It is alarming that Lady Young Road still retains its name. After all, the roadway was named after a sharp-tongued woman who despised the people over whom her husband Sir Hubert Young was Governor.

She was somewhat of a bully, as was the Governor.

Lady Rose Mary Young came to Trinidad in 1938 with Sir Hubert who was appointed T&T's 12th Governor after a diplomatic posting in Northern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) where he had broken a strike by copper miners.

Sir Hubert's given mission was to deal with labour unrest that had resulted in bloody Butler Riots the year before when 12 people shot dead by police.

Unsurprisingly, labour leaders didn't want him around and, even before his arrival, they led a march through Port of Spain with placards reading, “Warm welcome Sir 'Hitler' Young" and "Trinidad is not Rhodesia".

In the four years the Youngs spent in T&T, they were never fully integrated into the small, white, upper class community. Not even her experience as a pilot and membership of the Light Aeroplane Club helped.

Lady Young tried to impress the bourgeoisie circle by helping found a local chapter of the British Red Cross Society and having herself installed as its first president.

But her ego was bruised when, as WWII broke out, wealthy, Anglo/Scottish landowner Martha Eunice Simpson and other women of high social standing formed Ladies’ Shirt Guild, for the purpose of making articles of clothing to donate towards the war relief effort.

Lady Young saw the guild as a rival group and was furious, moreso when Simpson's initiative got a written endorsement from Buckingham Palace.

The Youngs berated the Simpsons, did whatever they could to bring the guild into the Red Cross fold, and when they did not succeed they tried to up the ante by complaining to London that the Simpsons were jealous, eccentric and known for their intolerant attitude.

Not getting her way, an angry Lady Young wrote the the Colonial Office. But, in doing so, she unwittingly revealed her inner thoughts about the island's people:

“...Nothing much that we can do will mend matters, as these people and the whole section – a small and vehement one they come from, have not even had manners they have no conception of manners, loyalty, or any other civilized virtue. They simply don’t live in the same box as ordinary human beings, one cannot calculate what any of their reactions are; they are as strange and remote morally as the Africans and low Caste Indians who have, as everything tends to sink, – much influenced the whole trend of life in these islands.”

When Simpson sent two crates of clothing items to Buckingham Palace,
Governor Young called it "an act of defiance".

He penned a letter that revealed their unpopularity and insecurity:
"There are in this Colony certain disaffected persons who are always on the look-out for an opportunity to take up an attitude of antagonism to the Governor... These are the people whose malicious unkindness to officials from overseas and their wives is a well known feature of social life in Trinidad.”

The Youngs failed to get their way.

Governor Young had even failed to bully the U.S. into setting up their military operating base in the Caroni Swamp instead of Chaguaramas, and was recalled to London. Officially, "due to ill-health".

In 1942, towards the end of the Governor's term in office, the couple had hardly left a significant mark on the country. However, Governor Young seized a chance to do so when a plan arose to build a roadway connecting the roundabout in St. Ann’s with the Eastern Main Road. Before the sod was even turned, a decision was taken to name the roadway for his wife.

The Youngs left Trinidad on April 2nd,1942. It was 17 years later, on June 3rd, 1959, that Lady Young Road was opened to vehicular traffic. They never saw the eponymous roadway.

In the meantime, Mrs Simpson moved to South Africa.

PHOTO: This vintage Trinidad Guardian photograph shows Lady Young (at right) and her husband Governor Hubert Young flanking Molly Huggins, wife of the Colonial Secretary, at the seaplane ramp in Cocorite, just before the couple departed Trinidad on April, 2nd,1942.