A story of a mutiny earned top spot on the front page of the 10 April 1974 Cayman Compass. A Honduran accused of mutiny aboard the US lobster boat General Rose was brought into George Town Harbour by the vessel’s captain. According to Captain Claire Stevens, first mate William Trapp had taken over the boat by gunpoint, and ordered he be taken to Patuca in Spanish Honduras, keeping a rifle on Stevens and two crew members for 23 hours. Eventually, the captain put his own pistol in Trapp’s stomach, took away the rifle and headed toward Grand Cayman. However, Trapp had lost his papers, making repatriation difficult, and neither he nor the captain wanted to travel together to Honduras or the US, so Trapp’s fate remained up in the air.
In a follow-up to the survey contained in last week’s ‘50 years ago’ section, people were found to favour TV. The article said a large number of Caymanians want television, with more than 2,000 supporting the idea in the survey.
The screening of ‘Shaft in Africa’ created a bit of a ruckus, with the Chamber of Commerce apparently calling meetings in protest. The film, which was about the 20th century slave trade, had been rated ‘R’ (no one under 17 allowed in without a guardian), but the cinema changed it to ‘X’ (no one under 17 admitted). A cinema executive said he had not received any protest from anyone and that none of the people at the alleged ‘protest’ meeting had seen the movie.
North Side farmers also made the news with impressively sized tomatoes and yams. Farmer Ashton Smith grew a 2 pound, 13 ounce tomato, “without any fertilizer, believe it or not”. Randolph Ebanks posed with 48 pounds of yams he grew from one hole, out of 2,016 pounds and 161 holes overall.
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