ROSEBERRY SCHOOLGIRL MARRIED AT BUCKINGHAM PALACE

ROSEBERRY SCHOOLGIRL MARRIED AT BUCKINGHAM PALACE

Shaded from the West African afternoon heat by the mango trees, where the Queen once rested, a former Roseberry schoolgirl sat waiting the start of her wedding ceremony. In the large front garden of her new father-in-law’s house (named Buckingham Palace ever since the Queen’s visit), and watched by several hundred guests, she was dressed in sky-blue brocade, resplendent with lace inserts, and her plaited and beaded hair draped with a locally-woven indigo cloth (traditionally saved as a wrap for the first baby of the marriage).

After the feast, as the drummers worked overtime, dozens of people danced, like huge colourful butterflies, under a great contorted baobab tree, to honour the bride, dancing forward one by one to pin gifts of money to her head tie.

As is the custom, the bridegroom figured only in the background, but joined her as the moon rose, and there were Muslim prayers for the marriage, and a verandah appearance (no balcony scene!) at this African Buckingham Palace.

Then, a group of assorted vehicles left for their new home some miles away in the bush. Along a broad pathway under overhanging trees, pinpricked by bright stars, the singing women processed with the bride, to present her to her husband, who was by now waiting for her in their home, interrupted only by the bride briefly breaking away to fix a borrowed generator! A far cry from Roseberry School!

Then there followed two more days and nights of drumming and dancing and partying in the grounds of their home, and visits and greetings from hundreds of friends who, wedding-or-not, brought sick children to the bride for treatment, and bicycle punctures for repair! What a garden party, full of great joy and a tremendous sense of well-being and acceptance!

This ever-resourceful bride was HAZEL PICKSTON, who some of you will remember went to THE GAMBIA a few years ago, curious to discover Great Ayton’s first twin of her schooldays, the small village of SAMBEL KUNDA. Helped by a couple of Gambian brothers, she was able to make the difficult up-river journey, to see for herself the progress made at Sambel Kunda, and bring back to The Stream the profound thanks of the village chief to the long-remembered people of Canny Yatton. And, would you believe it, one of those brothers, LAMIN MANNEH, later became that Buckingham Palace bridegroom, and Hazel the Jola bride!

Hazel and Lamin’s new home, which Lamin built himself, is called Balaba, a small group of holiday houses in the bush, which they started as a sort of bridge-building project, to give their guests the opportunity to try a real African lifestyle holiday and meet the local people. Trying to explore the common ground between African and European, Christianity and Islam, they offered simple personalised holidays, with lots of cultural experiences, music, and the use of their small library of African writers. They started to keep small livestock – poultry, donkeys, dogs, a kitten, and a parrot called General Pinochet!! They grew coffee, nuts and beans and vegetables for their own use, and planted fruit trees, drifts of bright flowers, and many native trees to regenerate local vegetation and encourage birds and wildlife. Gambian hospitality is warm and unconditional, sincere and abundant!

Tragically, this story has a sad ending, news which reached Sambel Kunda before Great Ayton. Just before the first anniversary of those Buckingham Palace celebrations Hazel died suddenly, in her husband’s arms, one Saturday afternoon last November, at the age of 29. It was an undiagnosed lifelong problem, we think. She was buried in the place she loved, their peaceful Balaba garden, in a grave dug by Muslims and Christians together, within sound of the Atlantic Ocean, overhung by mimosa trees and tall palms and clouds of butterflies, the dawn chorus deafening early every morning, and amazing warm starlit tropical skies like a velvet blanket at night.

Lamin, the Gambian husband, devastated, continues the work they started together at Balaba, as a living memorial to Hazel. He is coming to England for 3 months in May for a service of thanksgiving for a life lived to the full, and for a very happy marriage. She was a young woman who, believing in equity and justice, took a long cool look at the consumer society, and opted for a simple non-judgmental life, a new language (who remembers her unimpressive attempts to learn French at Stokesley?!), no electricity, and water from a well. The service will be in the Isles of Scilly (where she was born, and then, before her marriage, an auxiliary coastguard). It will be conducted by a Benedictine monk from Ampleforth Abbey, and afterwards on the nearby cliffs Lamin will drum for his wife on his Djembe drum.

We shall bring him to visit her former home at High Green, so some of you will be able to meet our man from Buckingham Palace, for a closer contact with Ayton’s first twin! ….. As Hazel said – who would have thought it could lead to all this?!!!

If you would like to know more about Lamin & Hazel, or perhaps about The Gambia, or holidays at Balaba Camp, you are most welcome to phone her parents, Dudley & Ann Pickston, on 01366-501337.