Gilbakka posted:

Radio Needy Children's Fund (RNCF), started when I was a child by broadcaster Olga Lopes-Seale. At Christmas time she made stirring appeals on the air for donations. When she emigrated to Barbados in the early 1960s, broadcaster Pat Cameron became the voice of RNCF. Thousands of poor kids got free toys, clothes and meals.

I am happy to learn that the Fund is still going strong:

https://www.kaieteurnewsonline...rly-christmas-cheer/

Great to see it still going.  My mom was a canvasser for Pat Cameron on the East Bank.  She would take me around to all the rich people and get donations.  Every week she took it to Radio Demerara and turn over to Pat Cameron.

Mr.T posted:

I remember small silver balls on the white icing of the Christmas rum cake.

yeh, i remember dat wan. i used eat dem off the cake.

Prashad miss his black cake, black pudding and pepper pot. The wife make black cake around Christmas time but it does not taste like black cake in Guyana. Prashad recently spent a month in Harlem so he ate his belly full of black pudding from Queens before he left.

Baseman posted:

Gilbakka posted:

Radio Needy Children's Fund (RNCF), started when I was a child by broadcaster Olga Lopes-Seale. At Christmas time she made stirring appeals on the air for donations. When she emigrated to Barbados in the early 1960s, broadcaster Pat Cameron became the voice of RNCF. Thousands of poor kids got free toys, clothes and meals.

I am happy to learn that the Fund is still going strong:

https://www.kaieteurnewsonline...rly-christmas-cheer/

Great to see it still going.  My mom was a canvasser for Pat Cameron on the East Bank.  She would take me around to all the rich people and get donations.  Every week she took it to Radio Demerara and turn over to Pat Cameron.

So you started on this Donation and Charity stuff at a young age and have lots of experience now?!     

(I'm at a conference all week, hence the early morning posts.)

Leonora posted:

Baseman posted:

Gilbakka posted:

Radio Needy Children's Fund (RNCF), started when I was a child by broadcaster Olga Lopes-Seale. At Christmas time she made stirring appeals on the air for donations. When she emigrated to Barbados in the early 1960s, broadcaster Pat Cameron became the voice of RNCF. Thousands of poor kids got free toys, clothes and meals.

I am happy to learn that the Fund is still going strong:

https://www.kaieteurnewsonline...rly-christmas-cheer/

Great to see it still going.  My mom was a canvasser for Pat Cameron on the East Bank.  She would take me around to all the rich people and get donations.  Every week she took it to Radio Demerara and turn over to Pat Cameron.

So you started on this Donation and Charity stuff at a young age and have lots of experience now?!     

(I'm at a conference all week, hence the early morning posts.)

Was waiting for the Turd 💩 bunch.  But you beat them.  My mom was proud to see her Name in the Graphic as an official canvasser.

And I thought you had a foreday marnin crow that’s why you up so early.  You notice you lil late.

Prashad posted:

Prashad recently spent a month in Harlem so he ate his belly full of black pudding from Queens before he left.

Is Harlem a far way from Queens?

Wan mud road Hammie seh he would mek but never fulfill he promise, nuff nice food and fresh bread me mother used to mek and me daddy used to tek me to see boxing day movie pon he bicycle. Hey hey hey...

Leonora, thank you for starting this post. 

My most memorable experiences of Christmas was during 1956 - 1961 and from 1966-1976. I remember that every Christmas Eve from 1956-1961, my neighbor Walter Rodney will kill a pig and send pork over for my Mom to make Pepper Pot. My Mom baked black cake loaded with rum, as well as bread and sent it over to them. My Dad would send me on Christmas Eve to go buy Russian Bear Rum and Woodpecker Cider from a Portuguese man rum shop at the line top in Bachelor’s Adventure, East Cost Demerara. My Dad would give all his five sons one shot of Rum to take on the rocks. Maybe, that was the reasons that none of us took to alcohol drinking. Those ere the days when East Indians and Negroes lived in harmony and did anything possible to protect the community.

From 1961-1966 we experienced racism with Negroes taking advantage of East Indians and Christmas was was a scary time for us. We didn’t celebrate Christmas. From 1966 - 1976 things were a little bit different and we returned to celebrate Christmas. Pork was replaced by Goat meat or Mutton. Mom made Ginger beer,  black  cake and bread.  Carrolers came around knocking tin pots and singing carols, we blew balloons,white washed the fence, scrubbed the floor, put up new window blinds, daub the bottom house, removed cob web (if any) from the house using broom, iron clothes using a coal pot and helped my mom making flowers from crepe paper. Christmas cards were on a line in the house from one wall to another, and fairy lights were hung. It was beautiful. I enjoyed Christmas in Guyana, always. Since immigrating to Canada, Christmas became a commercial activity, and I would have none of it.

Don, thanks for sharing your memories. Hope you're doing better. Are you at home or still in the hospital?

Thank you Leonora. I am still in hospital battling with this life. Merry Christmas to you and everyone on GNI.

DD, Merry Christmas to you and hope the New Year find you in better health.

Dondadda posted:

Thank you Leonora. I am still in hospital battling with this life. Merry Christmas to you and everyone on GNI.

Merry Christmas to you brother. Hope you beat it.

Dondadda posted:

I am still in hospital battling with this life. Merry Christmas to you and everyone on GNI.

Stay strong Don.

Ramakant, I guess you're busy preparing for Christmas. If you're making Ginger Beer, take a shot for me, lol.