A JAMAICAN CHILDHOOD - PT.5

By way of recalling his account of his Jamaican children, or, more accurately, his childhood in his native Jamaica, Shaka continues to give an account of the significance of some of the villagers in helping to shape his life, as he and his brothers continue to make their way to the hills above their village.

 Just opposite the school is the second of the 3  public stand pipes serving the village, including the pupils from the school.  As they made their way up the sloping hill, Shaka and his brothers passed the little occasional Ice Cream and Snowball parlour just to their right.  This parlour constituted a small timber and zinc roofed building, with  a saw-dust insulated ice box, and selves for the different flavoured syrup to make the snow-balls. 

The owner of the shop was a young man who had a bicycle, one of only a few in the village, which made it a prized possession. He is a man for whom Shaka has a lot of regards, as, at Shaka's mother request, this man lent his bicycle to Shaka, when he was still a novice rider, to ride it to Seaforth, which was about 3 or 4 miles away. Shaka recalled that he had an accident with the bike, causing the front wheel to buckle.

Behind this parlour,was a two-story ‘long house’, with a verandah at the front of the top floor, where a friend of Shaka, David, and his family, and others lived.  

David was a short, stocky and pugnacious teenager, who was not averse to fighting and throwing his weight around, as it were, something which Shaka himself, on occasions, had been at the sharp end of. Opposite the Ice Cream and Snowball shop was the home of the only family in the village who Shaka remembered as having a gramophone. It was here that Shaka first saw and heard records playing.

Having passed the school, Shaka and his brothers made their way up the now steeper road to a T junction, with the third grocery shop (Miss Agatha’s), and the Church of God Church, on their right, and the right branch of the road leading towards the homes of several villages, and back to Shaka’s home, should they wished to take that route on their way back.

One memorable account that Shaka has of Miss Agatha, is that the family had a trait for some of them to have an extra finger on their hands.

Shaka recalled that The Church of God was memorable for its devotees ‘getting into the spirit’ and ‘talking in tongues’, when they were ‘moved by the holly spirit.’ The Church was also a place where the young men and boys of the village would go on nights when they were having meetings, to see and chat up the girls and young women, after they left the church.

Shaka recalled attending his paternal grandmother's funeral in a lonely wooded spot several hundred yards behind the church, and how the some of the men, while the coffin was still at the family's home, under the Palm tree, had lifted up and passed him and his younger sister and brother over the coffin. This was apparently some kind of tradition to prevent the spirit of the dead person interfering with them and harming them.

Continuing on their way, Shaka and his brothers, took the left fork of the road towards  Jajall, passing last shop and the adjoining dance hall where sound systems would  play when the owner was  having a dance. These dances would usually include some gambling, such as ‘Crown and Anchor’, and, on a few occasions, a visiting Magician. Further along the road, on the right,  they passed the home of their cousins, the Powells. 

The Powells were related to Shaka and his brothers through their father. The Powell children were considered as being very bright, and the oldest son, W, had a gift for making toy trucks which were mobile and could be drawn with a string. Shaka’s recollection of the Powells was that he saw them as being in a different and higher league from his family, with very little contact between the two families.

Continuing on their journey towards the hills, Shaka and his brothers travelled parallel to the Johnson River, passing the hydro electric dam and power station on their left, just after passing the high swing bridge traversing the river, and then made their way some distance parallel to the river, with its beautiful scenery, before they turned off to the right and began their ascent into the hills. 

By the time they reached the abandoned plantation, it was time for them to relax and have their lunch, after which they explored the area and carefully dug out what provisions they could find, placed them into their crocus bags and began the descent from the mountainous hills, arriving back home in the late evening.



Shaka recalled that the family would store some of the yams they found, and sell and give away some of the rest to neighbours. The family would also make some money from picking and drying the mature pimentos, which would be sold to travelling buyers who would visit the village in a truck, during the reaping season.

The house in which ~Shaka and his family lived.