AS TOLD TO BC PIRES

My name is Geoffrey Frankson and what you are reading is not the truth.

It’s not that I am telling lies. But that I don’t know the truth.

I am Belizean/Jamaican. And Trini close to the bone.

I met my Trinidadian wife, Gwyneth, in Oxford. She beautifully mothered Robert and Michael.

I came to appreciate her forbearance after we separated and I fathered Joel with Pearl.

While I don’t “come from” Trinidad and Tobago, I certainly came to be me in that delightful little country. I literally had family, friends and close acquaintances in every cultural nook and cranny – urban and rural, rich and poor, and of every ethnicity.

Between the work I did, the sports I played, and the uncountable limes that I’ve been on, it’s been a hell of a ride.

I identify, perhaps, with the striking sense of the absurd in the patois culture. Sans humanité and all that.

I’m 75 years old. but since I could easily pass for 65, I’m gonna work with that.

In Trinidad, parang took me back to my Spanish-Belizean roots. The music, yes, but also the dancing and the prolonged liming.

I was raised Catholic but the indoctrination was a little too obvious to stick.

In the interest of stability, I allowed my children to be guided by their mothers’ strong convictions.

If I felt a need to pick or believe in one, it would have to be Spinoza’s God, in Einstein’s words, a God “who reveals himself in the lawful harmony of all that exists.

“But (doesn’t concern) himself with the fate and the doings of mankind.”

It wasn’t a Trinidadian woman but Trinidadian women on campus that drew me to Trinidad. Saucy, vivacious and flirty.

Which is why I married one. And also why we split up.

I was also drawn to Trinidad in my final year at Mona, UWI, by the cultural characteristics I saw in the Trini students: the sense of humour, the irreverence, the insouciance and joie de vivre.

I am now settling down in Belize with yet another Trinidadian, a willing victim of their irresistible mystique.

I inherited a citrus farm which I now want to transform into a 400-acre garden, but rest assured I will be returning regularly to Trinidad.

My father, a black “Englishman,” born in Bog Walk, Jamaica, was sent to British Honduras – now Belize – to serve the king of England.

Unsurprisingly, I was sent to an English-style boarding school in Jamaica. It was pretty miserable. (Under) a string of transplanted Englishmen and Englishwomen, never understanding what I was doing there, I studied just enough to get by and waited to see what would happen next.

I spent many happy holidays with my large Jamaican family (all over) that beautiful island.

I seriously wanted to be a palaeontologist, but the adults all found that amusing, so I said, “Okay, a thermonuclear astrophysicist.”

When they insisted on a serious answer, I said medicine. As was expected.

I was brought back to St John’s College in Belize specifically to win the Belize National Scholarship, which I did.

Medical school at Mona, UWI, were the happiest days of my lif