In 1980 I was invited to celebrate the first anniversary of the revolution in Grenada, a small English speaking island in the Caribbean. At the time I was a member of a small theatre group, based at Moonshine Community Arts Workshop in Harlesden, London. The year before there had been a peaceful revolution in Grenada, led by the New Jewel Movement headed by Maurice Bishop, who became the new Prime Minister. They were a Marxist-Leninist party and closely allied themselves with Cuba. In 1980 the country was still in relative chaos, but during my visit there was a peaceful if fervent atmosphere. Maurice Bishop evidently had the support of the people, due to his progressive social policies.

Unfortunately, the peace was short-lived since Maurice Bishop was murdered in 1983, presumably by his Deputy Prime Minister, Bernard Coard, who took control of the country. This was followed by the illegal invasion of Grenada by the United States in October 1983, which put an end to the revolution. The United Nations General Assembly condemned the invasion as "a flagrant violation of international law" by a vote of 108 to 9.

I was in the country as an actor, not a revolutionary, and we performed many shows in schools, village halls, parks and cinemas. In the spirit of the revolution we had rehearsed Bertolt Brecht’s The Exception and The Rule, but we never performed it. This was probably wise since the sole performance of our kitchen-sink drama Family At War, had provoked a near riot - the audience had never seen fake stage blood before. Much more appropriate was our Chinese Dream Show, featuring a karate kicking woman defending a poor fisherman. We performed this show at the main cinema in the capital, St George’s, before a thousand screaming schoolchildren, to great applause.

Photographs taken on a Russian Zenit SLR Camera.