph Haraldo Harrigan of Little Dix. At the same time, I share with the readers of the Anguillian a few fond reflections that I have had the privilege to garner over my years, with respect to the man whom I have grown to know as “Daddy”.
On Friday, April 17, Daddy was blessed to see his 95th birthday. Both he and our mother Geraldine, now 89, have long since been the most senior surviving residents in the Shoal Bay, Little Dix, Stony Ground area. One noteworthy characteristic of my Daddy is that he never fails to give thanks to God for sustaining himself and his family over his many years. He openly declares the goodness of God in exhuberent praise no matter where he’s at.
By the same token, since as long as I began to form memories, I can attest to the fact that he had never failed to agree with King David who penned God’s word in Psalms 91. Here’s a faithful promise of the Father to those who keep a reverent heart towards God, and it says: “with long life will I satisfy him and show him my salvation.” Indeed, Daddy is a beneficiary of that age-old promise. Providentially, he is a recipient of that “long life”.
Hailing from the little quaint sea-fearing village of Shoal Bay, on Anguilla’s northern coast, Daddy was born in 1920, at a time when Anguillians looked to the sea and menial agriculture for a means of making a living. As he grew, he willingly took on the ancestral fishing trade handed down to him by his own father, and like so many others he did his best to etch out a living by raising livestock, cattle and the cultivation of native crops like pigeon peas, corn, and sweet potatoes.
Later on in his life, Daddy turned to a humble business venture and tried his hand at the old-fashioned counter shop, retailing staple food items. Though he never reached the level of competence attributed to other entrepreneurs of his day, like Watkins or Proctors or Lakes, still his humble trade in the world of retail commodities has caused many of his loyal customers to regard him with a high degree of respect. That respect is entwined in the sound of the familiar name, “Haralder”— whether it was “Haralder the butcher” or “Haralder the broom man”.
Who else but Haraldo, in the early to mid-sixties, would weekly rise at 1:00 a.m. on Saturdays to butcher by the light of a Tilley lamp an ill-fated cow? And who else but my Daddy would leave Little Dix by first light to take that beef on the custom-crafted wooden carrier of his Hercules bicycle assisted by Joe, his oldest son, on his Triumph. As a team together, they marketed the meat to customers as far as West End in time for a traditional Sunday beef stew. Yes, Haraldo is legendary.
Who else but Haraldo would drive a Toyota Corona wagon to the Valley on a slow painstaking trek to do his business dealings, with a thatch broom on the roof? That broom was marked evidence of his advertising and marketing strategy— a strategy which attracted many housewives who gave him good sales and bragged on the excellent sweeping qualities of his durable brooms.
Before Daddy would have ever learned to drive a car, that Hercules bike was his most trusted mode of transportation. He would ride it south to the Quarter to tend his little shop, he would ride it east to source his beef-producing cows, mainly from the legendary Dodi Hodge; and of course he could ride west to serve his customers, but there was no way he could ride it north to tend his treasured fish pots and livestock. Why? Because north led to Shoal Bay, and in those years there was not even a road to what we now know as one of the world’s most pristine beaches.
But it was Haraldo and a humble Shoal Bay villager, his cousin Renford Hawley, one of his fishing comrades, who, in the mid-sixties started to widen the treacherous, rocky foot path with bill and machet in an effort that quickly triggered excitement in the Little Dix and Shoal Bay neighborhoods. A brilliant idea was born. “Come let’s make a road to Shoal Bay!” was the clarion call. Since then, over the span of several months the construction of Shoal Bay road was underway, pioneered by my Daddy. The mission was heavily assisted by two other prominent legendary figures, namely Austin Rogers and Abraham Harrigan, joint proprietors of the thriving Hideaway Enterprises. Both Uncle Austin and Uncle Abraham provided, among other things, a truck and tractor to transport the dirt-fill for dressing the road.
Shortly after the Shoal Bay road was completed, Daddy got the opportunity to migrate to St. Thomas. Like so many other Anguillians, from there he was able to provide more efficiently for his family. In St. Thomas, he was one of those staunch revolutionists away from the home-front who played a part in the 1967 Anguilla Revolution. He, together with many other concerned natives there, were able to provided support and funding for the revolution.
Many people might look at Daddy and consider him as a peculiar, queer individual according to modern standards, but to me he is a hero. He has thought his children invaluable lessons of life: how to honor, love and respect our fellowmen; and how to lead an honest and moral life, woven with a fear for our Creator. Most importantly, though, by his example we have been inspired to establish our own lives by faith in God who remains the same from age to age.
From one age of his life to another, Daddy has been a constant icon of faith, resilience and perseverance. Our prayer is that God would allow him at least five more years to make the centenarian’s mark.
(Published without editing by The Anguillian newspaper.)
