These are the recollections of country life in Jamaica as told to our late Archivist, Ken Dixon, in 1990. Mrs. Chambers returned to live in Jamaica in 1993 but became ill and died towards the end of 1994. It was Ken Dixon’s wish that these recollections be reproduced and the Brixton Society is happy to make them available for all those interested in recollections of times past.

A Jamaican Girlhood

I was born in 1922, the youngest of a family of five brothers and three sisters. We lived in the country, about three miles from the market town of Lluidas Vale in the Parish of St. Catherine and about nineteen miles north-west of Kingston.

My father had a large farm but it was in separate parts and he owned all these separate parcels of land. Our “village” was a large area called the District of Tophill. There was no village street and the houses were spread out over the countryside. Our farmhouse was a big bungalow made of timber and board and roofing shingles - all local wood. There was wattle and daub between the walls. It stood up well to the weather. Underneath was a large cellar where we stored all the crops and other materials. We had gravel “parochial” roads then but now there are main roads.

Our part of the country was hilly. Blue skies with views of the Blue Mountains at the east end of the island. Plenty of green trees but some Autumn tints. It is a little cool in December and January but never cold. There is some rain throughout the year, especially in summer and in October and November.

We had no servants and a lot of the work in house and farm was done by us children. We started at the age of about five with the simplest jobs, working in groups with older children. One early morning job was fetching water and filling all the pots in the house. Water was got from local springs but in a rainless season you might have to go to the river. Younger children would fetch water in gourds or calabash shells. Older ones would use buckets or kerosene tins which were sometimes slung across donkeys. Besides serving as bottles, gourds could be cut into two to serve for plates. And a hollowed out gourd with gravel in it could be used as a shaker for song or dance.

Other daily jobs were feeding pigs or fowl and un-tethering goats or cows to lead them to fresh grazing patches. Or going a half a mile looking for horses or donkeys. All these jobs had to be done before we went to school in the morning.

There was also lighting wood fires for cooking, and making tea. Sometimes you could cover the burning wood at night with ash to keep it smouldering until morning.

There was no school on Friday afternoons and two jobs we children had to do every Friday afternoon or Saturday were fetching wood and washing clothes. You would either saw wood or pick up discarded logs. The best wood was what we called “cockpit” - hard cedar; for a good blaze you used candle-wood. Each week you went down to the river for bathing and clothes washing. Washing was done by women and children. Neighbours would carry up supplies of water from springs for disabled people so they could bathe in tubs at home. There is still no piped water in these homes but there is now a public standpipe near the houses. Some people still prefer the river.

My school was a church of England school in one building serving Tophill. It averaged about 250 children. School started at 9.00 a.m. It was strict but good. Every morning teacher inspected hair, teeth and nails for cleanliness. Nails included toenails for children who had no shoes. In the morning you had your sing in and said your morning prayers. At 12 you sang for letting out. You came back at 1 p.m. and sang in, and in the evening you had your sing and said your prayer out. There was very good teaching. Class sizes were about 20-25. I started school when I was six or seven; I left at sixteen. As soon as we went to school we learned our ABC and our times tables - you had to know these by heart. You had different teachers for different subjects. We learned sewing and played cricket, netball and rounders.

Sunday was a day of quiet and rest. No unnecessary work was done and there were no noisy activities. After washing, the day started with morning prayers in the sitting hall at which my father read and prayed. After breakfast we went to church - this was a stone and timber building with bell tower - Church of England. After dinner there might be visiting, talk and quiet play.

Discipline at home was strict. In our community discipline was enforced not just by our parents but by all the family. The best gifts I had from my dad were manners, discipline and principles.

My father had a bedroom at home which was reserved for any benighted traveller who found himself with nowhere to sleep. The room was always ready with jugs and basins of fresh water for drinking and washing, and a supply of firewood. There were even special fruit trees outside the house for the traveller’s own use - we were not allowed to touch them. Any wandering traveller in the neighbourhood would be directed to “Mr Rodney’s house”.

After I left school I worked on the farm. There was little machinery and a lot of workers. We all helped. If men were doing a morning job we would take tea to them in the field. A man who was working under a contract would look after himself but if you ask men to come and work for you and they come willingly you cook for them. There was no difficulty getting men to work for you. When they needed help on their own farms you would go and work for them. You all worked hand in hand. You didn’t only work your own farm; you lent a helping hand to others.

Coffee was picked off the tree. When it was dried and come to perfection you threshed it by beating it with what we called a mortar stick. The bowl was usually made of cedar wood hollowed out to the shape you wanted and the stick had a head to fit the bowl. The stick had to be heavy or it would not thresh the coffee. You blew the thresh out like you would for wheat or rice.

Coffee, cocoa and pimento were a big part of our economy. And anatto. That is the juice from the berries of a tree. When the berry is ripe you squeeze it and take the part inside the seeds. It is very ripe and that makes the colouring. It was exported though I guess they use it in Jamaica as well. It gives an orange colour in cooking, like curry. Those four crops came in July and August so it was a very big production. Cocoa might come other times as well.

Bananas came all the year round and there were lots of shipments. Yams came in stages, some ripening one month and some the next. We grew sweetcorn which was sown in March and April and ripened in October.

Nothing from the coconut tree was wasted. The boughs were used to make sheds. The trunk was burned for fuel. The jelly-like young coconut made tender food. Every part of the dry nut was used. The water from it made a sweet drink. The shell could be sent to the factory for chipping so as to make mattress stuffing. Or it could be burnt at home because it gave a lot of heat. The hard inside of the
nut would be grated. You squeeze out the milk, strain it and put it in a pot on the fire. It boils down to oil which could be used for hair or for cooking or for burning in a lamp. The solid nut could be used to flavour cake. A lot of coconut in Jamaica was later destroyed by disease. After some replanting a smaller coconut has been produced. The coconut trees used to be very high and not all girls could climb them.

In my time people bought clay pipes but men used also to make short pipes out of bamboo. Women as well as men used to smoke pipes - not cigarettes. About half the people in our district smoked.

We grew tobacco on our farm. It was sown in autumn and came up in summer. You made rows and planted between them, but you had to weed all the time. You would go through it and “bud” it to prevent it from seeding early; you took out seed pods so that it could spread out and what was left would be healthy. I think there was money in it because we sold the crop each year. When it was mature you cut it and left it in the sun to dry. Then you would hang it by string in the barn like you cure bacon. When it was dry it was taken down and you got women to strip the leaf off the stalk and you selected the quality - there were two qualities, one for pipe smoking and one for wrapping cigars. You pressed the leaf down under weights into big boxes or barrels, leaving it damp and cool for several months. Then you took it out, weighed it and bagged it for selling. Some of the tobacco sellers to local people used to “twist” the tobacco like a rope and carry it around and sell it by the yard. They made cigars in their own factories. At that time you got the natural tobacco. I don't think tobacco is so largely cultivated in Jamaica today.

Cricket bats were made from any tough wood like cedar. Cricket balls were made from the hard root of cedar or bamboo. Oranges or limes were used as balls in a game something like rounders played without a bat.

You had to work all the time on the farms. The poorer farmers had to sell their crops as soon as they were ready for whatever they were offered for them - the cane, mango, oranges, dates, grapefruit, banana. People with bigger farms didn’t go to market so often with their goods. You suffered with bad harvests like everywhere else. There was little crop disease because the farmers would go through their fields and prime the trees. There was nothing you could do about birds eating the fruit. We didn’t organise shoots. When a bird was shot it was just to provide a meal.

In our district everyone produced all the things for themselves. My father-in-law used to tan cowskin and goatskin to make leather for our village shoemakers who made and repaired shoes. People who were poorer - grownups and children - did not usually wear shoes around the village. My father-in-law also sawed timber for walls and doors and cedarwood for shingling. This was stored and seasoned until needed by a customer for building.

I never did a lot of travelling at home. I only travelled into Kingston. We went on foot or by donkey or mule cart along the gravel roads to Lluidas Vale. From there we would go by my brother’s truck or bus. Another way was to go by donkey to Ewarton and then by a big steam train to Spanish Town and Kingston. The railway was discontinued a few years ago but the track is still there.

Lluidas Vale was thickly populated because the cane sugar estate was there. The town had metalled roads that any traffic could use. A lot of white people lived there; at Tophill we were all black. Lluidas Vale was the town where we could go each week for shopping and to collect our mail at the post office counter.
Visiting relatives were always welcome at home. They would bring gifts of food or other things we didn’t have. They gave and they got. When they left, the host would give them parting gifts of things he had but which they didn’t. When we were children we enjoyed these visits for another reason - the grownups were so busy talking that we were left free to do whatever we wanted.

Wedding receptions took place at the home because there were no public halls. Guests would bring their gifts. One might give a goat; another might give a pig; or money if they had it. Everybody would help with the wedding or provide what was needed. Unless it was raining the reception took place outside the house. People would build up the booth outside, erect coconut boughs and put up the flowers.

If there was a death in the house it was the practice for friends and neighbours to come and keep company with the relatives of the dead. For nine nights they would sleep in the house or camp outside on boards. There would be something going on day and night - singing, playing cards or dominoes - so that the bereaved were never alone. The visitors brought supplies of coffee, food or whatever with them. Togetherness!

We had a lot of music. People played guitars, violins, small “flutes” which were
home-made bamboo pipes, mouth organs. Drums were made of goatskin. We had organs with windbags. The people were singers, most of them not needing sheet music. Hymn singing was popular - indoors and outdoors.

My father was a very busy man. Besides his large farm he had a shop in Tophill and one in Lluidas Vale. He had four houses in Kingston which he used to let out. He was a justice of the peace and used to sit as a magistrate in Linstead. People used to come to him for advice.

One day he had to attend court in Spanish Town as a juror. Sitting next to him in the train was a lady, a stranger, who told him that she had to appear in court. Her child had died and she had been charged with manslaughter. She told him the whole story. She had two children and was bathing one of them. Then the other child ran out on to the road. She left the one in the bath and ran out to protect the other. When she got back she found the baby drowned. My father said that when the lady was in court and saw her fellow passenger sitting in the jury box she changed colour. Luckily my father was made foreman of the jury. Under his leadership the jury found her not guilty. After the case was finished the lady ran out looking for him to thank him. But my father told me there was nothing to thank him for because what the jury found was the truth.

My father died in 1942. Under his will his estate was divided between his sons and daughters. This is what was usually done on the island. So I now had my own farm. He also left me one of his houses in Kingston. I let the house until about ten years ago when there were troubles in Kingston and people were taking over
houses where the owners were not living in them. As I was over here and couldn’t manage, I sold it.

The farm I inherited had its own house but I let the house and continued to live in the house that had been my father’s.

I was married in 1950 and soon after that we rented a house about three to four miles away in Crosphill, which is in Clarendon Parish. This house had a shop where we sold everything. I also did sewing. Dressmaking was a big occupation in the villages. Material was imported but was made up by women in the home. They did not have to rely on printed patterns but worked freehand. Some, but not all, used sewing machines. Some people could make up a shirt by hand overnight.

There were three other shops in the village; they were general grocer shops. There was a lot of work but it was not very prosperous all the time because when the harvests are poor your customers haven't a lot of money and you do not make a lot from selling. You have to give credit. You trust them until their next crop comes on and then they pay you. A lot of this was done. But it is not very profitable because instead of using your shop takings you have to use your capital.

When we were living over the shop my husband used to go over by foot or donkey to work my farm with the help of a neighbour. But as I have said, making a smaller farm pay is harder than running a large farm. You often need cash and if you haven’t got a big farm you don’t have a big turnover. The farm carries you so far but not the full way. At the time I was very busy with my shop and wasn’t getting on with my sewing. We then had five
children. So when we understood everybody was coming to England to work we decided to come over.

People didn’t sell their farms when they came over here. I still have the land and it is still being farmed. If you ever want to go back to the old place you still have your house.

I decided I would do sewing when we came to England. I don’t think my husband had decided what he would do until he came over. At the time we thought we would be in England for about five years while we made some money. I think a lot of people felt the same way. Of course some people did go back sooner, and some are going back today. We came over in 1956. My husband flew over first. His brother-in-law got a room for us in the house where he lived in Almeric Road off Battersea Rise. Leaving the children with my mother-in-law I flew over to join him in a hot and hazy July. I had never left Jamaica before: Heathrow was a terrifying place to me.

For a few months I did sewing in a belt factory in Aldgate East until I became pregnant. I came to Brixton to be with my sister who had a house in Concanon Road off Acre Lane. Having two children born in London we bought a house in Flaxman Road near Loughborough Junction in 1960.

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