THIS DAY IN OUR PAST

The following events took place on February 2 in the years identified:

1946: “I am sorry to say that this is my first visit to Jamaica,”, remarked the Rt Rev Spence Burton, D.D., Lord Bishop of Nassau, in an interview with The Gleaner, at St Peter’s Theological College. The Bishop arrived by PAA plane and was met at the airbase by Bishop Tonks, Lord Bishop of the Windward Islands; Bishop Wilson of Honduras; Canon Evans, Warden of St Peter’s Theological College; and the Rev Father Leslie Macpherson, Rector of the Church of St Margaret’s.

1958: Jamaica’s first mosque opened in Spanish Town, St Catherine. It was a beautiful and imposing structure, well built and compares well with most mosques in British Guiana and Trinidad. It was situated at a quiet spot off Windsor Road and enjoys the peaceful atmosphere of its surroundings.

1973: Two Ministers of Government saw the new $550,000 Kingston drydock in operation, when they paid a formal visit of inspection to the new Government-owned facility at Harbour Head in Eastern Kingston. As a highpoint of the occassion, one of the four vessels in the drydock, a 112-ton, 63-foot Epco III, a fishing vessel, was taken from one of the bays in which it was for repairs and replaced in the water by the marine elevator. Watching the operation were PJ Patterson, Minister of Industry and Tourism, under whose purview the new facility came, and Florizel Glasspole, Minister of Education, in whose constituency of Eastern Kingston, the dry-dock was situated. (See related photo below)