A visit with Miss Lou

Peter Espeut

I AM in Canada for a few weeks to attend environment-related meetings, but pretty early on I went to visit that Jamaican icon, the Hon. Dr. Louise Bennett-Coverley, and her husband Eric (Chalk-Talk) Coverley.

A few years ago in this column I stuck my neck out and unofficially nominated Miss Lou to receive the Order of National Hero. I do not do this lightly (I have nominated only one other person in my almost 10 years as a columnist), and in my opinion we have already bestowed it upon two persons who don't really deserve it.

But I believe that Miss Lou deserves it, for she ­ single-handedly at first ­ waged a successful campaign to improve the image we Jamaicans have of ourselves through acceptance of the everyday language we speak. So many of us were put down and made to feel inferior because we didn't (and sometimes couldn't) speak the Queen's English; for many it meant relegation to the back pages of Jamaican society and economy.

In this context, Miss Lou not only wrote poetry and song in our Jamaican language, but she personally delivered them to us on radio, on television and on stage in her own enthusiastic style which others have since adopted. Her performances in the Jamaica National Pantomime have helped transform that institution from British copy to Jamaican original. We went to look at ourselves and we enjoyed what we found ­ good positive images, good role models to follow.

Too often in Jamaican tragicomedy, the 'hero' is a 'samfie man' or a criminal, or a country bumpkin, the subject of ridicule. But Louise always played the role of a mother, a Jamaican woman who wanted the best for her children (usually born in adverse circumstances). And yes, there was always a 'samfie man' around (often played by Mass Ran), and yes there were always obstacles in the way, but at the end of each pantomime the 'ginnal' was exposed and the hurdles were overcome, and the hopes we had for the characters were realised. And we left the theatre with the hope that maybe we could do it too in real-life, for the story was unapologetically and unashamedly in our language, with our own deep-felt experiences. I believe that Louise's performances must be considered nothing less than nation-building ­ from the grass-roots up!

I had the pleasure to have performed with my guitar on the first two episodes of Ring Ding, so I (and my friend Mark McLaughlin) were the first persons to be called 'Mr. Music' by Miss Lou on that long-running series, and asked please to play. So many children grew up with Miss Lou as their mother and teacher through those shows, learning Jamaican culture ­ song and story ­ at her feet.

In doing this, she did not promote herself, but Jamaica and our culture as something positive, valuable and uplifting, and the rising tide lifted us all, whether we realise it or not.

I remember being in the audience at a Bar-B-Q at Sts. Peter & Paul Church sometime in the 1960s when 'Chalk-Talk' Coverley was in action. He asked volunteers from the audience to place five dots at any point on his flip-chart, and he would connect them to produce a picture ­ and tell a story about the scene at the same time! Well, thinking I was smart, I went up and drew five dots vertically in a straight line. 'Chalk-Talk' then told an exciting story of a woman held prisoner in a castle, and the connected points became her escape rope.

Now that was Jamaican entertainment through art!

In the 1970s and early 1980s I promoted an August 1 Emancipation Day Quadrille Dance in the hills of western Portland (beyond Bangor Ridge) every year, using local musicians (including myself), patronised by the local mountain people, many of them descendants of Haitian slaves who gave this art form to us.

One year ­ it might have been 1975 ­ Eric and Louise drove up the precipitous mountain trail to participate, and what an experience it was for all of us! Until dawn the next day, the dirt floor of the field hut became hard-packed with the co-ordinated movements of the eight pairs of dancers (all that could comfortably hold in the semi-open hut at one time), who pranced figure after figure (with rhumbas and mentos in between) in the light of the tilly-lamp to the strains of banjo and guitar and piccolo ­ and a six-foot long piece of three-inch PVC pipe grunted into as a bass.

Persons came from miles around to dance when their turn came (you and your partner had to book your dance in advance with the chairman) and dozens of curious children, already immersed in the reggae culture of the now generation, came to watch something new to them.

Louise and Eric added to the revelry that night, and the community ­ especially the children ­ have never forgotten their visit.

Last week, Eric and Louise and I had a good laugh when we recalled that night in Portland bush.

Eric and Louise looked well when I saw them last week. In addition to old times, we discussed current politics. They, like other Jamaicans in the diaspora, are concerned about 'yard', and about the difficulties we still face in this land we love. Their large and comfortable apartment in Scarborough was a warm little piece of Jamaica in foreign lan'.

I consider it an honour to know Eric and Louise, to have performed with them and to have learned from them. I have certainly been inspired by them.

It is a shame that Jamaica is too small to house this storehouse, this archive of our culture and tradition.

Peter Espeut is a sociologist and musician, and is executive director of an environment and development NGO.

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