Times of the Islands Summer 2020

My father, Jeffrey Handfield, was born in 1930, nine
years before the start of World War II. As a result, his
childhood and adolescent years were very economically
challenging times throughout the world. Even more so for
the Turks & Caicos Islands, which was under direct rule
by the British Government and administered by a British
governor stationed in Jamaica. My father used to talk
of those tough times with vivid imagery. He would say,
“Times were so hard that we used to eat cornmeal that
was so old it was filled with worms, and we used to thank
God for the worms because at least we were eating meat.”
This was a result of the long time it took for supplies to
be shipped from Jamaica to the Turks & Caicos Islands.
When my father was a boy, employment in the Caicos
Islands was non-existent. He would say, “The only things
for young men to do in those days were hooking conch
and burning charcoal.” People used to depend on the land
and the sea for their survival. The men were avid boatsmen
and the boys dreamt of becoming just like their
fathers.
The dream my father had was that one day he would
own a “big boat,” meaning a large Caicos sloop. Boys in
those days didn’t have many educational opportunities.
In North Caicos there was only a little primary school in
Bottle Creek, the settlement where my father lived. He
attended the Bottle Creek Primary School until he was
nine years old and in the third grade. (While I am writing
this account, my son is nine years old and the thought
of Dominion ending his education now makes me emotional.)
Once out of school the only thing for young Jeffrey
to do was join his father as a crew on his fishing boat.
At nine years old he had to learn to scull/row the dinghy
boat using a long oar, and hook conchs using a water
glass and a long pole with a hook at the end. Fathers and
their sons would leave North Caicos on Monday morning
and head for South Caicos where they would buy supplies
for three weeks and then go from there to Ambergris
Cay. At Ambergris Cay they would live in huts made from
a local wood called “wattle” and the roof would be made
from palm leaves. There they would stay, fishing and
hooking conchs, then hanging them in the sun to dry.
For three weeks they would do this work and they would
give their product of dried fish and dried conch to the
captain of the large sloops who would take it to Haiti to
be sold at Cap Haitian. Back then, conchs would be sold
in Haiti at a price of one dollar per one hundred conchs.
This was the life of men and boys and this was how my
father began dreaming of having a “big boat” of his own.
Also known as “Baba Jeff,” Jeffrey Handfield was a pastor in the
Church of God of Prophecy; considered one of the best divers in the
TCI; and was a loving father, uncle and great-great grandfather.
In order to find more lucrative means of employment,
young men would have to migrate either to the Bahamas
or the United States. As a young adult my father migrated
to the Bahamas as a stowaway on one of the “big boats”
that carried passengers to Nassau. Since my father’s
name was not on the manifest as a passenger or crew
member, he had to be smuggled into the Bahamas. This
is my father’s account of how that happened: “When the
boat reached Nassau it stopped at Hog Island, (now called
Paradise Island), all the stowaways had to swim to shore
on Hog Island to wait for nightfall. We reached Hog Island
with our clothes soaking wet, the sun was hot and there
was no shade, boats were passing by close to the shore,
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