Anguilla Day May 30 was the 95th birthday of James (Jimmy) Romney of South Hill, and what a time it was for him and his family. His grown children and other relatives sat around him enjoying a delicious meal and listening to his stories of long ago. One of his memories is the active period of the Anguilla Revolution, 1967-1969.

“I was down at Rendezvous working with a fellow called Scott and I heard that Ronald Webster had sent the St. Kitts Government police back to St. Kitts. I said, ‘What? That’s bad!” he recalled. “Next thing everybody began guarding the bays and later some Anguillians went to St. Kitts and were held up there.”

Jimmy went on: “Well I wasn’t surprised about what happened. I remember Bradshaw, the head of the St. Kitts Government, had a meeting down by Gabe, here in South Hill, and he said he would make Anguilla into a desert. He didn’t want Anguilla to come to anything. So all the boys there got around him for that and he cleared out.

“Then when the Revolution was taking place, up came the paratroopers. Oh, Lord, they dropped down under the hill in the acacia trees. When I was going to Sandy Ground, I heard ‘Halt!’ ‘Halt!’ When I looked back I saw the fellows with their guns and by the time I reached back home, they were all about searching saying ‘Bradshaw say down here have rebels, but all we see are good people.”

Turning to his own way of life, Jimmy remarked: “I have enjoyed working my garden, rearing my cattle and pulling my fish-pots. I still look after my garden but there is a fellow who is helping me.” The recent rains have been a blessing to his garden which is filled with vegetables like kale and other food crops.

Asked what he thought contributed to his long life and good health, he replied: “Oh, the ground food. I eat plenty potatoes, peas, corn, fish and meat and drink my milk.”

What advice Jimmy has for younger people? “They can’t live to a very old age because they drink too much rum. They are not treating their bodies good,” he stated. “I know what it is like because when I was younger I used to drink a lot of rum and then go and box a loblolly tree out there and my wife would bawl saying “Lord Jimmy, you can’t stop drinking and then I started to cool down, cool down, until I stopped.”

His wife, Romalia (Pema) Romney, died some seven years ago. His children numbered five boys: Richard, Collins, Michael, Derrick and Adolphus, one daughter Lena Gumbs (otherwise known as Sister Lena) and a step daughter, Ethleen Carty, his caretaker.

Jimmy has one regret: “I never knew my mother at all,” he said sadly; but then added with gratitude “some other people else reared me.” His mother, Gustavie Romney, was among a number of Anguillians who drowned 95 years ago when the boat on which they were travelling from St. Martin to Anguilla sank in rough seas. He was only two months old. He is grateful to Catherine and Thomas William Hodge who raised him.

Jimmy travelled to various parts of the Caribbean in search of employment and later settled down permanently in Anguilla with his family.

Jimmy Romney third from left with family members

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