After meeting the writer Pierre-André Théodore and Robert Romney, author of the first book in the Saint-Martin language, the students of the Collège du Mont des Accords continued their immersion in the literary world as part of Perseverance Week with Serge Gumbs, who signs the book “Les Poilus Saint-Martinois”.
Brilliantly organized by Ange-Marie Venthou-Dumaine, librarian professor at the college, the meetings between Saint-Martin youth and writers from all walks of life were both moving and enriching for both parties. For this third session, the 3rd, 4th and 5th graders exchanged with Serge Gumbs, a former history teacher still passionate about the subject who grew up in Quartier d'Orléans. In front of an assembly of attentive and curious young people, Serge Gumbs told his story, with a hint of nostalgia in his voice when he evoked his childhood in a Saint-Martin where very few cars circulated or his presence in the only 3rd class with 11 classmates in a small room dedicated to their education. To conceive the work presented to college students last Friday, "The hairy Saint-Martinois, Saint-Martin in the Great War 1914-1918", Serge Gumbs, who does not describe himself as literary, devoted three years of his life to the research and consultation of archives, whether in Guadeloupe, Vincennes, Bordeaux or Amsterdam. With an uncle who had been a soldier during the First World War, the author tried to open the dialogue but the combatant's post-traumatic syndrome prevented him from formulating anything about this period of his life, "I don't like not talk about the war," he said. Described as gentle and kind, Serge Gumbs' uncle could show violent reactions linked to the irreversible psychological consequences of which all soldiers are victims. In his book illustrated with period documents and photographs, Serge Gumbs pays homage to the Saint-Martin hairy people who take their name from the fact that they did not shave in time of war. Touching, educational and accessible to all generations, this book highlights no less than one hundred and thirty Saint-Martin residents who served in the Great War, all born between 1856 and 1899. The students of Mont des Accords asked a plethora of questions to the self-taught historian: the living conditions during the war, the role of the women who remained on the island who replaced their male counterparts in their absence by maintaining the export figures of the time, the process of writing or again the difficulties encountered during the elaboration of this book retracing the terrible and unjust fate of certain Saint-Martin soldiers. Another magnificent intergenerational meeting at the Mont des Accords college. _Vx
https://faxinfo.fr/en/litterature-lhistoire-des-poilus-de-saint-martin-racontee-au-college-du-mont-des-accords/
