Letter to the late Frank Collymore on his 100th Birthday

I suspect that you will not much approve of this kind of supposedly clever manoeuvre, but I'll take the risk. Thought you might like to hear a little of how things have been going recently. This is a great period right now for collyfans. A few months ago the Barbados National Trust brought out the sixth edition of your perennial Glossary ofWords and Phrases of Barbadian Dialect. Incidentally, I was asked to do a foreword for it, at desperately short notice, and it was only when I received my copy of the book that I realized that I had written and dated the foreword and faxed it to Barbados (I'll tell you about fax next time) on the anniversary of your death, 17 July. It hardly seems like nearly thirteen years now since you moved on. But better yet this week two events are to take place in Barbados to mark your centenary. Patrick Foster is directing a revue built round some of your poems, on much the same format as the first one he did, Colly\, in 1978. It's to be put on at the Frank Collymore Auditorium (oh, that's something else I'll have to tell you about another time), and I'm really sorry I shan't be there to see it. Assuming, of course, that it does come off because when I was in Barbados in November I heard that there was a danger that the money might not be forthcoming. It was a very Bajan story, which I can't repeat here. Will tell you when I see you. Then wait for this one an exhibition on your life and work is being mounted by the Barbados Archives at Woodville! Ellice has had the house refurbished. The carpenter who was in charge of the job is an oldish man, whose name I can't remember, who, according to Ellice, had a due sense of the significance of what he was doing and worked with loving care. The bookcases in the living room were all emptied and your precious books