Caribbean Author Series

Arthor Showcase No. 1 –
Shirley Spycalla

Ladies and Gentlemen, ‘The Lure’ is excited to introduce to you our brand new ‘Caribbean Author Showcase’ series.

It will be a pleasure to introduce to the world some of the most elite, unique, individuals one could ever imagine meeting.

The fun part of all this is the opportunity to showcase just how unique each and every individual in the Caribbean, from the Caribbean, or attached to the Caribbean could be.

It is with honor and excitement that I introduce to you our very first author in the series, Mrs. Shirley Spycalla.

Mrs. Spycalla currently lives on the island of Montserrat, one of the world’s best kept secrets.

In her own words…

Shirley Spycalla’s Theatre and Storytelling Background

The following is an excerpt from my book, “Dancing with the Dead – Growing up in the Caribbean with Ghosts and Ghouls”.

In addition to the tale of my family’s movements throughout seven islands of the Caribbean, the book also includes all the paranormal events experienced by me, my family and friends.

Story Time at “Alandale”

Alandale is the name of my grandparents’ house in Newtown, Basseterre, St. Kitts. I was five, my brother Basil three and my younger brother Patrick a one-year-old baby. Every morning after breakfast, Grandpa would call Basil and me to come down to the yard and help him feed the chickens and collect eggs. This was a fun thing to do, except we were usually barefoot and the coop was always ‘squishy’ with chicken poop.

As a reward for helping, Grandpa would make us sit on the back steps and he would tell us “Nancy” stories and Aesop Fables. We were told all about Brer Rabit and The Wolf, Brer Tucama and the Cocks, The Hare and the Tortoise, The Ant and the Grasshopper, etc, all very exciting stories to us children.

Grandpa would start, “Once upon a time!” and Basil and I would have to shout “YES!” at the top of our lungs. “Not loud enough!” he would say, and he would start all over again until he was satisfied that we’d shouted loud enough. At the end of the story, instead of “And they all lived happily ever after”, Grandpa’s final words always were, “And the lead bend and the story end!” We always shouted that in unison with him.

These wonderful memories of storytelling have impacted me up to this day. My greatest joy is in telling exciting stories to the guests at our guesthouse in Montserrat, and seeing the awed looks on their faces. My stories are usually funny but sometimes eerie, and are based mostly on island legends and folklore. Some however are culled from my own personal experience with the paranormal.

We have had guests who have come to stay at our guesthouse because of my storytelling. I’ve had no formal training in the art, but take great pleasure in telling a good story.

As regards the theatre, I have acted in many school plays at the Girls’ High School in St. Vincent, one of them being “The Virgin Queen”.

On Montserrat I was a founding member of the Montserrat Theatre Group and acted in many plays while living in Plymouth, one being the 5-hour play by Vincent Browne, “And on the Seventh Day”. In later years, I acted in play readings and, recently, acted in a radio play by Chadd Cumberbatch, recounting the slave uprising in Montserrat on St. Patrick’s Day in 1768. This radio play is still broadcast every year on the 17th March.

Today, I am mainly onstage in a singing role, that is, I perform in opera, religo-classical, R&B and calypso. Although semi-retired, I love performing and entertaining.

Let’s get started, shall we? Just click the photo below, for the first of a series of stories by Shirley Spycalla!