Heather Robinson
TODAY WE celebrate the 80th anniversary of the birth of Michael Manley, second President of the People's National Party and Jamaica's fourth Prime Minister. In remembering him today, I want to relate a few memories that I think demonstrate the totality of his personality and the passion with which he lead the People's National Party.
Michael Manley was "Michael" to all of us in the People's National Party. To his face we called him "Comrade Leader" and whenever we spoke about him, we called him and still call him "Michael". He was never "Mr. Manley". So it was not very surprising that somewhere about 1987 when he received an envelope with an invitation to a Party fundraiser addressed to "Mr. Michael Manley", he responded by insisting that whoever had written the invitation was disrespecting him. "Mr. Manley", he said was his dead father, and he should be addressed as "Comrade Leader", "Comrade Michael Manley", "Joshua" or plain "Michael".
After many minutes of expressing his disgust with the way the invitation was addressed, we agreed that the writer of the invitation should apologise. He was gracious in accepting the apology from the comrade who had written the invitation.
Michael Manley was the second of two sons to his parents Norman and Edna Manley. At the time of his mother's death in February 1987 they were living as next door neighbours. In true Michael style he set up a committee to plan the funeral. At the first meeting held at his Drumblair home, he assigned tasks to all present.
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One of the tasks involved determining exactly and precisely how many persons could be seated in the Kingston Parish Church. And not only the total number but how many in each pew. He looked in the direction where Dawnett Turner and myself were sitting and instructed us to proceed forthwith to the Kingston Parish Church armed with graph paper where we were to sit yes literally sit and count using our bodies the exact number of persons the church could seat. Members of the Kingston Parish Church will tell you that all the benches there are not of equal length, and they do not all face the altar from the same direction.
Having completed our seat count we had to draw a diagram of the church, label each pew with the number that could be seated and present our draughtsman's-like document to Michael. He was very pleased with our finished product and proceeded to begin to personally assign seats.
During the years 1983 to 1989 the PNP was just a political party and not the opposition as the PNP under Michael's leadership had decided to boycott the snap elections later termed the bogus elections and therefore had no representatives in Parliament. The PNP maintained its voice in Jamaica through the use of a monthly " People's Forum" and, of course, the Party's annual conference.
He was a generous man with an exceptionally big heart, who on more than one occasion mortgaged his home to finance the Party's annual conference. I can remember him securing the proceeds from the fund-raising section of the conference inside the deep confines of his bedroom closet, to take to the bank the next morning, to repay the loan he had personally received.
Many of us who grew up politically under the leadership of Michael Manley will never forget him. I can see him now trying to go under the head table at a function at the Jamaica Pegasus as I introduced him. He later explained that he did not know the person about whom I spoke. But we knew him and loved him for the care that he always exhibited; for scaling the fence at PNP headquarters when there was no one there to open the gate; for giving us a university education; for wearing a suit for the first time in 1987/88; and for all the good things that he has done for Jamaica and for allowing us to embrace his passion as we embraced him. Michael you will always "feel good".
Heather Robinson is a life underwriter and a former
Member of Parliament.
