Rita graduated from Bishops’ High School and taught French at Tutorial High School in Georgetown. I was attracted by her beauty and her engaging ways. I fell in love and our relationship progressed fairly quickly. At that time the only transportation to Georgetown (60 miles from Mackenzie where I worked at Demba's bauxite/alumina operations) was by riverboat on the R.H. Carr, or by speedboat, or by 4-wheel drive Land Rover through the forest, so we saw each other on weekends. She planned to go on to university in the USA, but changed her plans when I proposed marriage, and we were married on 5th November 1966. Rita's close friend and neighbour, Wendy Rudder, hosted a pre-marriage party on the eve, and my parents hosted a wedding breakfast the next morning. Rita moved to Mackenzie after our honeymoon in Barbados.
Our first son, Christopher, was born a full year later, and we lived in a company house in Watooka, a privilege of senior staff. Our house was on the east bank of the Demerara river beside the Demba golf course, and the Watooka club for senior staff was a five minute drive away. Jeremy was born two years later and we moved to a larger company house on Richmond Hill, another housing privilege of Demba's senior staff. Our close friends in Mackenzie included our next-door neighbours Cathy & Mike Rogers, Valerie & Wellesley Arthur, Yvette & Graham Davies, Carol & Ian Smith, Migan & Mike Henson, Gloria & Mike Brassington, and Winston Hendrickson, who was the best man at our wedding.
In Mackenzie, Rita developed a strong interest in bridge which was very popular among the senior staff spouses most of whom were homemakers. She played regularly and became very proficient at the bidding and play of the hands. On one occasion the Watooka club held a duplicate bridge contest involving around ten tables of husband-and-wife couples. The contest was played once a week for a few months, and the weekly scores were accumulated to decide the winners. It became very competitive with a lot of blame and anger firing between spouses. Some even talked of divorce. I vowed never to play such duplicate bridge competitions again! We continued playing regular rubber bridge, including later in Mandeville Jamaica – another privileged setting which Rita thoroughly enjoyed.
In 1972 we moved to Kingston Jamaica where we were close friends with Cecile & John Gibbs before moving to Mandeville. In Mandeville, we had regular weekly family home dinners with Doreen & Michael Bell and Cherie & John Watson. At one point, Mike taught us basic accounting after dinner for a couple of months. We then took the exam for Royal Society of Arts Stage 2 Accounting. Rita (and others) passed with distinction! We also became close friends with Audrey & Charlie Clark, who had returned to Jamaica after he headed the finance department at Demba, and with Claire & DIck Holzworth. Our friendships with the Bells, Clarks and Holzworths continued in Montreal when we all transferred to Alcan Montreal at various times. We were also close friends with Mignon & George Gullen in Montreal.
Over the years, our vacations, often graciously hosted by relatives and friends, took us to Barbados, Grenada, Grand Cayman (with my sister Camille & Peter Wight), Miami/Orlando (with Rita’s brother Barbara & Jamil Hussain), and Newark (with Rita’s sister Pansy & Raymond Walcott). In 1968 during my 4-month “long leave” (another Demba perk) we vacationed in Lisbon, Paris, London (with Bridget & Ivan Fung), Montreal (with Marilyn & David Cox) and Edmonton (with my sister Jeanette & Romeo Resaul).
Rita was a superb cook. She once held a session at the Watooka club for the homemakers, many of whom were expatriates, to show them how to make roti & curry. They were full of praise and admiration for her presentation. Over the years, whenever Rita produced what I considered to be a culinary masterpiece, I would try to convince her to open a restaurant, but she wasn’t interested. On one occasion she produced the desserts for a 24-person restaurant dinner, and the desserts drew such a profusion of praise from the diners, and so surpassed the rest of the menu, that the restaurant pointedly asked her not to make such high cuisine again!
When we returned to Jamaica from Montreal in 1983, I had gone ahead a few months earlier so that Christopher & Jeremy could complete the school year. Quebec had declined to extend permission for them to attend English school, and they next boarded at Upper Canada College in Toronto. I returned to Montreal that summer to accompany them back to Jamaica, and I was astounded to find that Rita had accumulated some $10,000 in groceries to take to Jamaica to continue her culinary excellence.
Rita took very good loving care of her family, and she was surrounded by family love to the very end. She was also socially outgoing. I once witnessed her on the phone for an hour and a half talking to a wrong number!
She knew how to get her way with me, often with a soft touch, but sometimes with adamant finality. An early example occurred when I tried to teach her to drive. Our car had a manual transmission and I needed to explain about operating the clutch. Rita flatly refused to allow any and all forms of explanation. She insisted that the only way to proceed was for her to ask questions and for me to provide the answers. I finally gave up in frustration and asked a friend (Errol Campbell) to teach her.
On another occasion when we returned to Toronto in 1986, Rita flatly refused to agree to buying a car, insisting that “people don’t use cars nowadays”. No amount of logic could change this conclusive statement. A sympathetic friend (Michael Gomes) lent me an old rust-bucket which I drove for more than a month until I could no longer stand it, and I bought a car in spite of Rita’s objection. I recall with a smile her favourite rebuttal on such occasions. It was “Don’t let people hear you!”.
With all the inevitable disagreements, we had many years of love, joy and laughter in Georgetown, Mackenzie, Kingston, Mandeville, Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto, and those memories remain.
