Hartley Neita

I discovered this week that one of my grandsons loves to hear "old-time story". He has already stretched the memory of his mother and father many a day asking them about their days as children.

Three nights ago, it was my turn. For his parents it was not too far for him to leap back in time. But after five minutes of questioning me about my early years, the customs of life then, the games we played as children, and what we did for entertainment at nights - the answer being we went to bed at eight - it was beyond reality for him.

We did not have electricity. So there was no refrigerator. If we bought ice cream we had to eat it right away. Beef and pork and mutton bought in the morning was cooked and eaten before nightfall. Oh yes, there was an icebox, but that depended on whether the ice truck came by the district. Otherwise, water for drinking was kept in a clay container called a monkey jar; the water was cool, but never cold.

We did not have telephones. Neither cellphones! What was that?

My mother hailed our nearest neighbour first thing each day.

"Lo Miss Ruby".

"Hi, Miss Abbie, how you do?"

If you wanted to talk to anyone else you went walking to their home. Communicating outside the village was by letter, postcard or telegram. Everyone gathered at the Post Office in the early evening after the train passed by and left the mail. It was one of the community meeting places - the others were the church, the school, the market and the cricket ground.

The kitchen and the toilet were in an outbuilding away from the house. The kitchen was black from the smoke of years. The toilet was the latrine. It had no light and if you used it after dark you carried a lamp to light the little room. There was no toilet paper then. The Gleaner was torn into squares and hung on a nail. Before you used each piece of paper you rubbed it between your palms to soften it. Oh yes, it worked.

Each bed in the house had an enamel bowl which had different names. The two which would have been approved by Minister Holness were podie and chimmie.

There was no radio. No television. No CD player. No radiogram.

Instead, we had a gramophone, which played recordings of songs by Bing Crosby, Deanna Durbin, Perry Como and Dick Haymes. We also had an organ and the first things we learned to play were hymns. Maybe that is why I wanted to become a parson.

At the end of my remembrances, my grandson was silent for a long while. Then he left to go to sleep. But before, he went to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator and poured himself a glass of ice-cold juice.