Love and Grief During the Riots and War

This novel, Love and Grief, narrates the effect that the harsh and oppressive social and economic conditions of the 1920s and 1930s had on the working class in Barbados. It details the events which led the workers to riot to show how aggrieved they had become by the conditions they had to endure. The novel emphasizes how the conditions strained relationships in a fictional family i.e. The Wards. Mr. Ward made a remark that indiscreetly questioned the dispensing of justice to a rioter. Because of his indiscretion, he had to leave the island to find employment on one of the Lady Boats that carried cargo and passengers between Canada and the British West Indian islands. The outbreak of the Second World War found him on the high seas in one of the boats which the German U-Boats eventually torpedoed and in which he perished.