After 78 years, Guyana-born daughter of British surgeon visits place of birth

By Michael Jordan

For 88-year-old Sheila Robbins, the memories are vivid: the family’s chatty macaw, the manatees in the Botanical Gardens feeding on grass clutched in her hands, snacking on a roti she had bought at a shop, or sneaking off to the pantry for delicious fufu soup.
Born in British Guiana, Robbins left these shores when she was only ten. However, she got a chance to reflect on those cherished memories when she returned to the place of her birth in May 2024 for a brief vacation. It was her first visit ‘home’ in 78 years.
Robbins is the daughter of the Georgetown Hospital’s first Surgeon Specialist, Dr. John Darbyshire Greison, who was appointed to this prestigious position in 1927.
Her mother, Margery Grierson, was a registered nurse, who met her future husband while working in the operating theatre at the Bradford Royal Infirmary.
“Everything has changed,” she said as she relaxed in the scenic compound of the Cara Lodge Hotel with her son Simon Robbins. “I thought I was going to see (just) a few surprises, but (almost) all the places that I knew are gone. I had wanted to do this (visit) some years ago. My husband and I chatted about it, but he had wanted to go back to Singapore, where he’d done his national service, and I didn’t want to go.”
Robbins was born at the Georgetown Hospital in 1936, and she was the youngest of three children. Her sister Margaret was born in 1930, and her brother Ian in 1932.

She still has photographs of the houses in which the family had lived, including the surgeon’s residence – a large, two-bedroom building which was located in the hospital compound.

“We moved there around 1928, but had lived somewhere else. We had a little monkey, and when we moved to the big house, we had a lovely talking macaw named Robert. He would look for my sister and say, ‘Where is Margaret? Where is Margaret?’ He would go into the kitchen, and the cook always used to say, ‘Outside, Robert,’ and so he started saying ‘Outside, Robert, outside,” and he would turn and walk out. When Robert died, we go another macaw, but it was wild and pecked us.”
There was a garden, two mango trees, a papaw tree, banana plants and a tennis court in the hospital compound. There were also chickens. “My father raised chickens, and I had to hold them down while he castrated the young roosters.”
She remembers her outings to the Stabroek Market with ‘cookie’ (their cook) for fruits and vegetables. Genip was her favourite fruit. “I love genips. I used to buy on the way home (from school) from the women at the side of the road; and there was an Indian shop where I would go and buy a sheet of roti and munch all the way home. I love pepperpot and my curries.”
Flying kites at the seawalls with her brother was one of her childhood pastimes, as well as picnics in the Botanical Gardens. “We used to go for picnics under a tree at the far end of the gardens. We would also feed the manatees. You had to whistle for them to come. The zoo was not there yet.
“I remember going to the Bank of Guyana with my father. He would lift me up onto the counter to sit,” she disclosed.
She also remembers the United Kingdom Bookers Company, which included Bookers Sugar Estates and Bookers Stores (now Guyana Stores). “We got all our fizzy drinks from Bookers, and Bettencourt’s used to be a big store,” she declared.
“Those were lovely days, and I didn’t notice the heat then. I can’t recall trains at all.”
She attended St. Margaret’s Primary until she was six, then she attended Bishops’ High School. Back then, the compound housed a separate section for primary school pupils.
“I remember one Christmas there was an enormous cracker on the ceiling, and when we pulled the cracker, it was full of peanuts,” she said.
“One of the things I remember is the chauffeur taking me to school on the crossbar of his bike if my father had taken the car for some reason. My father had a Jowett (a British-made car), with a ‘dickie seat’ (located on the exterior of the car). I was never allowed to go in that seat, because I was too small,” she reminisced
Dr. John D. Greison, her half-Scottish dad, was born in 1899, and served with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders during the First World War. Robbins recalled that he sometimes wore a kilt, and was ‘strict’.
“He never discussed his patients, but if he had a patient in one of the wards, he would say to me, ‘You can get some flowers from the garden and you can go and see this person.’ (And) I was to speak to them nicely, and find out what they had done to make them ill. It was an education to me to don’t do that (what the patient had done),” she explained. “I loved it. I preferred to visit those people in the Seaman’s Ward.”

Left after World War 11
Having lived during the time of the Second World War, she recalled that they were not allowed to travel back to England. Events about the war were monitored on the radio.
“When my parents went out, my father would say, ‘You must listen to the six o’clock news and tell me what they say’.”
One of her dad’s favourite pastimes was to travel up the Abary on weekends to fish for lukanani. He would stay at a lodge that the English and the Scots had built in the area. “He was very strict with us. I was surprised the nurses liked him so much,” she said.
Dr. Grierson is said to have revolutionized surgery in then British Guiana, and had been “extremely popular for his cheerful disposition and sense of humour.” On his retirement in 1949, after 22 years of practising surgery, the gifts the staff presented him included a large scroll in which they lauded his professionalism and demeanor.
The family returned to England in 1946, a year after the war ended. That journey, she said, was by “a bauxite boat to Trinidad, a banana boat to Jamaica, and then to Bristol, England.” During their stop in Trinidad, she accidentally locked her dad out of his hotel room, and the staff had to remove some louvre panes to get him in.
She went swimming in Montego Bay, Jamaica, where they stopped for three days.

England
After several days at sea, they finally arrived in England to a sight that made the 10-year-old yearn for British Guiana’s sunny climes. “It was wet; really cold. I stood at the station and said, ‘If this is England, then I want to go back’,” she disclosed.
However, it was in England that she eventually met her future husband. They exchanged wedding vows in a Presbyterian church in September, 1959. By then her father’s health had deteriorated.

“He lost the use of one of his legs, and he thought they would cut it off, because in those days they didn’t give you blood thinners if you had thrombosis. He was going into hospital and he said, ‘The worst they could do is take me leg off’.” He passed away on February 23, 1961, aged 62. Her mother Margery Grierson died in 1991, aged 89.
Robbins studied catering, ran a number of restaurants, and also supervised the kitchen staff at a large secondary school in England.
She spent the rest of her working life with the Ministry of Defence for the Royal Navy. One of the highlights of that period was the day she “drove a nuclear submarine for about five minutes.”
“The captain sat me down and said, ‘Would you like to have a go?’,” she recalled.
She remained married for 63 years, until her husband’s passing last year.

Returned to Guyana
Her husband’s passing was one of the motivating factors for her making the journey to Guyana. “My brother and sister are dead; that was another reason. I was the only one left, so I had to come back. I’ve enjoyed it. It’s the first holiday I’ve had in years,” she declared.
Among places she visited were the Stabroek Market, the Botanical Gardens and the seawalls, despite the heat that caused her to “almost collapse” on her first outing. She posed for photographs, lots of them.
“I made lots of friends. I bought a pair of shoes here in the market,” she said.
She had also looked forward to savouring genips, but was told that they were out of season.
One of the friends she made is street artist Brian Van Russum, who carves designs on calabashes. He presented her with a gift of his costume jewellery.
She also tried to locate relatives of her first nanny, one Lydia Bobb-Semple. Bobb-Semple, aged around 53, had accompanied the family to England. She had reportedly resided in Plaisance, East Coast Demerara.
Robbins admits quite calmly that this is likely the last time she would set foot in her beloved place of birth.
“Unfortunately, I don’t think I will be returning to Guyana. I’m too old, I will be 90 in two years,” she said.