Growing up in Jamaica
Patricia Smith recalls growing up in Jamaica and a rash experiment…
Iwas five years old when my family moved to the village of Glengoffe in St Catherine, Jamaica in 1944. I loved my school, which was called Grateful Hill. The Headmaster lived at the top of the hill above the school, and each morning we all gathered to watch as this small man with the big personality descended slowly and majestically down the path in his brilliant white suit and Panama hat, twirling a Malacca cane.
My two best friends were Cherry and William and we were always looking for something exciting to do during the school holidays. William’s family all smoked and he suggested we try that. Stupidly we agreed.
We improvised using rolled-up bits of old newspaper and a stolen box of matches. In our secret hiding place, we made ourselves heartily sick for a few days with this horrid pastime until the novelty wore off. Unluckily for me, there was a price to pay as I developed several ulcers inside my mouth. Of course, I dared not tell my mother what I thought might have caused them…
Before long I became feverish and Mama took me to see the lovely, ruddy-faced, blue-eyed Dr Gideon with his mass of curly white hair, who I adored. He looked into my mouth and, this being the days before antibiotics,he simply advised my mother to continue with the salt-water mouthwash.
So there was I on my ninth birthday, in bed, thoroughly miserable and unable to eat. My so-called friends paid a brief visit, but they were more interested in tucking into my birthday cake, while I struggled to swallow some lukewarm chicken soup. They barely stopped by my bed to say goodbye! I was so upset, but my darling Mama comforted me.
After two weeks and gallons of salt-water mouthwash, my mouth was back to normal. In later years of course, Penicillin would have done the job far more quickly!
My father was the Sergeant in charge of the local police station and we rented a house from a lovely widowed lady, Miss Lilian. She was one of three sisters, all of whom had a disability. They lived in a large ramshackle house up a hill from us. Miss Lilian was blind, Miss Irene had badly bowed legs and Miss Vera had a pronounced hunch. They were an oddlooking threesome, but in fact they were the loveliest
A whole new world had opened up to me – Shakespeare, classical music, a library; I learned Spanish and even Latin at one point
ladies I could have wished for and they took me under their wing.
I was an only child and visited them often as they were great fun. Like my mother, they were keen on education and tested me on all manner of subjects. The added bonus was that they were also great bakers, so I was well supplied with bulla cakes – made with molasses – and gizzadas, a sweet filled pastry.
Miss Irene was also a great storyteller. Many a time I sat
on a clippie mat at her feet as she told duppy (ghost) stories. The one that scared the living daylights out of me was the Rolling Calf. This is a legend in Jamaican countryside culture and is a throwback to the days of slavery and our African ancestors. These calf-like creatures, with fiery red eyes and dragging a heavy chain, had evil intentions and were said to block the way of night-time travellers. There were whispered stories of people who, having encountered them, returned home in a trance-like state, unable to speak for days.
Mama’s ambition for me was always to ‘broaden my horizons’ and so when I was 11, I was sent to boarding school in the capital, Kingston. Wolmer’s High School for Girls was one of the most prestigious in Jamaica, although my father had his doubts about my fitting in, incorrectly perceiving it to be a school for ‘white people’s children’.
Mind you, it was a bit of a culture shock. From my cosy home life and a village primary school, I was thrust into a large secondary school with maybe 200 girls. I missed my parents terribly and at first cried myself to sleep at night, but I soon got into the swing of things. A whole new world had opened up to me – Shakespeare, classical music, a library; I learned Spanish and even Latin at one point.
Five years later in 1956, I graduated with my prized Cambridge School Certificate in eight subjects. We were then living in Kingston and I got a Civil Service job for five pounds a week. I was going to do make my darling mother proud, but sadly, she died shortly after. I was devastated, but at least she had seen me take the first few steps towards broadening my horizons. In 1961, aged 22, I left Jamaica for a new life in England.