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Granada Bacon (by Stanley Lover)

A short chapter from my memoirs Chronicles of a Timid Lover.

November 1984. Harrods Store, South Kensington, London.
In the Bacon Department I said to the dark man behind the counter, 'Please give me ten rashers of smoked bacon.'

His response surprised me. A brown hand snaked forward over the glass fronted display counter. 'Hello, Mister Lover, how are you?' Something familiar about his wide smile challenged my brains for recognition, but I was stumped. We shook hands but before I could mumble, 'I'm sorry, but …' he continued;
'Don't you remember me? We met in Grenada when you came on a FIFA football programme. My name is Roy St. John - I was the Minister for Sport and President of the Grenada Football Association.'

My mind flashed back six years to August 1978, to our first meeting on the tarmac of the small Pearl's Airport, Grenada. I was one of a team of four specialists representing FIFA in a World Development Programme. Our role was to provide advice to strengthen four major elements of football in each member country - Administration, Coaching, Sports Medicine, and Refereeing.

My FIFA colleagues were: Vojislav Bizic, 26 from Rijeka Yugoslavia, an adviser on Administration, with a background of managing the international affairs of a First Division Club; Heinz Morotzke, 43 from Bruweiler West Germany, had coached Shalke 84 and the national teams of Iceland and Ghana; and Professor David Muckle, 37 an eminent surgeon, authority on sports injuries, and consultant to the Oxford United Football League Club. We soon became friends and made a good team.

Grenada was our second stop on a three-week tour of Trinidad, Grenada and Antigua. We had to charter a Cessna plane in Trinidad because an inter-island air company had a strike problem and all available seats on other planes were double and even treble-booked - a common occurrence we were told. We arrived late but I recalled that Roy St. John, about 40, a man of charm, quietly spoken, with a pleasant full-round face, small black moustache and kind eyes, was the first to greet us on a rain swept runway. During our five-day courses he appeared a couple of times to check that we were satisfied with facilities and interest of our audiences.
Now he stood behind the bacon counter in Harrods, one of the world's most famous department stores, wearing a hard straw boater with a flat top and round brim, and beaming a sunny Caribbean smile.

Astonished, I asked, 'But, what are you doing here?' A silly question but he knew I meant, 'Why are you here?'

'Oh it's a long story,' he said, frowning, 'but, briefly, in Grenada we had a revolution and many people were put in prison or killed. I was on a Government visit to Malaysia with my family and was warned that if we returned to Grenada we could be arrested. I came here and had to take whatever work I could find to support my family.' That was all he could say because three or four people stopped to gaze at the large sides of pigs hocks laid in rows behind the vertical glass partition, and might need to be served.

'Did you say ten rashers, Mister Lover?' I nodded, pondering his story and the coincidence of meeting in such an unlikely place.

Our paths had crossed again because of a remarkable old French lady, Nanny, my wife Gilberte's godmother. A few days earlier we had arranged a family party to celebrate her 100th birthday. Nicholas Sarkozy - the French President, who was then the mayor of our town Neuilly, a Paris suburb - joined us for the occasion and proposed a champagne toast to the bright old girl.

Nanny had been very happy when Gilberte and I decided to marry, because she had a soft spot for England and a glad eye for English men. As a couturier Nanny had worked for Dickens & Jones in Regents Street in the early 1920s and loved to chat in English about her thirteen years in the capital.

When I told her we would be in London for a weekend I asked if there was anything special we could buy for her. 'I would love some smoked bacon, Stanley,' she replied. 'I'm not supposed to have it but the taste would bring back so many lovely moments.'

I explained to Roy St John the reason for my visit to the Bacon Department. He took special pleasure in presenting cured hams from Italy, Denmark, Scotland -and other countries. The meat colour varied from cream, through blood red to dark brown; the flesh looked tender and all promised juicy, mouth-watering gourmet pleasure. Finally, we agreed with his suggestion of lean rashers cut from a Scottish ham (which we imagined would release the whiff of fresh winds across the lochs and smoking fires of logs chopped from majestic pine forests).

We were able to chat for a few minutes longer about the cause of his family's exile. Although Grenada is smaller than the Isle of Wight it is one of a chain of strategic islands in the Caribbean Sea, dotted like stepping stones stretching north between the continent of South America and the USA, with Cuba as the largest off the coast of Florida. After Grenada obtained independence from the UK in 1974 power struggles developed into an armed revolution. Roy St John was on the wrong side at that time and felt lucky to avoid the fate of his government colleagues who were imprisoned.

On a later visit to Harrods we enquired after him and were told he had returned home. On the internet I found a 2003 photograph of the former Minister for Sport receiving an award from Lady Gloria Williams, The First Lady of Grenada. He looked well and had settled into a valued role serving sport.

When Nanny saw the rashers her eyes sparkled and a radiant smile anticipated the feast to come. The story of Roy St John, of the Isle of Spice in the Caribbean, added a special flavour.


Yours in sport,
© Stanley Lover 2008