Found at: http://www.anguillaguide.com/article/articleprint/3737/-1/131/
|
In Memory Of William Horsford (Slim) by Colville Petty
|
Another stalwart of the Anguilla Revolution has fallen. The following extract from the book ANGUILLA’S BATTLE FOR FREEDOM, 1967, which I co-authored with Nat Hodge, is my way of keeping Slim’s life in the memory of our people.
. . . . We’ll . . . have lunch at The Wings
|
|
The late William (Slim) Horsford
|
There was a problem, on 30th May 1967, finding an aircraft to take the remaining policemen to St. Kitts because Clayton Lloyd had not yet returned from his first trip. Someone suggested the use of a St. Thomas Air Taxi (STAT) plane owned by Paul and Vera Randall, two United States citizens who lived at Maunday’s Bay. A few men were sent to Maunday’s Bay to look into the possibility of getting the STAT plane and, on arrival there, met Lynn Asberry (one of the airline’s pilots) and William Horsford (Slim) boarding a jeep to go to The Valley for lunch. When the men told Asberry that they wanted him to take some of the policemen to St. Kitts, Slim turned to him and said:
It’s a good idea. We’ll drop them off and have lunch at The Wings [Restaurant] at the airport in St. Kitts.
Lynn Asberry agreed and said that he would use the opportunity, while in St Kitts, to refuel his aircraft. He and Slim then left Maunday’s Bay for Wallblake Airport to await the arrival of the policemen.
Cornelius trembled
At about 3:00 pm Cornelius, Maynard and Williams were ordered to get in the police van and drive to Wallblake Airport. They arrived there in less than five minutes and the van was quickly surrounded by a crowd of about 200 to 300 people all of whom were jeering and shouting insults. It was Todville Harrigan who opened the driver’s door and told Cornelius:
Get your ass on the plane before we shoot you! We want independence!
Cornelius was scared, and trembling, but he nonetheless resented being manhandled. He appeared reluctant to board the aircraft and this caused Wallace Rey to warn, “If he refuse to go, let us kill him!” Cornelius’ last display of stubbornness quickly disappeared when Collins Hodge, standing a few yards away, fired a few warning shots in the air. He then boarded the aircraft under the escort of Todville Harrigan, Charlie Fleming and Churchill W. Smith all of whom were armed . . . After Maynard and Williams had joined Cornelius for the flight the plane, piloted by Lynn Asberry took off for at about 3.20 pm...
Slim laughed
While the plane flew on to St. Kitts, Cornelius’ temper had not yet cooled. He was still very bitter and vowed to return to Anguilla with some other policemen to avenge the humiliation meted out to him and his colleagues. Neither Lynn Asberry nor Slim Horsford, who sat with him in the cockpit of the light aircraft, said anything to the policemen during the half hour flight.
The plane landed safely and as soon as it reached the terminal building, at the Golden Rock Airport in St. Kitts, it was surrounded by armed policemen who advised Lynn and Slim that they were under arrest and that the plane was being seized. Four armed men then put them straight into the back of a police van and carried them off to the Police Headquarters, in Basseterre, where they spent some two hours sitting on a bench.
It was while on the bench that they overheard a radio transmission which said:
Prepare everybody to go to Anguilla!
Some of the policemen said openly that they were not prepared to go but there were others anxious to undertake the mission. There was a fat policeman who said that he wanted to go to teach the Anguillians a lesson and this caused Slim to burst out in laughter. A policewoman asked him why he was laughing and he replied:
The Anguillians can’t shoot so good, but they certainly can’t miss that fat fellow! . . .
Peeping through the wicket-door
Lynn Asberry and Slim Horsford spent the night of 30th May 1967 in separate cells in the Basseterre prison. At around 8 o’clock that night another man was placed in the cell with Slim who went on the top bunk and allowed the new inmate to use the bottom one. The stench of the prison was unbearable. To quote Slim:
I smelt piss. They flooded the room with piss through the space under the door. It was a horrible smell.
At no time during the night did Slim and his cellmate speak to each other. Next morning, shortly after he woke up from sleep, Slim’s curiosity led him to the wicket-door to get a peep of the surroundings. To his great surprise his cellmate crept up behind him and “pissed on” a leg of his pants. Slim was mad as hell but was too scared to do anything about it.
When breakfast time came both men were given a piece of “cement paper” which contained “some brown sugar with a round bread in the middle of it.” They were each given a cup of water as well. The cups were so badly battered that Slim could not imagine that they were intended for use by man. Neither he nor his cellmate used “the breakfast.”
Domour’s rescue mission
It was about 12 noon on Wednesday 31st May that Paul Randall was able to arrange bail for Lynn Asberry and Slim Horsford. Randall had not only arranged bail. He also contacted Domour, a friend of his, and asked him to fly to St. Kitts to take out Lynn and Slim. The arrangement was that Domour would land his plane as close as possible to the foot (western end) of the Golden Rock Airport from where Lynn and Slim would jump aboard.
After their release, on bail, from prison, Lynn and Slim were taken by van to a cane field near the western end of the runway, at around 2.00 pm, where they hid and patiently awaited Domour’s rescue mission. They had been waiting for about two hours when suddenly the plane appeared, from the west, flying low above the cane fields. It touched down on the runway shortly after and, because of some rapid braking, Domour was able to stop it near the western end where Lynn and Slim rushed aboard to fly to freedom. Domour did not turn the plane around. He took off towards the east and was airborne before he reached the terminal building. He then banked heavily to the left thus completing a successful rescue mission.