People always ask me how I got the name. It’s simple. When I was a boy I had a habit of describing everything I saw. The plants, the birds, the smell of the rain coming down through the Centre Hills. When I started singing calypso, I took the stage name Describer, because that is what I did, I described the world around me. Over the years people shortened it to Scriber, and it stuck. So did the habit.

For most of my working life I walked these hills for the Forestry Division. That is where I learned it all, the trails, the birds, the frogs, the bush, every corner of this island’s green heart. In 2010 I opened Scriber’s Adventure Tours so I could share it with visitors. I have been guiding for more than forty years now.

In December 2024, His Majesty The King awarded me an MBE (Member of the British Empire) for services to the Natural World and to Tourism on Montserrat. I will be honest with you, it caught me by surprise. I was only ever doing the work I love.

The island that made me

I grew up walking these trails long before the volcano woke in 1995, before two-thirds of the island became an Exclusion Zone, before our capital, Plymouth, disappeared under the ash. I knew the forests that vanished. I know the ones that grew back. The island lost a great deal. But it also taught me something most people never get to learn, how a place can grieve, and rebuild, and still be beautiful.

Our national bird

These days I am best known for the Montserrat Oriole. It lives nowhere else on earth, and it nearly disappeared along with everything else. On a good morning I can call to them, and they answer me back. When a visitor hears that for the first time, you should see the face on them.

Why I’m still doing it

People ask if I will ever slow down. Never. Every group I take out gives me something back. A child seeing the Oriole for the first time. A scientist who travelled across the world to study our birds. A cruise visitor who came expecting a beach and left wanting to come back for a whole week.

My job is to take a stranger by the hand and walk them through my island. Sometimes that is all I do. Sometimes it changes the way they see the world. Either way, it is worth it.

I encourage you to join me on one of our tours. You won’t be disappointed.

There’s something special about watching a four-year-old discover Montserrat for the first time. Their eyes go wide. They stop talking — which, if you’ve ever spent time with a nursery school class, you know is no small feat. And then, almost in a whisper, one of them will ask the question I love best: “Mr. Scriber, what’s that?”

That moment — the moment a child looks at a piece of their island and really sees it — is why I started bringing little ones out on the trail with me.

A Tradition That Grows Every Year

Every year, students from our local community nursery schools come hiking with Scriber’s Adventures. It started small — one class, one trail, one morning. Now it’s something I look forward to all year. Little explorers in their bright shirts and small boots, hand in hand, ready to meet the island they call home.

We keep the trails short and gentle. We move slowly. We stop a lot. We listen.

What They See

On any given walk we might:

• Spot a Montserrat Oriole flashing yellow in the trees — our national bird, found nowhere else on earth

• Touch the bark of a centuries-old tree and feel how it’s still alive

• Hear the plick of a tree frog before a child can even spot it

• Pick up a cassava leaf and learn how their grandmothers used it

• Look out toward the volcano and learn a little about the island’s story — gently, the way little ones should hear it

The questions never stop. Why is that leaf so shiny? What does the bird eat? Can I keep this rock? (The answer is usually yes.)

Why This Matters to Me

I’ve been walking these trails for over forty years. I’ve watched the forest change. I’ve watched the volcano change the island. I’ve watched Montserrat lose some of itself and find new pieces of itself.

The children we take on these hikes are the ones who will inherit this island. They’ll be the future guides, farmers, scientists, and storytellers. If they fall in love with the trail when they’re small, they’ll protect it when they’re grown. That’s the real reason we keep doing this. Not just for the smiles — though there are plenty of those — but for what comes after.

Building Tomorrow’s Caretakers

There’s a saying I think about a lot: people protect what they love. If a Montserratian child only ever sees the island from a car window, they’ll grow up loving it less than they could. But if you take them by the hand, walk them through the forest, show them a flower with a story, and tell them their great-grandfather drank from this very stream — well, that’s a different kind of citizen you’re raising.

That’s the citizen Montserrat is going to need.

Want to Bring a Group?

If you teach at a school, lead a youth group, or coordinate community programs and you’d like to bring children out on a tour with us, we’d love to talk. Send a message and let’s find a date.