One of my favourite Governors of the Cayman Islands I had the pleasure of meeting was Alan Scott. He was jovial, friendly and very far from being pompous.

When it was publically announced I had cancer recently and I was staging my last play I had written he sent me an email wishing me well and hoping I would beat the prognosis of the specialists. I told him I would and thanked him very much.

Going back a good number of years, I was doing a promotion for Pirates Week in Miami and dressed up as the Pirates Week governor. I was speaking to some travel agents at one of the hotels where the Department of Tourism had invited them to in order to promote the Cayman Islands. The agents asked me if I really was the governor of the Cayman Islands to which I replied “No. I play the part only for Pirates Week the National Festival. There was a loud booming voice behind me.

“Ladies. Don’t believe a word this man says. He lies. He really is the Governor of the Cayman Islands.”

With a laugh the person moved away. It was Alan Scott.

And now Governor Scott has forced the United Kingdom’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) to release twenty years of restricted memos following his Freedom of Information Request.

The memos were penned by Scott and former Cayman Islands Governors Michael Gore, John Owen, Peter Smith, Bruce Dinwiddy and Stuart Jack.

A lot of the memos have been heavily redacted by the FCO because statements made by former governors could prejudice relations between the UK and “another state” and promotion or protection of assets held abroad.

One from Governor Scott caught my eye:

“On Christmas Day, an Executive Council member [redacted] fired his pistol in a public place, in the close vicinity of [redacted]. Apart from the legal consequences if [as in any normal society, he would] he resigns from Executive Council, an election for his vacant seat must take place in the Legislative Assembly. In a 7-5 situation, the balance of power could shift.”

Some of us who remember the incident know that the Executive Council member could not produce his police certificate authorizing him to have a firearm.

Because of the Christmas period no legal proceedings took place. When it did go to Court the member got a rap across the knuckles (he had fired it in the air to ward off an attack by an ex-wife] and a police officer found the missing firearms certificate in a drawer in his office.

Those were the days. A political problem averted.

I was heartened to read Governor Gore hitting out against the US Government’s appalling Cuban migrant policy.

“The U.S. government,” he said, “clearly at a loss as to how to cope with the 20,000 or so Cubans at Guantanamo and 10,000 at a safe haven in Panama, were content to wash their hands of the relatively small number in the Cayman Islands. On a pro-rata basis, the 1,183 we had here was equivalent to almost the whole population of Cuba moving the U.S. over a four week period.”

I was not surprised to read Governor Dinwiddy spelling it out that after Hurricane Ivan “we just avoided a collapse of law and order.”

“Several thousand people are still displaced,” he lamented. “There is a severe housing shortage and rents have risen by up to 50 percent.”

And last but not least I applaud Governor Owen’s missive:

“The fight back against baseball has begun!” He was referring to the construction of two cricket grounds.

I am afraid cricket is now in the dull drums….. and not just in this country.

I leave Governor Scott with these final words:

“It is reassuring to visit the districts and listen to those who still live a very different life from that of their George Town compatriots. Their warmth and courtesy balance the political vexations.”

Hurrah.