Changing faces, March 2007

It's six o'clock in the morning, thousands of miles from a childhood perched on the Humber, so it was a jolting start to the day when the radio broadcast familiar accents. After twenty minutes or so - mainly talk, but with an interlude from Diana Ross, who had the 'sweetest hangover' - one confused listener in Hart's Gap, Barbados, was informed that English local Radio Humberside was in simultaneous transmission with the Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation.

25 March 2007, in cold, brittle Hull, and humid Barbados, is precisely two hundred years since the final passage of 'An Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade'. The Bajan government postponed its Budget, in order for Prime Minister, Owen Arthur, to unveil the plaque at refurbished Wilberforce House, part of rejuvenated Hull's 'Museum Quarter', and he would later give an inaugural lecture, designed to become an annual commemoration of abolition. Dignitaries said their piece - Deputy Prime Mininster Prescott, the leader of Hull City Council, the Lord Mayor of Hull, the Yorkshire and Humberside representative of the Heritage Lottery Fund, which had sold seventeen million lottery tickets to produce this piece of heritage - everyone was very honoured by the presence of Barbados's Prime Minister, and there was excitable talk of the Museum Quarter seeking the status of World Heritage Site. What a long way Kingston-upon-Hull has come from the sullen, explosive city of my youth.

CBC radio, disappointed no doubt, that its Prime Minsiter had not made a speech, turned its attentions to World Cup Cricket. Bajans were reminded, intermittently, however, to join the 'National Gathering', from four that afternoon, at Bay Street Esplanade, a gap along the beach that parallels Carlisle Bay. But few came. Rows of white plastic chairs were set out, behind the CBC camera and sound kiosks; free seats for the nation, invited to 'break the chain'. Even the worthies' seats at the front were not all filled, and on a searing afternoon, a bigger crowd had gathered in the shade of the big tree on the beach.

Organised by the office of the Prime Minsiter, but without its chief dignitary, the crowds were entertained by the band of the Royal Barbados Police Force, and a medley of spirituals. The people at the front stood, and so, with a time delay for recognition, we in the cheap seats did likewise, and listened to the national anthem. The programme had printed the words, which were not sung. A man read the preamble to the Act and then a call and response of drummers and conches, followed by a rather overlong call to 'rise up, children of Africa', accompanied dancers, dressed in white, in clothes a recognisable echo of the dress of eighteenth-century slaves, who danced onto the beach.

Having stopped - before the start of the proceedings - at the front seats, to tie a shawl around burning shoulders, it was enquired whether I had a ticket and I was shooed to the back. Following the national anthem, the same woman ushered us forward, presumably to imitate parliamentary 'doughnutting', whereby poorly-attended early-day motions and adjournment debates are made to look significant in front of the cameras. But it was the worst of both worlds: not an uplifting display of massed Bajans, whilst those who came were unable to see, either the stages or the 'off-stage' action on the beach.

Although there was a long programme of singing, prayer and Bible-readings (Deut vii:7-12; Phil.ii:5-11), it was the startled families on Bay Street beach who were awarded the best view, as seven dancers in black swimwear emerged from the ocean to be welcomed by the emancipated, the former being the souls of the last seven slaves to arrive in Bridgetown after the Act was passed. Owen Arthur was due back to unveil a plaque: he didn't make it from Hull, and the task was performed by his Deputy, Dame Billie Miller, but The Nation reported 'hundreds of Barbadians had borne witness'.

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The green monkeys are moving inland: not far inland, but at a time of year when food is in shorter supply, they can be cheeky enough to sit at the entrance to the Department of Archives and hope for scraps. It's rare to see monkeys in the wild in Barbados, but this little community used to live in the trees that had grown up in the gap between Paradise Holiday Village at Black Rock and Spring Garden Highway.

Now the trees have gone, grubbed out by the roots to make way for the concrete and boulders, which will form the foundations of shiny new hotel and holiday apartments at the start of the Platinum Coast. Everywhere is building. The picturesque old cricket ground is now - barring the workers still standing hundreds of feet up and covering the new 3Ws' stand in steel cladding - a space-age construction of glistening modernity. Around it is industrial plant. All along the coast, the shabby bush and run-down shanties which interspersed the clubs, hotels, apartments, have been boarded off to viewers and, behind the screens, a new, fresher, welcoming, first-world tourist experience is being built.

Inland, along with the golf courses which provide recompense for thousands of tiny Japanese cars, are new retirement home developments. Prime Minister Arthur tells residents that they have the right to live in gated communities. Bajans claim that plantations famed for the quality of their sugar are deliberately run down by new owners in the hope of selling off agricultural land for building. Most foodstuffs - and most other things - are imported.

What is the real Barbados? Maybe this is it. If so, both the monkeys and the people are being pushed to the margins.

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To be fair - and one must always try to be fair to a place - Barbados seems more integrated than has appeared the case on previous visits. I haven't been out east this time, to the parishes of St John and St Philip, home of the 'poor whites', or 'red legs'; maybe like poorer people everywhere, they've finally become migrant and graduated towards the city.

Could it be that Barbados is becoming less embarrassed about what is rapidly no longer a two-tone demographic? There are a noticeable number of Asian Bajans on the strees now: luxuriously bearded men with tented street stalls, trading while they build a house around themselves; women in niqab on the streets of Bridgetown. The commemoration of the anti-slave trade Act featured 'Bajans' of every hue in the next-generation publicity photo - two black Bajans, an Asian girl in a sari, and an improbably blond boy. Maybe the Opposition is correct - the Arthur administration is fond of the set piece.

But certain areas remain the preserve of white Bajans. The Waterfront Café and the boutiques next to it, sit, without any incongruity, next to the street hawkers with shell necklaces and engraved coconut-shell handbags at the other end of the Pelican Bridge. Along the waterfront, down to the Careenage, the huge boats lie 'Bristol fashion', designed and kitted-out for big-game fishing. 'Honey Bea III', 'Carib Girl', 'Free Willy' appeal to the Hemingway that lurks in the breast of most (white?) men. Of twelve boats anchored this evening, the haul seems to have been one king fish: the owners, crews and their families are sheltering from torrential rain at The Waterfront.

Further up the coast, around towards Garrison, once icon of English colonial rule, lies the Royal Barbados Tennis Club and the Royal Barbados Yacht Club. Rain stopped play today, but a single black face will still be there, serving the drinks behind the bar.

And I forgot to mention the new demographic of the holiday home, or moved-out-for-a-better-quality-of-life. Yesterday, a four-wheel drive pulled out of the Polyclinic carpark: the registration plate was St George's, but the spare wheel cover proclaimed Cheltenham. But one must be fair. In fact, the 'Free Willy' had landed thirty-three big game fish - king fish, dolphin (no, not that dolphin) - and, on peering into the for-once open doorway of the Royal Barbados Police Force Boys' and Girls' Club, little white boys were collecting their bags along with little black boys.