A farewell to Sol-o — Remembering Solomon Fairbairn

By Marlon Bute

A personal reflection on friendship, family, and the specialness of Lowmans Hill

I have just heard the sad news of the passing of yet another Lowmans Hill resident. Solomon Fairbairn has succumbed to cancer. The last time I saw him was in August, just outside his house, near that iconic hill we called the Rock. Sol-o was walking on the flat above the Rock with a two-wheeled walker — exercising, or more appropriately, fighting back his illness.

I had stopped my car to chat, as I always do with my fellow villagers — the ones I grew up with. I said to him, “I see you’re exercising.” He smiled and replied, “Boy, you have to do something.” That was Sol-o — calm, grounded, and quietly determined.

Sol-o was one of the older boys, a good 10 years or so my senior. As a teenager and a man, he was always active. He lived a balanced life, going to school by day and farming in the evenings. He came from a hardworking, God-fearing family. In the past, I have written about his father and even alluded to him and his brothers who played cricket in that other iconic place we called Over Yonder.

Over Yonder was where we played cricket — our families side by side — led by his father, Reuben Fairbairn, and my father, Eardley Bute, both prominent cricketers in the Lowmans Hill community. Reuben was a fast bowler and also displayed a bit of style with the bat. My father was a good batsman, too. In fact, he was an opening bat who played Police Divisional Cricket. He spent 20 years in the police force and for a considerable period of time, lived from one end of the island to the next, including in the Grenadines, where he was in charge of different police outstations. Their friendly duels and shared leadership made Over Yonder more than a playing field — it was the heart of community life.

Over Yonder was also where we played a bit of scrimmage or football. Around the hills, it was where we picked fruits — mangoes, coconuts, plumrose — and where villagers cultivated the land with sweet potatoes, pigeon peas and other crops.

On the days when there were cricket matches — mostly Saturdays and Sundays — we, the children, would sit comfortably under the shade of the mango trees that surrounded the field. Sometimes we’d climb onto a branch or perch on one of the large boulders nearby, watching the men play. The women prepared pots of pelau, souse and goat water — sometimes macaroni pie, stewed peas, baked chicken and potato salad. There were mauby, ginger beer, lime juice, sorrel, Ju-C and other non-alcoholic drinks in ice boxes. The legendary Sunset Strong was saved for the post-cricket celebration of the teams. It was as much a family gathering as it was a game of cricket.

The oldest of the Fairbairn children was Sharon, followed by Jacqueline, then Sarah, and Anne, the youngest. The boys were Leroy, Solomon, Julian, Samuel, and Jimmy. Leroy, pleasant and well-known in the community, has taken ill and, at the time of Sol-o’s passing, was bedridden and living with him. Julian, who is now a fisherman and who once served as a police officer, was also at one time a teacher, spending a period at Emmanuel Secondary School. Jimmy, too, was a teacher; in fact, we taught together briefly at the Barrouallie Secondary School before I left to lecture French at the Community College. He later left teaching to start his own business, producing some of the best concrete blocks you can find anywhere in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. The matriarch of this outstanding family, a rather industrious and enterprising woman, was Gloria Fairbain, now deceased.

Reuben, the father, passed many years ago. He was tall, dark-skinned, handsome, easy-going and pleasant. Sol-o turned out much like him — cool, composed, with a quiet seriousness.

Back in the day, Sol-o was a dedicated bodybuilder, developing a fine physique that earned him success in local bodybuilding shows. Later, he went away to sea, becoming a sailor like several others from our village, before returning home to an active life of farming.

Sol-o was fearsome with the ball, a striking figure charging in before letting it rip down the pitch. Perhaps it was his size then that made him such a threat, especially to the younger ones among us. He was also a hunter, leading trips to the St. Andrew’s Mountains in search of manicou — grain, dogs, cutlass and flashlights all in tow. The grain was a sharpened half-inch steel rod, about a foot long, fastened securely to a 12- or 14-foot bamboo spear.

Sol-o also enjoyed river fishing for lobsters and crayfish and was quite good at it. They would cook pots of callaloo, crayfish and crabs — everything from their sweat: eddoes, tania, yams, green bananas, chive, thyme and hot peppers. In those days — the late 70s and 80s — Lowmans Hill was perhaps the most self-sufficient community in the whole wide world, at least from my vantage point. Every family had a few chickens, sheep, goats, pigs or cattle. Some even had a donkey. Backyards and hillsides were filled with lettuce, carrots, tomatoes, thyme and herbs — freshly picked to flavour the day’s meal.

An important fixture in the Lowman’s Hill community was Philip Holder, a heavy-set man with a prominent gut. He lived in a place we called Bergin. He passed away many years ago. His responsibility was indeed a quiet one — he was in charge of the drinks, the food, and the entertainment. He was by nature a jovial fellow who loved to eat and have a good time. He played a bit of cricket also but it was not his forte.

When I saw Sol-o in August, I didn’t know it would be the last time. He had aged and shrunk in size, but he didn’t seem a man on his final stretch. Sol-o now joins his younger brother Samuel, the most garrulous and outgoing of the Fairbairn boys, who died tragically many years ago.

It was at a tavern outside the Fairbain family house that the young fellows in the village gathered on some evenings and weekends to play draughts and dominoes. Lowmans Hill was a tight-knit community that tended to look out for each other as much as it toiled together, played sports together and hunted together.

Sol-o now follows Brother, who also passed from cancer recently, and Albert, who I believe died under suspicious circumstances. I mention these few because of their closeness to me and to the life of the village. But there are others — so many others –who have gone.

Lowmans Hill has been changing. Over Yonder, that special place where cricket was played and community life thrived, has long disappeared. There was a groundbreaking ceremony some 20 years ago to develop it into a proper playing field, but it never came to be. My father, Eardley Bute, a respected elder of the community, was chosen to cut the ribbon — to make way for something grander than the field he had played on as a boy, young man and elder. But it never came. Like many ribbon-cutting ceremonies in the past 20-odd years, it amounted to nothing.

Few still farm in Lowmans Hill. I doubt anyone hunts or goes river fishing. No sport is played. There is no playing field — not like in my time, nor the time before.

My older brother, Elmond, who was an intricate part of that Lowman’s Hill community and upbringing — who walked the same roads, climbed the same hills and played draughts and dominoes with the others more than I ever did — left us in 2019. He, too, had cancer. He had migrated to the United States. Just perhaps, perhaps, they’ll play a game of cricket or dominoes or something.

My condolences to the family of Solomon Fairbairn — to his sisters and brothers of this pillar family — and to the Lowmans Hill community.

All we have, and all we ever really had, are memories.

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