The front page of the 12 Sept. 1974 edition of The Caymanian Compass was full of good stories. The photo at the top depicted Miss Jamaica arriving in Cayman, being greeted on the tarmac by Norman Bodden, the manager of Cayman Airways, while Jaycee president Herbie Martin looked on.
Just under that was ‘Cinema Celebrates Second Anniversary’ about the invitation-only event to mark the occasion. As part of the celebration, attendees were treated to a preview of ‘The Great Gatsby’, along with the news that the theatre’s owners planned to turn it into a ‘twin cinema’, enabling two films to be shown at the same time. The anniversary was not without drama, though, as Benson Ebanks, a director of the cinema, explained that due to a transhipment error, the audience almost had to make do with just the first half of the movie. But the second roll of film arrived a half hour before the screening was set to begin.
A third front-page story reported on the graduating class of the first policemen to attend the Police Training School in Cayman. The drill instructor, Corporal E. Parkes, said of the 11 new policemen: “They are a fine set of fellows to work with and if the next squad of Caymanians to be trained here will perform the way these did or even better, we can probably say that Cayman is on the move.”
Then on page 3, ‘Two Pines Blocked Off’ was about one of the few spots on Seven Mile Beach open to the public which now had big boulders in place, preventing access to the beach. The “peaceful site”, near Government House, had been used by people for more than 30 years, meaning the place by law had become public property. A small track off the main road led to two pine trees on the beach, hence the name of the spot.
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