Louis MarriottLouis Marriott, Contributor
This is the 24th in a series of articles reliving the years up to Independence by a journalist/broadcaster whose childhood and maturation coincided with Jamaica's.
In 1943 the dictatorial Sir Arthur Richards was replaced as Governor by the much milder-mannered and more affable Sir John Huggins. While the self-effacing Huggins maintained a relatively low profile, his ever-smiling wife, universally known by her pet name "Molly", gave the impression of an energetic and ubiquitous social butterfly. The fashionable and well-connected celebrities of Kingston & St. Andrew, and other parts of Jamaica, had the time of their lives as Lady Molly Huggins was here, there and everywhere hobnobbing with them.
The First Lady's activities were not confined to garden parties at Kings House and tea parties on location. She did her quota of good deeds, holding babies at churches, visiting basic schools sponsored by the Jamaica Save the Children Fund, founded by poet/playwright Una Marson, and generally lending her support to needy and worthy causes. But perhaps her most enduring imprint was the mass weddings she promoted with Lady Allan, Amy Bailey of housecraft-training fame, and others, under the auspices of the Jamaica Federation of Women (JFW). Their rationale was that the proportion of children in Jamaica born out of wedlock, approximately two-thirds, was much too high. They therefore coaxed reluctant lovers - whether therefore in visiting relationships or living together informally - to exchange vows on a wholesale scale.
One day Molly Huggins made the one-kilometre trip along Hope Road to visit us at Half-Way Tree Elementary School and give us a motivational talk, evidently arranged by Edith Dalton-James. As she spoke, a multi-talented boy who was a budding artist named Eddy Thomas, sketched her likeness with pencil and paper. His activity was noted, and after the talk a delighted Molly Huggins accepted the sketch from Eddy and carted it off to Kings House.
When the 1944 academic year began, in January, at the age of eight I was skipped to Junior Sixth, the second highest class in Half-Way Tree Elementary School. Thus in thirteen calendar months since leaving Greenwich Farm Elementary School, I had advanced by four academic years. I was, of course, much smaller than all of my classmates as they were much older than I.
WELL-KNOWN
The Marriotts were well-known in the school community and I was the least visible but the most conspicuous of them. Older children - especially the girls - in the two sixth classes treated me as a favourite toy. They discovered that, as a result of my smallness, I was very adept at weaving my way between larger bodies in Mrs. Foote's "coco bread" shop, progressing from the door to the counter before you could say "one ginger nut". I was favoured, too, by the staff behind the counter. Those factors became an economic asset.
Some of the older, bigger, children who were eager for their food - again, mostly girls - gave me money and their orders. I would therefore make large purchases at the counter and was rewarded for my services in cash and kind. Sometimes I made two or three trips to the counter during the lunch break. My dexterity in Mrs. Foote's shop earned me the nickname "Wormy", as it was reckoned that I wormed my way between the bodies.
The bad little boy in me found expression when Harold Wildish pitched a big tent in Half-Way Tree park to hold a well-publicised crusade there. Together with a number of other bad boys, all much older and bigger, I hung around after school until the worship started shortly before dusk. We placed ourselves in the front row, and when the congregation sang 'Trust and obey', we lustily rendered, "Trust and don't pay. There's no other way, To be happy in Jesus But to trust and don't pay." We returned for a repeat performance on the second evening of the crusade. On the third evening, we were barred from entry by a number of sturdy and well-positioned bouncers.
I then took to song writing, amusing my siblings, cousins and friends by creating my own lyrics - mostly risqué - to marry with well-known melodies, whether traditional Jamaican folksongs or ballads on the American hit charts.
While everyone else dreamt that one day I would be a great barrister like Norman Manley or an accountant prospering from my skill at computation, I was convinced that I would be a jockey riding horses around Knutsford Park. Ever since my introduction to horse-racing on Christmas Day 1942, I was a staunch turfite. I knew which horses were good sprinters and which would stay. I knew the bloodlines of the horses and the records of previous progenies of the sire and the dam: which horses ran well on a wet track and which preferred a firmer footing; which ran better when drawn against the rails and which liked the middle of the track; which colts enjoyed running behind the fillies until they were gelded. I also knew the locations of all the important stables - the headquarters of such trainers as Abbey Grannum, Leo Williams, Billy Pick, Aston Cammock, Millard Ziadie and Silvera.
In addition to Daddy's continuing interest in horse-racing, there was our neighbour Mr. Lee, owner/trainer of Tuxedo and Shell Jacket, giving us tips, and also, very importantly, my Uncle Horace was a professional tipster, having his selections published on The Gleaner sports pages under the pseudonym "Whalebone".
In early 1944, the tide was clearly turning in the Second World War. Amid newspaper headlines reporting the liberation by the Red Army of a great deal of Soviet territory previously occupied by German forces, a convention was held at the Myrtle Bank Hotel on the Kingston waterfront on May 10, to discuss the development of a Jamaican tourism industry after the War, which was still being fiercely fought. The German navy's domination of the Atlantic Ocean was obviously at an end. The long lines of people queueing to buy kerosene at the home of Mr. Barnes, a Justice of the Peace, on East Avenue in Greenwich Farm, had shortened considerably.
As the year grew older, the hunter became the hunted. The allied forces, mainly the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Island, the British Empire and Commonwealth, and the United States of America, launched a mighty offensive on land and sea and in the air against the "axis" forces of Germany, Italy, Japan and their satellite states. By September, Germany, which had previously overrun much of Europe, now found itself desperately fighting for survival in its own cities and villages, as Soviet, British and American forces, operating separately but in concert, closed in on several fronts.
As the allies scented victory the euphoria in Jamaica was interrupted by the advent of a hurricane on Sunday, August 20. Arriving in broad daylight, it was a relatively mild hurricane, but it did enough damage to our home to force us to evacuate it. As the eye was passing, we scurried over to our next-door neighbour's house, carrying a couple of beds with us. We spent the night next-door but by the following morning Daddy was already at work repairing the house in which we lived, and we were back in residence there.
Within a couple of weeks, the colonial Government published advertisements in The Gleaner offering loans for resuscitation and replanting of coconut, citrus, coffee, cocoa and food crops and for reconstruction of buildings.
On Wednesday October 11, 1944, the Legislative Council accepted the final draft of Jamaica's new constitution, but in the debate on the constitution, the People's National Party (PNP), which had fought for this development, came under a blistering attack.
The elected Member for Kingston, Ethelred Erasmus Adolphus Campbell, better known -- understandably - as E.E.A. Campbell, claimed that a document purportedly written by the party's Vice President, Noel "Crab" Nethersole, "shows a sinister and clandestine intention to undermine the very foundation of our existence in the country". The sole PNP Member of the Council, St. Ann's Dr. Ivan Lloyd, objected to Campbell's reading of the document, contending that its authenticity was unsubstantiated and that it was irrelevant to the debate. After Dr. Lloyd was overruled by Governor Sir John Huggins, presiding over the Council, Campbell declared: "One can draw his own conclusion as to the chances the new constitution will have of succeeding with persons like those to operate it. Unity and cooperation with a group like this is in my view absolutely impossible."
At the end of the sitting, the Governor promised that the first election under the new constitution, involving universal adult suffrage, would be held in early December.
The leader of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), Alexander Bustamante, protested against the Governor's refusal to extend voter registration.
Louis Marriott is a journalist and broadcaster, a former BBC producer/presenter and Press Secretary to the Prime Minister of Jamaica.
