A Reminiscence from the Archives:
Vol. 10, No. 38, Pages 68–72 (January–June 1964)
I have often been flattered, touched, gratified, embarrassed, and, I must confess, at times amused by the numerous congratulatory remarks and references made about my part in editing “the only literary magazine in the (British) West Indies.” I should like in this foreword to the story of Bim to state emphatically that whatever success the magazine may have had was due to no conscious direction on my part, that it was not the child of my own invention, and that its publication simply happened to synchronise with a spontaneous outbreak of creative writing in the British Caribbean, a phenomenon which coincided with a sympathetic programme from the B.B.C., Caribbean Voices, under the editorship of Henry Swanzy, to whom these emergent writers owe an everlasting debt of gratitude. In short, Bim just happened, and it is mainly, as I hope to show, owing to the encouragement and assistance given by its contributors and well-wishers over the years that I have been fortunate enough to ensure its continuance.
That's all very well, you will say, but you are being much too modest: think what you have done to help West Indian writing. So let me state, without shame, that I have played my part as editor simply because, being temperamentally unfitted to give all my time wholeheartedly to any one vocation, and having acquired the art from an early age of having a good deal of spare time on my hands, I loved to flirt with other temporary occupations, and the idea of playing about with scissors and paste together with seeing some of my own attempts at writing in print has given me a satisfaction I could have obtained in no other way. The setting-up of the dummy copy still provides me with the thrill I first experienced some twenty years ago.
I have been accused at times of not being serious enough in my editing of Bim, of being too casual and haphazard, of too sparing a use of the blue pencil. All these criticisms I acknowledge unhesitatingly. If Bim has any policy other than that of fostering creative writing, it has been one of encouragement. If at times some contributions did not merit such encouragement, little harm has been done. At least they did not deprive better writers of a chance. In any case, I didn't print everything that gave me pleasure. I am still haunted by some offerings which never got beyond the waste-paper basket. I remember in particular a doom-driven story about a damsel with “richly purple eyes,” and a poem that began:
The wind was blowing from below
And frogs were hopping to and fro;
God's mighty thunder rent the skies
With lightning (as the name implies).
So much for introduction. Now let us get on with the story.
Sometime during the early thirties there came into being an association, the Young Men's Progressive Club. One of its founders, William Harcourt Carter, was a colleague and dear friend of mine. Forever interested in the welfare and improvement of youth, he was chiefly instrumental in the establishment and growth of the organisation, which, owing to the many interests offered, soon attracted quite a representative following. Being neither young nor of a particularly progressive nature, I did not become associated with the club until 1942 when I was invited to take part in their annual revue, Sky High, at the Empire Theatre. The theatre was another of my loves, and I hadn't been on the boards for longer than I cared to think about. Thus it was I came to meet the enthusiastic group of young people who formed the nucleus of the Club.
Up to that time they had been producing a slim magazine, The Y.M.P.C. Journal, more or less a chronicle of the club's activities, and I had occasionally contributed 'things.' Now, certain members, E. L. (Jimmy) Cozier, Therold Barnes, and Hal Evelyn in particular, were eager to publish something rather more substantial, since they felt there would be no lack of contributors among the club members and other interested persons. So Bim came into being. I remember hearing them discussing the appropriateness of the name. As I have had frequent requests to explain its meaning (very often letters reach me with the cryptic initials B.I.M.), perhaps it might be relevant to mention that the Concise Oxford Dictionary lists the word “Bim” as “a native or inhabitant of Barbados.”And there, I fear, the explanation ceases. From time immemorial Barbadians have referred to their island home affectionately as “Bimshire” (for isn't Barbados an English county adrift upon a tropic sea?), and its inhabitants must obviously be Bims.
Number One appeared in December 1942, and was well received. Indeed one weekly newspaper devoted a whole editorial column to two of its stories with promise of continuation, a promise which, for some reason or other, was never fulfilled. But the venture prospered, Jimmy Cozier collected material for No. 2, drew up an elaborate series of account books, files, etc., and then, obtaining a post on the staff of the Trinidad Guardian, sailed away, leaving Therold Barnes and myself to look after the infant. I should mention that Hal Evelyn, the designer of the first cover, had previously emigrated to Canada.
I was rather pleased. Depositing Jimmy's books, indexes, files and what not in a cupboard where they remain to this day, pleasant curiosities of the past, we saw the publication of No. 2 through, and then set about to get a third number ready.
But from here on the going wasn't so easy. Many of the Y.M.P.C. contributors had either left Barbados or lost interest, so Therold and I decided to continue to keep the magazine going even if it meant writing the whole thing ourselves. It must be remembered that at that time printing costs were very cheap and continued to be so for the next few years. We could afford to sell at a shilling a copy and make some profit. I may mention that from the first eight numbers we were able to contribute a couple of hundred dollars to the Y.M.P.C. funds. So No. 3 appeared in June 1943 with its two editors contributing three quarters of its contents.
But it was obvious we couldn't continue this two-man business, and we were lucky that from time to time some writer or other appeared on the scene to assist and encourage us. I should like to mention particularly Jan Williams and Edgar Mittelholzer. The former, an Englishwoman, gave us her unstinted help until she left the island, and the latter (who I did not know at the time had already had a novel, Corentyne Thunder, published in England) took a liking to Bim, and continued to supply us with his stories regularly for a long period of years. And there were other contributors who helped us along: Karl Sealy, a short story writer of great promise, and Geoffrey Drayton, still a schoolboy, to mention a couple. So Bim continued to appear at odd intervals for the next four years.
In August 1947 I was awarded a very pleasant holiday in the United Kingdom (my first trip to Britain) by the British Council. I still wonder why this delightful mark of favour was granted me: no explanation was given. My only means of appreciation was writing some impressions of my tour which appeared in Nos. 9 and 10.
On my return I was conscious of a change in outlook: the West Indies had come into the news. The conference at Montego Bay seemed to point to a federation of the British West Indies. I found myself enthusiastic for contributions from the islands, and I was not disappointed. Our list of writers widened. During the years that followed we were publishing material from Trinidad, Jamaica, British Guiana, St. Vincent, St. Lucia.
And at this point I must make special mention of George Lamming. In the early forties George had been a schoolboy under my tuition, a rather happy-go-lucky youngster with the vaguest of literary aspirations. I had published a poem of his in an early number. On leaving school he had gone to teach in Trinidad. We had kept up a vigorous correspondence, and he had been selling Bim for us in Port-of-Spain in more ways than one. The English periodical, Life and Letters, had just brought out a West Indian number, and I was gratified to see his name amongst its contributors. He had also had much of his work read over the B.B.C. It was George Lamming who encouraged Trinidadian writers to send their work to Bim, and from this time on the names of Sam Selvon, Cecil Gray, Cecil Herbert, Andrew Carr, H. M. Telemaque and others began to appear with increasing frequency.
I have already spoken of the encouragement received from certain contributors and well-wishers: this, I think, has been the main factor in the continuance of Bim. It is difficult to list all these names with the passing of the years, but I should like to mention especially: John Harrison, the Arts Officer of the British Council in the early fifties who introduced Bim to a wide circle of his friends abroad, and whose drawings and articles, despite his departure from the West Indies, have never ceased to adorn our pages; Derek Walcott of St. Lucia, always ready with helpful criticism and advice (I shall never forget a letter of his written from New York to the Editor of the Guardian when he heard the news that Bim had ceased publication) and many of whose poems from our pages I was glad to re-read in his In a Green Night; John Figueroa of Jamaica, and John Wickham, L.E. Brathwaite, Harold Marshall, and A. N. (Freddie) Forde, four Barbadians, scattered abroad, returning now and then, who have been among our staunchest supporters over the years.
But we had our set-backs and disappointments. Firstly, local reviewers didn't seem to think much of the magazine. We were persistently snubbed. But it must have been good for us. We survived somehow, and much of the material so caustically reviewed has since been published in Britain and some of the writers have gained international recognition. But we always got reviews. Those from Trinidad and Jamaica were kinder. Secondly, and far more alarming, was the financial problem. Printing costs increased with each number, and in December 1958 we bade a reluctant farewell to our readers.
Fortunately, thanks to the good offices of Oliver Jackman, the then Government Information Officer and the newly-constituted Arts Council, we were helped to survive. And Freddie Forde, returning home to take up an important post in the Secretariat, joined our editorial staff.
During the past five years we have managed to carry on. We have been fortunate in attracting some new writers, and I should like to mention especially Michael Anthony and Austin Clarke, both of whom have recently been successful in having novels accepted for publication. We have been more fortunate in our reviews lately: we have been complimented on our “staying power,” we have come to be regarded almost as an institution. But for all this our sales remain depressingly low, and were it not for the kind consideration of our publishers, The Advocate, and of our advertisers whose constancy we can never thank sufficiently, we must have ceased publication.
Such, then, is the story of Bim to date. To ensure its survival may we ask you, dear readers, to become regular subscribers, and/or, should you be philanthropically inclined and favoured with some superfluity of ready cash, send us a donation. We shall remain eternally grateful.