In order to assess properly the wreckage of the cherished MCC Garden, one has to pass it on the southern side, the Calle al Mar side, which I had occasion to do on Wednesday morning. This was a very painful experience for me.

At this time of year, Cross Country time, I think of my maternal uncle, Buck “Jones” Belisle, a lot, and a lot of that thinking is in connection with the cycling classic. 

I was born in 1947, and lived on Church Street until 1954. This was down the street from where there was a famous bicycle shop near the corner of Albert Street. 

This was the heyday of Jeffrey O’Brien, Duncan Vernon, and Callie Coffin, all deceased. Incidentally, four-time champion Aston Gill, who recently passed in New York, never received the glory he deserved because there was practically no media here in the late 1940s.

The people who were focused on cycling (and probably a little gambling) never thought that one day someone like me would describe the Church Street shop as “famous.” I was just a child, so I didn’t know the innards of the shop, just that people like my uncle who were so taken up with cycling, and especially Cross Country, spent a lot of time there.

Anyway, those of you who have been my regular readers know that I speak of my uncle with reverence, and it is mostly because, as I grew up, I saw special leadership qualities in him which I did not see in some of his contemporaries who were more formally educated.

I remember that one time my uncle told me about being disrespected by a Belizean who had a Master’s degree in pharmacology. My uncle was trained in electrical science in Puerto Rico and Los Angeles after spending his younger years working in Panama (1941-1946). So, he had no university education as such. But he proved for decades, in various sports such as cycling, cricket, baseball, boxing, yachting, and gambling (if one may describe gambling as a sport), that he was something special. I looked with disdain upon the gentleman who had disrespected him. But, that is not the thrust of my story today.

Unity Club was a group of British Honduran young men, led by a Jamaican called “Skipper” Edwards, and primarily assisted by the then Town Clerk, William “Bill” Craig, who filled the rectangular area behind the old Southside Slaughterhouse which became known as the playing field called Edwards Park, which itself became Rogers Stadium after Hurricane Hattie in 1961. 

The Unity Club featured civil-service types, like my dad, and organized teams which participated in cricket and baseball competitions in Belize City in the 1950s. Amongst those who were elected captains of the Unity cricket team, during the 1950s, were my dad and the late Telford Vernon, my dad’s close friend. 

I did not consider my dad a leader. I have described him in these pages as a “pure intellectual.” But, it is for sure that Telford Vernon was recognized all over the city as a quality leader. In fact, when British Honduras chose football and cricket teams to travel to Jamaica for games in 1962, I am sure Mr. Vernon was the cricket captain. He was also probably the leader of that historic delegation. Mr. Telford also captained the Belize cricket team which played against a visiting MCC selection from England, in 1960, I believe. 

But Unity never won a cricket competition until my uncle became captain after Hattie, and then they won twice at MCC, I believe. Two of the key players on my uncle’s teams were Charles and Keith Gardiner, who were also star Landivar football players. 

With some guidance from my uncle and Mr. Vernon, Charles Gardiner became a top flight batsman, while Keith, who taught woodworking at the Belize Technical College while my uncle was vice-principal there, was the most sensational defensive outfielder in Belize cricket that I have ever seen.

A few months ago, I wrote a column about the late Clinton Gardiner (Lands Commissioner for many years) and spent some time looking at some of the outstanding members of the Gardiner family. But the column only appeared in our Tuesday online edition. It never appeared in the larger Friday edition, as my Tuesday columns usually do. So that, a lot of my regular readers, those who have been with me through the years, have never seen that column, which included the historic note that a member of the Gardiner family, a son of the famous George “Bolo” Gardiner, played for the Guatemalan national football selection a while back. (The first Gardiner to achieve fame in the old city was probably Robert Gardiner, who was selected the outstanding athlete amongst the British Hondurans who travelled overseas for World War I.)

In this column, I am asking the “authorities” at the newspaper to locate that Tuesday column about Clinton Gardiner and other members of his family, and reproduce it in a Friday printed edition. We have already lost too much of our roots history, and it is so frustrating for a nationalist like myself.

By the way, in three years there comes the centennnial anniversary of Baron Bliss’ great gift to Belize, and I think you big people here should consider doing something to give special honor to the Baron. Yes, he was a white man, but he gave us all he had out of the goodness of his heart. We must always remember him.

Power to the people.