It was David Mitchell's lunch time lecture at the National Gallery two years ago that got me started. Even his own low key style couldn't disguise his excitement about his subject: John A. Frith. What I heard that day was that a black Bermudian photographer, the son of former slaves, born in 1835 just after the Abolition of Slavery had become an extremely successful photographer. Not only that, but that he had worked in Jamaica, and possibly Cuba, and on his return to Bermuda had contributed to the civic life of his town St George, as a council man.

At the end of the lecture I approached David and Laura Gorham. It seemed that Frith had worked in Santiago de Cuba, a city with which I'd become somewhat familiar since my daughter Jessica had lived there and married a Santigueran, Wilber Menendez Sanchez,

I wondered whether they'd be interested in my having a look around the libraries and archives there to see what I could turn up. They were both positively encouraging, and so, armed with information that David provided, I did just that.

In August of that year, 2006, I travelled to Santiago with my mother-in-law, an retired teacher, and my sister in law, Aleida Abreu Almagro, who, as fate would have it , was a retired 'Historiadora', that is a historian/ curator. Her last post before retiring was curator of the famous Fortaleza fired from the fort, that is heard throughout the city. That was where she worked. Its importance for Cubans was enhanced by the existence of a small museum dedicated to Ernesto Che Guevara,

Santiago lies on the far south eastern coast of Cuba, almost directly north of Jamaica. And is a good 900 miles from Havana.. You can get there by air, or rail; we chose a coach, Viazul,. The journey was a tiresome 15 hours long.

We went initially for just a day, to establish contact with research institutions, and to see what we could find. It was suggested we contact with the Historiadora of the City, one Dr Olga Portuando Zuniga, but she was on vacation and could not be located despite our best efforts. (later got a splendid resume of Nineteenth Century Santiago from her in a tape recorded interview.)

We actually went to the address that was in Frith's Royal Gazette advertisement of January 1866, a copy of which was contained in the information that David Mitchell had provided me. It gave Frith's Santiago address as number 13 Enramadas baja. We found a number 12 ensconced in the plaster of a wall but no number 13.We had no doubt we were close.Enramadas starts out at the dockside and rises to the highest point of the city, Plaza de Marts before merging into another road. It was in Frith's day the main commercial artery, absolutely packed with photographers from North America and even Europe, we were later to discover.

I decided to stay on an extra day, while the ladies in the party returned to Havana. That day was to be quite special. I went to the Library on Heredias, the Elvira Cape, and got permission to visit the Salon de Fundos Raros yValiosos where bund copies of nineteenth century newspapers, El Diaro de Santiago, and El redactor were kept.

I got out the year 1866 and started going through from January. I had a notion that Frith's announcement in The Gazette in Bermuda that same year did not signal his definitive departure from Cuba. I found an advertisement in El Diario with the address 13 Enramdas baja, that announced that the unnamed proprietor had recently acquired the services of a well known painter Joaquin Quadras.

This was it for me . I was convinced it was Frith's ad. He was about this same time working in Bermuda with an English painter Edward James, doing much the same thing,

This year in January, with the assistance of a Bermuda Arts Council grant, I returned to Santiago with Aleida as my research assistant. That was an inspired stroke, if I might say. She is a consummate professional with decades of experience.

Once we'd secured our accommodations we headed for the library. An exciting discovery awaited us, and it was my luck to make it. I tell the story in the upcoming issue of RG magazine. I hope you read it.