Martin Henry
WHEN WE left Kingston for our long Heroes Weekend on Friday afternoon it was already raining. But we had no idea that a late season tropical depression was to become the record-tying 21st named storm and then a full-fledged hurricane with a grudge against Jamaica.
Some work I am participating in doing on the story of the now closed telegraph service takes us back to when telegrams sent to the network of post offices were the fastest means of getting hurricane messages out. The post offices would then fly the hurricane warning flag. The spread of radio ended that warning system. The first domestic telegraph line was run between Kingston and St. Ann's Bay in 1879.
Whether or not the historic Flat Bridge and the Bog Walk Gorge were closed we would have driven a favourite route through the scenic, low traffic hills of West Rural St. Andrew and North-Eastern St. Catherine on to the highway at Bog Walk.
From there, there is no reasonable way around the bottleneck of Mount Rosser/Mount Diablo. The trucks groaning up and down the narrow mountain pass control the traffic. There once was round the island steamer services with stops at nearly two dozen ports. There was a railway service between 1845 and 1992, one of the earliest outside of Europe and North America. The line reached to Montego Bay in 1895 and to Port Antonio the following year.
From Moneague we pushed along what used to be the Great Interior Road, to Brown's Town. The coastal highway was only opened in 1953. The Great Interior Road has its rough patches but is holding up pretty well despite the neglect of one of the world's most dense road networks in favour of building new highways. The sturdy old roads of Jamaica are one of the positive legacies of the colonial past.
Brown's Town is 'home' from a previous life teaching at the community college with Burchell Whiteman as principal.
SURROUNDED BY FREE VILLAGES
High in the Dry Harbour Mountains, in the cozy home of friends, with National Heroes' Day approaching, it strikes me that we are surrounded by free villages: Buxton, Wilberforce, Goshen, Sturge Town, Clarksonville ... St. Ann is exceptionally rich in freedom history. And the parish is the home of that globally great champion of the advancement of the Black race from slavery to greatness, Marcus Garvey, National Hero.
While interviewing Governor-General Sir Howard Cooke for the Walkerswood Community Development story, he made the remark that Garvey was no accident. Sir Howard himself is the product of a free village, Goodwill in Hanover. Walkerswood, on the eastern fringes of the parish of St. Ann, has had a rich story of self-help community development which we are now documenting.
In August 2003, Sir Howard broke ground for the construction of a new Walkerswood Caribbean Foods factory. From long engagement, he sees the roots of Walkerswood Caribbean Foods in the activities for development going back to the upheavals of 1938 and beyond that to the spirit of collaboration between Black ex-slaves and White missionaries in the free villages, in whose establishment the parish of St. Ann led. And back to the work of Garvey, "who," he says, "was no accident, but a product of his time and place in the parish of St. Ann."
Gloria Escoffery, that talented Brown's Town artist and writer, died without realising her dream of a museum which would be a depository of the rich history of the place and a tourist attraction. Perhaps our former boss, Burchell Whiteman, from his current positions and with access to the CHASE Fund and other funds, could help turn that dream into reality.
COMMERCIAL HUBS
We found a town bustling with commercial activity. Brown's Town has become one of those commercial hubs which are overshadowing their parish capitals, and choking on their success from poor urban planning and management.
On National Heroes' Day, while the Governor-General was defying Wilma to bestow National honours on 157 deserving Jamaicans, we were defying her to drive over the backbone of Central Jamaica from Brown's Town to Mandeville; part Cockpit country; all of it beautiful rural Jamaica; Cave Valley; no flooding this time. We had called the police ahead to check the state of the road. The local police can and are willing to help with travel advisories which don't get to media.
Our destination: The Inventors, Researchers and Entrepreneurs (IRAE) Convention and Trade Show at NCU, and a family visit. Wilma had taken her toll. IRAE was thin and the official opening had to be cancelled. Not too many innovators and entrepreneurs get national awards. Perhaps IRAE was sending a hint by opening on National Heroes Day!
Highway 2000 was a smooth and safe drive in the rain on the last leg of the wrap. The roadway is raised which leaves it nicely drained. The flat, in-the-swamp Mandela got drowned on the Kingston to Spanish Town side at Ferry.
Martin Henry is communication specialist.
