There was a large crowd of people at Pedro St. James last Monday evening to meet and welcome Cayman Islands new Governor Anwar Choudhury.

He was there with his wife Momina and their three children – one a baby of three months.

During Governor Choudhury’s brief speech in response to Premier Alden McLaughlin’s, he said his daughter, Ambreene, as soon as she reached their new home, the Governor’s Residence, on Seven Mile Beach, looked at the sea and asked him, “Dad, is this real?”

“That’s what it feels like,” he said, “It’s difficult to explain the feeling of arriving in this wonderful, beautiful island. I’m a people person, and what really took me is the warmth – the wonderful warmth of the people. It just feels that the people here are something special.”

Governor Choudhury complimented singer Rudy Myles rendition of “God Save the Queen, saying he had never heard it sung better and hoped Her Majesty The Queen would get to hear him sing it. He also mentioned Miss Cayman Annika Connolly’s singing of our National Song that was “beautiful” and the performance from the Cayman Islands Folk Singers made him want to join them on stage and dance. He said he was very keen on folk music and its original origins and had done much research on the subject.

“I would not only want to eat and drink for your country,” he said, “I would want to sing and dance for your country.”

And dance, he did, later on in the evening when the Bunny Myle’s Regeneration Band took to the stage with some lively Calypso music. He was not afraid to join in and hold hands with one of the lady dancers. It was a good job his wife and children had left!

During Premier McLaughlin’s speech, when he said the people of the Cayman Islands are British, Joan Wilson who was sitting close by shouted out, “Yes, we are”, Governor Choudhury turned to her and gave her the thumbs up sign with a beaming smile.

I leave you with these parting words from our new Governor:

“We are blessed with paradise. We need to keep it as that. We cannot, we will not, allow crime to take away our way of living.”

Well said, sir.

A fitting statement at Pedro St James with its long history. The past catches up with the future. And we want the past to remain.