Digital Story from the Bawso Stories Project.

In this story, Tiffiny describes encountering a piece of Welsh slate during her childhood in Guyana.

English transcript: I learned about Wales through my grandad, because he had a slate with the Welsh dragon on it, and that’s how I learnt about Wales. So, when I moved to Wales, I was quite happy. I remember that little moment we had when I was a child about Wales, because Guyana was once a British colony. They did a lot of trading between the Caribbean, South America and the UK. Back then there weren’t any whiteboards or chalkboards. They used slates to write, to take notes in schools. So, I would assume that it came from this part of the world to use there in schools, because he went to a Catholic school, and I think they were run by some missionaries from the UK, so I guess that’s where he got it from. I think they got rid of them some time in the early eighties.

Just a little story, he just mentioned that he used it in school. The school that he went to, it was under a house, because the house was high but there was no enclosure at the bottom. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Caribbean houses, but what they were like in the seventies, eighties, nineties, it was just the upper part, but the lower part, it was completely open. So, it was mostly like that to hold functions like schools, church, and any other functions. So, he just mentioned that there was an organisation that had a school under a house, and that’s what they used to take notes. He kept his. He was quite a bit of a hoarder, so he had loads of bits and pieces from his early life. There was the Welsh dragon on the back. I didn’t know what it was and then he told me that is from the United Kingdom, maybe one day you’ll get there. I didn’t quite understand what he meant by that at that time, because I was just about six years old, and here I am today.