Tuesday 1 July 2008

Grenada - "Morne Rouge Beach Club" or "BBC" ?

Grenada, oh so sweet Grenada
Just to imagine you is as laying with my love
Your warm and all embracing fragrant air
Does take my breath away, so truly sweet you are


Recently on holiday in Grenada I happened to overhear a fellow talking to tourists about the Island`s beautiful beaches. Yes, the 2 mile stretch of Grand Anse they were visiting was certainly a spectacular example of one, but, Grenada also had many other smaller but equally impressive sandy beaches nearby. Another for instance was to be found just a ten minute walk over the hill by The Flamboyant Hotel and down to the lovely arc of Morne Rouge Bay, known locally he added as BBC (pic 1973).

What really caught my ear and had me interested was his explanation and suggestion that this beach had possibly became known as BBC due to the fact that a local radio station had at one time started up broadcasting from that area.

I remembered that I had a scan back home of an old picture postcard showing a building clearly named "Morne Rouge Beach Club" (pic undated).
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Wilfred Redhead in his book "A City on a Hill" reveals that the Morne Rouge Beach Club was originally built and operated by the popular Grenada business man Dudley Slinger.


I can also recall that in 1973, my first visit to Grenada, my wife Theresa and I attended a Saturday night dance at a venue on that beach (pic 1973). The Club in question and partly visible below the balcony was at that time known as "Blanco`s".

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From enquiries made since returning home I am led to believe that someone by the name of Blanco did arrive from Aruba to run a Night Club on that beach at Morne Rouge. I`m not able to say if the building we visited that night is the same as the one pictured on the postcard, it certainly doesn`t look like it from that angle. However, it may be that the original structure was changed over the years and altered by additional building work. Regardless of what did happen in that respect, we can at least be sure that a change of name for that establishment did take place -- "Morne Rouge Beach Club" to one of "Blanco`s Beach Club". I`m wondering if this could be a more plausible reason and explanation as to why there is now general usage of the tag "BBC" when referring to Morne Rouge Beach?.

The radio station previously mentioned was in fact WIBS (Windward Islands Broadcasting Service) which evidently did start to broadcast from a studio at a Morne Rouge address in the mid 1950s. It was changed later to Radio Grenada.