September, 1969

Three of my siblings an I are winding down our month-long vacation in the tiny fishing village of Bay Roche – the little place where my grandparents had retired. When my grandparents, Beth and Pryce, decided, after a relatively comfortable life of working and raising kids, to retire to this remote and even isolated village it was not only a curious thing but one of great concern. Bay Roche was literally an island onto itself and not even connected to the main island by land. The general - albeit counterfactual - consensus was that my grandparents were putting themselves in jeopardy.

By boat, which was the only way to approach Bay Roche, it looked like someone had broken the side of a large tea cup to reveal, spotted along the steep inside, little multi-coloured dots of houses - many held in place by exposed stilt-like supports - rising almost vertically from the harbour. The town’s buildings were connected to each other by a lazy zigzag of compressed dirt roads. These roads were carved back and forth and slowly decended until they reached, in a single gentle grade, the spot at the bottom of this steep alcove that connected to the wharf. The wharf itself was dominated by a shrimp processing plant and, in 1969, the construction of a centralised fish processing plant for the fishermen of the region. A tiny glint of the modern world dropped on the doorstep of Bay Roche. A curious thing about Bay Roche was that, despite the fact everything was uphill in every direction, there were no cars. The roads could not support them. There were some industrial vehicles to clear snow and push dirt and a sloped-roofed, bus-like vehicle that had 8 wheels on either side that took people from the wharf to the very top house if needed. The question would be raised time and time again as to why my grandparents would retire to place seemingly cut off from family, friends and time .

My grandparent’s house was actually near the top and planted squarely in what may have been the only flat piece of land in town. Their house was a little veranda-ed, building painted green with white trim. In the front there was a vegetable garden that looked threatened to be overtaken by the large showy leaves of rhubarb. Behind the little house was a long narrow shed with a tin roof. This was my grandfather’s carpentry shop. I would later spend a great deal of time in that shop with him amid the exposed gears and flying, twisting canvas belts of ancient machinery. The tiny plot of land my grandparents created for themselves was sheltered and very comfortable. My grandmother felt very happy there and my grandfather, although retired, felt useful as his skills of cabinetry and carpentry were needed in this sequestered part of the world. In Bay Roche, my grandparents had a place to belong and they had each other on their grassy little square of land carved into the unforgiving rock after which the town was named.

We would soon be spending a great deal more time as a family in Bay Roche.

From September, 1969
Honky Tonk Women by The Rolling Stones