The people of Anguilla will get a new insight into their history with the imminent publication of the book Bless Our Forebears written by Colville L. Petty, an authority on Anguilla’s history. The launching will take place at the Teachers’ Resource Centre in The Valley at 7:00 pm on Tuesday 13th January 2009. It is an occasion to which all members of the general public are invited to attend.

Cover of book by Mr. C. L. Petty, OBE

Bless Our Forebears is an authoritative and well-researched account of the struggles of Anguillian people who have long passed on. The book recognises the hardships which they endured, and exalts the sacrifices and efforts which they made so that present and future generations of Anguillians could have a place they can call home. The book takes the position that were it not for the sacrifices, tenacity and foresight of the forebears, Anguillians as a distinct people would have been unknown. And it suggests that there is much that present and future generations could learn from their forebears, and could emulate, if they are to survive as an Anguillian people.

The book blurb prepared by educator Michelle Queeley-Roberts, BA, Mphil, is extremely insightful. It says that Mr Petty, in Bless Our Forebears, “evokes in his readers feelings of indebtedness to men and women who laid the foundation for us today – men and women who prized their land when others deemed it sterile and unfit for habitation. His is an invitation to share in a past defined by poignant pain, sharp grit and fortitude exhibited by a people poised for triumph even against existing odds.

“From the very onset, Petty establishes the historian in him through the pellucid relay of events surrounding the time and space that sets his work in motion. This time, he fittingly lays aside the pungent satire usually employed in his writings, for the earnest presentation of a struggling people. Writing with fluidity, he offers gripping details of the unending struggles of our forebears, and touches the very consciousness of what it really means to be Anguillian, through to the end.”
Bless Our Forebears, the story of the Anguillian people, will be available to the public at its launching on 13th January 2009 at 7:00 pm at the Teachers’ Resource Centre.

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