 When we talk about independence in those days we didn't speak about St. Lucia as an independent country. We spoke about St. Lucia within the Caribbean, Federation, that was the big talk, Federation. Federation fails. Then we tried with the associated states, as they called them, hoping to get them closer together. They couldn't get that. We tried the Windmill Islands. And while we were negotiating the Windmill Islands, that is coming into 1974. While we were negotiating for the Windmill Islands to come together, and the first we start, let's say, with freedom of movement, freedom to work from what permits, freedom to own land, etc., etc. We were talking about that. Grenada went behind our backs and negotiated with the British government for independence. And they gave them the independence. Despite all the violence and all of this in Grenada, they gave them the independence. So, what else? The next thing we hear, who is talking about independence? Dominica. Dominica is going independent. So, what are we to do? Wait? So, in 1974, we had elections in 1974, which we won. Our political program was that, together, if we can, alone, we must. So, by 1974, it was alone, because it must. So, we started to, we informed, we went to the House of Assembly. First, we went to the party. We had a convention, Party Convention Amico in 75 or 76. We had a party convention. We decided we are going into independence. We got a resolution passed in the party. We went to the parliament and presented the resolution in the parliament. Of course, it was opposed then. And we then approached the British government to start negotiation for independence. We had this problem. We had a British government representative who had been in Botswana. That's in Southern Africa. Near to South Africa. And he was as racist and apartheid as they come. To him, black people shouldn't govern themselves. They can't govern themselves. Look what's happening in South Africa. Look what's happening in Nigeria. Look what's happening in Ghana, all this confusion. Now, so he became the ally or the Labour Party. Use him as their ally. And every time they made a meeting and keep noise and make a demonstration, he would send it up to the British and say, you know, is it going to be bloodshed in St Lucia? Is it going to be this in St Lucia? And he delayed us to no end. We went first. They said, fine, you go back and show that the people really want it. Issue a white paper and discuss it all over the country. We did that. We went back, tell us another story. Until 1978, we went to the Constitutional Conference. We went to the Constitutional Conference in London and we agreed that we would have all independence. We even set the date to the 13th of December. That was the date for independence. But the Labour Party at the time, they wanted elections before independence. And that has never happened. Jamaica got it without elections. Trinidad got it. Guyana got it. Grenada got it. Nobody ever, that was never imposed as a condition on any one of them. But it's a sort to impose it as a condition to us. And the Labour Party objected, they demonstrated they did all these things. Now, what had happened in the Caribbean? There was a lot of turmoil. There was Grenada, there was Cuba, there was all of this thing. And they exploited that. They created a lot of confusion. There was coming to independence, besides the demonstrations and whatever it is, coming to independence, they fermented strikes in the public services. Teachers strike, civil service strike, this strike, that strike. And trying to postpone it, trying to impede it. But of course, the thing had passed to the British Parliament. There's nothing they could do to stop it. What they did was to impede the celebrations of it. The way we would have liked to have celebrated our independence. We didn't want to celebrate our independence on the threat of riots, the threat of that. For instance, the flag-raising ceremony was to be... The only place we had at the time was the Martial Grounds. They were in the Phillip Park. The only place with big open spaces like that. We had to keep it on the wharf. Why did we keep it in the wharf? Because of security reasons. The British will not allow Princess Alexandra, who was the royal representative, to drive through the Martial Road, lest she be ambushed, et cetera, et cetera. It's that type of fear. Not us, because we know that was nonsense. We would never do this. That's not solution. But that British government representative had instilled, had pushed in the minds of the British, they were going to be riots, et cetera, et cetera. We had it low-keyed. Many people didn't have it as we'd like to have had it. Instead, we had the big celebration for independence already. The carnival that followed it, because it was a few days after. Carnival was a few days after independence, without a hell of a time. But for those times, it was really frightening because of the threats that existed at the time, that there was going to be disruption, there was going to be this, there was going to be that. They customs and strike. We couldn't get people in. We had to get, had to send some people down there to take over from their customs, that their people get their baggage through. A lot of difficulties, it humiliated us. Solutions, it humiliated us. But I told them, at the time, with all of this, they came to give us very bad press, I used the occasion of the Youth Rally in 79 to set out our goals. I told them, told the children at the time, that we have to prove that not that we do no worse than those who ruled us before, not that we do as good as they did, but we have to do better.