Meet 72-year-old Chandrawattie Roopwah known as Aunty Pounce’ and ‘Granny

“I had to work hard to care for so many children and they were not many years apart. At one time, when I had to take up work in Hogg Island, I had to take some of them with me. I even had to work with a big belly. The work was hard, not like today, when things are much easier. We had to go through rain and lightning, and walk far places to get work.

“What I pass through, I wouldn’t want my worst enemy to pass through ,” she explained during her interview with the Chronicle.
But at the time she worked as a labourer, cutting and planting rice, her relatives in Hogg Island had been very supportive.

Despite being poor and having to endure the difficulties that flowed from this, Granny took out a bank book at the Post Office, between her and one of her children. When she realised she had to separate from her husband, she wasn’t so worried because she knew she was hard-working. “I know I can work. I was both mother and father. So I wasn’t worried how I would make it.”

She recalled how she bought one acre of land for $400 without having a cent in her pocket. “People knew I was honest so they allowed me to work and pay. They saw how hard I worked and how many children I had. Every crop, I paid something.”
Granny worked diligently on the land, ensuring she sprayed it well and did what was necessary so as to get as much returns from it as possible. She also kept chickens, planted a kitchen garden, and did sewing for the family.

Despite having to spend so much of her time working to maintain the family, Granny never neglected her children. She trained them well and did her best to instill in them moral values.
“People always admired my children. I always liked to have them clean and neat. They were up-to-date and well-trained. If I just looked at them, they already knew what that look signified. I was able to have all my children under control. By 6:00 p.m., my girl children couldn’t be on the bridge. And they were very obedient.

Today, two of her children, Anita and Helen, live on the island with Granny; two more, Modoes and Deokie, live in Trinidad; Doreen resides in Venezuela and Dasratt in Cummings Lodge.

Granny also remembered how life under the government of the day was hard and contributed to her many woes. “You had to go in the night to put down your name for two pounds of flour and then go line up next day for it.”