File photo
Cindy Breakspeare the mother with a very young 'Junior Gong', Damian Marley.This is the second part of an interview with Cindy Breakspeare. Part 1 appeared in last Sunday's Gleaner and covered her formative years and copping the Miss World title.
There have been a number of these interviews, but Cindy Breakspeare, 25 years on, gives the clearest picture on what it is like to hold a title like 'Miss World'.
"It's a very broadening experience for any young woman. I look at Lisa Hanna now I knew her as a little girl. Me and her mom, we worked on a project together and she always said 'Come and join your Aunty Cindy', so I was 'Aunty Cindy' to Lisa before she ever ended up in competition. I watched the transformation she went through from the time she entered it and look at all that she as achieved today and we have actually become very close since we went to London last November for the reunion.
"So I'm able to understand the transformation that I must have gone through for someone who was observing me I mean you can't observe yourself.
"It is very demanding. You travel constantly. You have to be organised, you have to be on time, you have to have your wardrobe co-ordinated, be-cause there's all sorts of different functions that you're going to be attending, some of them are business luncheons where you might be expected to give a speech etc.
One in a lifetime experience
"So it's quite an honour for a young woman coming from a small island like Jamaica. Where you were nobody from nowhere and go to being chosen 'the one' suddenly the day you win you're on the front of every British newspaper. "You have to learn tolerance and patience, you have to smile when you don't feel like it, when you've travelled 15 hours to get to the Philippines and you're exhausted. You feel like you have sand in your eyes and there is a welcoming committee on the tarmac at the steps of the plane and you have to find a smile and be gracious and understand that it's part of the job.
"So there are many days now when I go on the streets and I'm in my gym clothes and I don't really feel like being 'Cindy Breakspeare'. Somebody goes 'aren't you Cindy Breakspeare?' and I say 'mm-mm not today' and we laugh and they know and they understand. But you still you have to find a way to be diplomatic, but let people know I can't let you in my space right now today.
"But it's a once in a lifetime experience. It's a keeper. If I had my life to live over, I certainly wouldn't leave it out. I've never had a moment of regret and I'm never able to understand these young women who do nothing but complain about it after. I mean, you see the world, you're paid to do it it's all expenses paid they roll out the red carpet everywhere you go. What's not to like? 'Never had it so good and felt so bad' - I just don't get it.
"You also have to remember you know that you're a 'celebrity', for want of a better word, People don't have to care what you're doing or look up to you or want to emulate you, admire you or all of that. It is a tremendous gift and a privilege and I think that you have a responsibility if you find yourself in that position because, remember, you know you did a number of things to put yourself in that position. So having made your bed, you must now find a way to lie down in it. I believe that.
"Yes, every day you are not going to feel like it, but by and large, if Pat Lazarus calls me and says she is conducting a class in communications up at the university and they want somebody to interview 'would I please come', of course I'm going to go! Why am I going to go? Because I have children who are trying to make something of their lives and if it were them I would want them to have somebody sensible to interview. No, nobody not paying me to do it, you have to have a social conscience."
Best and worst
Cindy Breakspeare was married to lawyer and one-time politician Tom Tavares-Finson, with whom she has two children. There is Christian, 19, a former all-island Junior Champion in cycling and now a Category 1 rider, and Leah, 15, now in her fifth year of high school. Of course, there is also Damian 'Junior Gong' Marley, now touring the world to support of his album, Half-Way Tree.
She is now married to musician Rupert Bent.
Having lived a life to date which far outruns in scope the norm, one cannot help but wonder what she would describe as the best experiences.
"Oh Lord, there are too many. Every day there is another one. Every day. It can be from the Miss World experience to your daughter giving you a birthday card that she wrote you (a few) days ago which just said 'What would I ever do without you, you are the greatest' and that just... (she falls silent, smiling).
"It can be anything. It can be great and it can be small. There are so many different things and I think that's what people need to focus on. It's not always about money and acquisitions and it's not always about who people think you are. There's a real person living inside all of us, so that is what most of us need to focus on look for the love, look for the love."
The unhappy ones, you ask.
"Certainly I have those. Divorce is a very traumatic thing for anybody, anybody who goes through that then... (falls silent once more). We had many wonderful years (with Tom Tavares-Finson), many wonderful years. We have two beautiful children and I think people sort of saw us as a storybook couple for a long time there. But you know people change, they can grow together and they can grow apart. Sadly I guess... I think one thing we have is our children Christian and Leah. Leah is in high school, taking CXCs this year, growing faster than I would like They are the joy of my life, all three of them. Damian is on tour right now and he is doing so well and I don't need to tell you about him, it's all over the media. He is doing really well. I don't see as much of him as I would like to but ummm-
"Everybody has problems, but it's how you deal with them. Not every day is easy, not every day you get up and go to the mirror and see a beautiful reflection looking back at you. Other people might think that that's the way it goes, but no I mean some days you get up and look and it's like they re-arranged everything! (she laughs). Speedily! And adroitly! (still laughing).
"So, you never see yourself the way other people do, trust me on that one, you don't. Never kid yourself, you are just putting one foot in front of the other every day and it does not come any easier to you. Maybe you just work a little harder, not because you are Miss 'whatever' or not because people think you have a million dollars under your mattress means it is really there. It's the whole 'book by the cover syndrome'. You really are just another human being getting on with your life," she said.
During the interview, I noticed that Cindy Breakspeare has a tattoo on her right ankle: a scorpion which represents her zodiac sign. She then showed me another on wrist, one which brought shades of Jimi Hendrix to mind, a moon and star surrounded by a purple haze. She also once had her nose pierced.
"Oh, just another crazy moment in time one does get a bit of a reputation of being a slightly off-the-wall type, but that's alright. I don't particularly try to cultivate it, but I don't know how to be any other way. I don't know how live by other people's rules or whatever their conventions are. Whatever feels right to me, I tend to go with that."
Which brings us to Bob Marley, reggae superstar.
To put things in perspective, Marley was a 'dread', a poor Rastafarian from Trench Town who loved football and was trying to make it in music long before he ruled the world. Cindy Breakspeare was an 'uptown' young lady and had been celebrated as the most beautiful woman in the world. In fact, the two had met before she was Miss World 1976. These were the 1970s, and cross-social class interactions were not only frowned upon, they were unheard of. So how did it happen?
Life with Bob
"Bob was a fascinating person and to know him was to understand that immediately. We met because I was living at 56 Hope Road and he was also living there. At the time, Chris Blackwell owned the property. They used to live there Bob's home at that time was really in Bull Bay, so when they were in Kingston for rehearsal and stuff like that he used to live at 56 Hope Road. I had rented a flat there, my brother and I that was during my nightclub days and they were always kicking football...
"I remember going to see him at Carib when Marvin Gaye came. They were the supporting act. Catch A Fire was out and I had bought that before I had actually moved to 56 Hope Road. It was my first introduction to Bob Marley - you remember that jacket? You had a lighter that opened. My brother brought that home and the same Marvin Gaye What's Going On and believe me, nutten else went on the turntable for the next however long.
"So, once you met Bob, I mean he was so steeped in his religion and his philosophy and he was so very different, as you may as well imagine, from the young men I had dated up until then but it was very intoxicating. He was very charismatic, very strong and I always have liked that in people in general, and in particular in the men that I choose to spend time with. I'm not interested in any shrinking violet but um... so that was it. All of us, everybody, all of us youngsters who met Bob at that time immediately you knew boy, here was somebody different, here was somebody with great talent, incredibly focused all the things that have ever been said about Bob."
"So how did it end?" I asked.
"He passed away."
Ouch.
"Our relationship had been through some changes right before he fell ill and I had had Damian, and I knew I sort of wanted to restructure my life a little bit. So we were dealing with all of that, but I mean, by then Bob was now a superstar, he really was, and he didn't really have the time to devote to that side of his life very much. So when he fell ill I just set that aside, Rita set her grievances aside, and we all rallied around him. It was all about him at that point, caring for somebody who was going through this terrible thing. None of us wanted to lose him, whether or not we were romantically involved with him.
"Did you ever have any 'confrontations' with Rita Marley?" I asked.
"No".
"After Miss World I came home, had Damian, set up house and started Ital Craft when Damian was about four to six months old (with Donna Coore) and it just really grew from strength to strength. We started from nothing virtually. We went to Hellshire beach and dug up cactus, we bought clay pots and wrapped them in sisal string that we dyed and it was just whatever we could imagine to do or make. Those were really fun days. There was no pressure, no order for 5,000 of one belt, there were no it was just creativity, it was just about creativity and it was great fun.
"Bob used to come up and sit with us in the workshop. I started it at my home at the foot of Russell Heights because I had a self-contained cottage that was empty, so it was the perfect spot for a little workshop. So that was where we started. Bob would come up, man, and pull up a table to the bench and say, 'alright wha yuh wha mi fi do fi yuh now? Mi is a tradesman yuh nuh'.
"He used to bring me a lot of material whenever he would travel, things to make jewellery, lovely beads and bindings, quartz and stuff like that from London, one trip from Australia he brought shells oh you couldn't imagine. We were just flabbergasted when we saw them, they were the most amazing shells."
So why did she stop?
"I decided I wanted to move on. It had got to a point where the paperwork was taking over my life. We weren't getting as much time to enjoy the creative process as we were initially, so I just decided it was time to move on, I became involved in the music business...."
Next week: Music and dreams
