For Priya Gomes, her grandmother’s roast bake, hot out of the oven with melted butter, takes first place on the older lady’s long list of tasty dishes any day. She felt the simple dish even beat the curried crab and dumplings her grandmother Verna Bachan suggested when Sunday Guardian spoke with the pair recently.
Gomes beamed through her voice as she shared memories of growing up at her grandmother’s home in Diego Martin, a central meeting place for family, friends and neighbours. Her grandmother, 91, is like her second mother. The village is important in nurturing a child Gomes observed. It is one of her grandmother’s most heartfelt beliefs.
Gomes, the daughter of UWI lecturer and former chairman of the Police Service Commission (PSC) Dr Maria Therese Gomes, her parents kept busy schedules, so her grandmother and grandfather stepped up when she and her three siblings needed them most.
“When we were in primary school and secondary school, most of my friends thought that my grandparents were my parents because my mother (who married at age 18) had us very early and my grandparents were very involved in all of our PTAs and extracurricular activities, so a lot of people used to think they were our parents. They basically raised us,” Gomes recalled, adding that she was also “blessed” to have her paternal grandparents pitch in to support.
Gomes said her mother’s hard work, ambitious nature and belief in joining forces to assist each other have always inspired her.
“Her going back to school later on in her life because she got married very early and by 27 having four children already; that educational commitment and achievement have always been inspirational.
“I think that one thing my mother has taught us is having that village. Whether it’s family or friends, we have to stick together, support each other no matter what,” Gomes said
Being surrounded and uplifted by “the village” is a concept passed down by the matriarch of her family.
“Granny is the glue that keeps not just her immediate family, but her siblings and their families together. She is the glue that keeps the unity, that support for each other. No family would be perfect, they would have ups and downs, but it’s always beautiful to see when things get tough you support one another. I call her my rock and by extension, all of what she has instilled in her own children has rubbed off on the younger generations. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for her,” Gomes said.
Throwback of Bachan, back row, fourth from left, hosting family members.
A lively mother of three, grandmother of nine and great grandmother of six, who celebrated her birthday in March, the matriarch Bachan needed little help with names, dates and other details of her journey. Sharp as a pencil, she always keeps a mental record of when family members visit and is quick to remind them if they fall short. She is also quick to question just where her granddaughter is going to post the photos she often takes of her. Arthritis, in addition to Parkinson’s and breast cancer diagnoses within recent years, however, have affected her ability to move around.
Recalling some of her experiences as the mother of Maria Therese Gomes, David Bachan, and Maurice Bachan over half a century ago, Bachan demonstrated her impressive clarity.
With six siblings, Bachan had to find a job at age 15 to help her mother after the death of her father. Between getting married and having her first two children, she worked as a production buyer at Fogarty’s and Stephens and Johnsons Ltd on Frederick Street. By the time her last child, Maurice, was born she had stopped working and planned to spend more time with her children. Requested by a friend to help out, Bachan said she “reluctantly” took up duties to oversee a production line with Chesebrough-Ponds Ltd, an American cosmetics and toiletries company when her baby was one year and her eldest had just sat Common Entrance.
Her mother, Hilda Medine, whom she described as “very quiet” and “an angel”, helped her with the children. Meanwhile, her husband worked at the Port Authority.
As she was often too busy working to enjoy special moments with her own children, as the years went by, being a grandmother would give Bachan complete fulfilment. She also took pleasure in raising some of her nieces and nephews and entertaining a constant parade of visitors to her home.
“The house was always full of laughter. The cooking was how I fell into the restaurant. We always had to have food in the house because there were so many people,” she explained.
The restaurant came around the early 1990s after her mother-in-law gifted her a property on Sackville Street. Bachan refurbished the structure that had walls made out of sand and other materials she couldn’t remember, with the intention to rent it as a restaurant. Falling in love with the renovated place, she decided to open it as her own.
“Chesebrough-Ponds were closing down and they handed their company to Lever Brothers, so I went into the restaurant business at that point.
“I wasn’t a professional cook, but I knew I could cook and the food was good so I decided to go into that.”
Bachan called the restaurant “Ajoupa” and she served up a variety of Chinese, East Indian and Creole dishes. On Fridays, her barbeques drew a big crowd. She left the deliveries to customers in the area to her husband. She also kept her grandchildren fed, sending him to drop off food for them at their respective schools. Her husband was “the driver”, taking the grandchildren to and from school and for trips to places like Mayaro and Toco, she happily reminisced.
“He would get up at five in the morning and just say everybody dress. The most beautiful time was that hour of the morning; to see the dewdrops on the plants and the flowers blooming. Those are memories you can’t forget,” she said.
Sadly, the man she called her “rock” passed away 11 years ago.
The restaurant helped fund her children’s and grandchildren’s education abroad, Bachan was proud to report. She was also pleased to have been able to take them to Disney World.
“During the time that I had the restaurant, during holiday time, I made sure that I was able to take them to Disney World. It wasn’t a rich business, but it was enough for me to do that. Once you know what you’re doing, you can achieve anything.”
Insisting that she was not afraid of anything, not even her cancer diagnosis, Bachan, a Roman Catholic, said her faith had always brought her through difficult times.
A young Verna Bachan with her mother Hilda and sisters. Back row from left to right, Bachan, Marjorie, Hilda (mother), Vilma. Front row, Marilyn and Pamela.
Bachan and her eight sisters and brothers in total, held on to their faith and she passed her beliefs and values on to her children and grandchildren.
She remembered being afraid as a child, however, during World War II which affected life here in Trinidad. It was the closest experience to a pandemic Bachan has had.
“During the war days, I remember being at school (Nelson St Girls’ RC) very young and everyday there would be a whistle blown at 11 o’clock and the nuns would bring all the children. We had a drill that we would go between the hibiscus (in schoolyard) not without panicking.
“I remember my uncle, they were in not the army, some part of the army with short pants and that horn would blow at a certain time of the night–11 o’clock– and as it blew, you had to turn off all the lights. It was a wartime drill, but I was so young that I used to get chills in my body from fright because as a child you don’t really know what’s happening and that went on for a couple years. All the children were scared because you didn’t know if the world was coming to an end.”
But for the most part, her childhood was happy. Bachan said the tradition of large gatherings really came from her grandmother who had a big upstairs house next to Chee Mooke bakery in Port-of-Spain. The area (extending from the wharf in the west to the Cathedral in the east) was formerly called “Marine Square” she recalled.
“Everybody coming from outside of town would pass through that house. It was a house of giving, so the house was always busy. My mother and they were born and grew up in that house. It was always full of laughter, full of joy. That is what we need now,” Bachan said.
Gomes said Bachan’s home exuded the same atmosphere described at her great great grandmother’s home.
“On Christmas Day–it still is, but not to the same extent–it used to be an open house. Nobody could help granny cook on Christmas Day and I’m talking about 15 plus dishes; it was about six, seven meats, and it was all of her siblings, all of their children, all of their grandchildren. Whether you passing in for five minutes, four hours, the whole day, over 100 people, typically, would pass here pre-COVID,” Gomes recalled.
Though Bachan’s younger family members took over the cooking about six years ago, the traditional large gatherings had continued.
Bachan, who is in the care of her daughter, would also enjoy “Wacky Wednesdays” with her and Gomes, an occupational therapist. On such occasions, the matriarch’s siblings and friends, mostly in their 80s and 90s, would do activities like gardening, painting and karaoke. Bachan said she has missed those activities as well as her daily aqua aerobics and exercise in a nearby park during the pandemic.
Lamenting that there was a growing lack of love; love for parents, parents not spending enough time with children and an unwillingness to work hard, she said she also used to look forward to spending time sitting on her porch with the gate left open, but now has to be extra careful since recently, a neighbour in her 80s was knocked unconscious during an attempted robbery and later died.
“What I do all the time, every day is say a prayer for my people because I love my country...
“‘Love one another as I have loved you.’ Once you have that, you don’t need anything else. I’ve seen that as a blessing in my family. I can rely on any member of my family for anything. I wish many more families could be like that,” she said.
Verna Bachan on her wedding day.
Q&A with Mrs Verna Bachan
What are you most grateful for as a mother, Mrs Bachan?
For having my children and grandchildren, without them I wouldn't have a life at all. The children are my life. And my grandchildren are just like my children. I don't even think they are my grandchildren, they are my children.
What was the most challenging thing you had to face as a mother?
I wouldn't say it was challenging...if you love children it wouldn't become a challenge. It was never a challenge for me.
Tell me more about your faith.
“That is what carried me through; my faith. My eldest sister was one of the COVID victims. She passed last year (at age 94). She was my mother, my mentor, my everything. She worked as a monitor at Nelson St Girls' RC school where we all went. The school was run by the Sisters of St Joseph of Cluny, so you grew up having proper discipline. I grew up in the Cathedral. I can tell you any part of the Cathedral because that was my life.”
Did anything during the pandemic come close to your fear during the war?
It took my sister (Marjorie Madine) from us. She was a blessing.
We have all these issues with children, students acting out. What do you think we can do to help?
The whole problem was really the children being at home for so long. Now that they've gone out it's a difficult situation and the Government has to take charge of that because the innocent ones are paying for the guilty ones. Parents too.
As I said, for us there were nuns running the schools, it's not like now. You had a lot of discipline then. They were kind, for instance–I don't know if they do this now, but every day there was milk for the children, so if you hadn't lunch because things were bad, you had milk or something to eat. You had somebody looking after you. We need that (human) touch. The parents are working parents, so they haven't the time to give the children their energy...(you need) the village; all our neighbours' children used to pass through. If you see my neighbours–and I'm talking about at every stage of my life–you would think they were family because they still come to visit me.
