- Carlington Wilmot/Freelance Photographer
Inez Blake, married to Wesley Blake (now deceased) is the mother of Wesley Blake Jr. and Robert Blake. She has five grandchildren.Avia Ustanny, Outlook Writer
INEZ BLAKE is a perfectionist. The secretary who in the 1970s was the first to pass the Certified Professional Secretary examination was, in the decade before this, employed to the island's two first national leaders.
A chat with this woman will reveal the high standards which she has always applied to doing her work. Today, she expresses concern about the declining standards of discipline, poor communication and interpersonal skills among working Jamaicans and wishes things were different.
Inez was born in the district of Duckenfield in Clarendon where her parents were shopkeepers.
"I spent a lot of days behind the counter," she recalls.
"The Chinese believed that that was where girls belonged while boys went to school."
Inez, nevertheless was sent to Kingston Technical for secretarial training and joined the civil service in 1951.
By 1953, she was married to Wesley Blake, civil servant - a trained pharmacist and accountant with whom she was to have sons Wesley and Robert.
At the Ministry of Health, she gradually moved up to the chief minister's office where she recalls, "I tried to do my best, not only in performance but also in dress."
Life is a cycle, Mrs. Blake comments in recollection. She had met Alexander Bustamante in the days when she was a child. She remembers when she was in Duckenfield, the men standing on the piazza in front of her father's shop in a meeting of the Sugar Workers' Union.
"Among them was Alexander Busatmante who I then thought was quite an exciting person."
In the civil service, she was eventually promoted to working with the Chief himself.
Colourful letter writer
Working for Bustamante "involved some challenges but one learnt to adapt, adjust and not get involved in politics as such." Inez recalls.
Bustamante, she said, was a dynamic personality and a colourful letter writer. He was always well groomed too. Inez Blake met Miss Gladys Longbridge (Lady Bustamante) who was his private secretary and who she recalls was "very nice and approachable".
As a boss, she said, Sir Alexander Bustamante was very sympathetic. "When I was pregnant he would say, 'Go home and rest', telling others, 'She is in a very delicate condition.' "
Inez Blake started working with Norman Washington Manley after the PNP won the election in 1953.
"Norman was a workaholic. Even on Saturdays he would be working. NW, he was focused on achieving, on getting things done."
She later left the job because she was expecting her second son, moving on later to the Ministry of Education where the pace was slower and worked with Eli Matalon, Minister of State.
Red tape
"Matalon did not believe in red tape," Inez Blake recalls. He wanted everything done immediately.
When Howard Cooke, now governor-general, became the minister of education, she also worked with this man, who she said was a scholar with an excellent vocabulary. It was Sir Howard Cooke who encouraged the local secretaries' association to import the Certified Professional Secretaries programme.
It was then a six-part, two-day examination involving office procedures, economics, behaviour science, accounts and management. Students also had to take shorthand and typing.
In the first year that the international examination was brought in, Inez Blake was the only one who passed, subsequently, others have done well. Today, Jamaica is ranked fourth in the world in terms of members of CPA graduates.
Changed
Looking at the modern role of the secretary, Inez Blake comments, "Everything has changed, even the office. It is exciting and now so easy.
"In the good old days, budget time was trouble. If one line had to be changed, the entire document had to be done over. One had to walk from department to department to get information. Now you can just lift the telephone or send an email. With the Internet, networking information is so easy.
"Even the name of the secretary's association has changed to include administrative professionals. Now you are an information gatherer and also offer management support..
The CPA is also a stepping stone to management courses and can be used as qualification for university courses."
According to Mrs. Blake, compared to the old days, secretaries are also much better paid now "with all sorts of allowances". "Formerly, she was rated no higher than the typist who also got coffee. Now she is seen as a part of the management team."
And, speaking about the challenge of developing interpersonal and communication skills that many Jamaicans face, she noted: "I always get along with everybody, from the messengers right up. People used to wonder how I got my stencils rolled so quickly. I made sure that the guy who was responsible for doing this always felt good about doing it for me."
Inez Blake says that she has always been committed to self-improvement and every secretary should be too. "As old as I am, I am still reading. Her husband, Wesley Blake she said, inspired her, as he was a scholar and was always reading.
Wesley Blake, their first son, is now a project manager at the National Works Agency and Robert Blake is a chemical technical expert at the Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica.
Cancer
Wesley Blake Sr., died in 1993 from cancer, a time of great sadness for Inez.
But she has bounced back with quiet aplomb. Blake who was 77 in June 23, 2005, still lectures at R And B training institute in Kingston in office administration and technology.
She says that she keeps her brain active by reading and is dedicated to her potted plants. Inez Blake, grandmother to five, still sews her own clothes too.
Active for decades in developing the secretarial role as a profession in Jamaica, she is now also an honorary member of the Caribbean Association of Secretaries and an affiliate of the International Association of Administrative Professionals.
She may be too old, she says to return to the mainstream, but there is still lots that she can do.
