Stephen Vasciannie | Jamaica at five months

Purely as a matter of serendipity, I came across some Gleaner newspapers for January 1963. Before the public Trump. Before the public Putin. Months after the Cuban missile crisis. No smartphones, no Internet, but mice with feet. One from the Federal ten left nought, and you could buy a car for the price of today’s lobster patty. Independent Jamaica was five months old.

THE EXPERIMENT

Sir Clifford Campbell, governor general, struck a patriotic note at the Wolmer’s prize-giving ceremony in early 1963. His Excellency, Her Majesty’s ceremonial representative, remarked that his appointment, as the first native to this most senior position, was “an experiment”, and with God’s help he would see that it would not fail. His Excellency added that it was “the sacred duty” of Jamaicans to live for and develop the country to the best of their ability.

The students at Wolmer’s Girls must have respected this ethos, for in January 1963 at prize-giving, the authorities there reported in glowing terms on school successes in various academic and extracurricular pursuits: one could almost anticipate the arrival of a Shelly-Ann from this milieu. But, Dr Ludlow Moody, who spoke at the end of the Wolmer’s event, had his own style. According to The Gleaner, the doctor “offered special congratulations to such students as had the courage to be lazy in such a busy school”. Shades of Bertrand Russell’s ‘In Praise of Idleness’?

MINIMUM COST

The laudable successes of John Wolmer’s inheritors were not, however, the only eye-catching educational items. On January 22, 1963, in front page glory, The Gleaner reported ‘PM to Set Up Committee: More and Cheaper Schools its Aim: Maximum Results at Minimum Cost Sought’. Primary schools were in short supply, especially in the Corporate Area. Cabinet considered this problem, it seems, from 11 a.m. to 3:45 p.m., with PM Bustamante and his colleagues instructing that Edwin Allen, minister of education, should give “close study” to the issue with “his top staff”. The minimum cost approach may be an element of continuity between Jamaica in Years One and 63, though maximum results remain elusive.

The Gleaner’s book review section in the second week of January concentrated on two sequels. One, under the title, Paid Servant, was the follow-up to E.R. Braithwaite’s highly successful, To Sir, With Love. While To Sir, With Love, which was about the problems encountered by a black teacher at a tough school in East London, Paid Servant placed the former teacher within the London County Council’s child welfare system. There, he was expected to rescue “West Indian” children in need. The book reviewer, George Panton, was unquestionably more impressed with “Sir” in his teaching capacity than in his role of welfare worker. Both books, however, featured life for the Windrush Generation well before Linton Kwesi Johnson characterised “Inglan” in canine terms.

CAST IN SHADE

The second book reviewed, Science and Government by C.P. Snow, was a follow-up to Snow’s influential work on the two cultures of science and government in which the author bemoaned the fact that technical scientists and policymakers schooled in the humanities existed in sharply different and separate worlds, often with negative consequences. Snow’s plea for greater cross-fertilisation in education and career development casts shade on initiatives among certain tertiary-level venture capitalists who fail to appreciate that STEM projects always need steam. Even a cursory glance at the literary and historical offerings at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology today should bring this point home.

His Excellency Sir Clifford had implied positive and deference for the British in his comment on the Jamaican experiment. This attitude was multiplied manifold by Conrad Hunte, famous West Indian cricket opener and sometime vice-captain to Sir Frank ‘Tae’ Worrell. Hunte, who was morally armed and rearmed, was asked to expound on Britain. His response, in the January 20, 1963, paper might make today’s reparationists squirm: “I love Britain. Her rule in the past was great, and I believe her destiny in world affairs is still greater in the years to come.”

40 YEARS OF LEADERSHIP

Three other political matters caught my attention. First, the USA announced that it planned to cut off foreign aid to countries whose ships carry goods to Cuba (The Gleaner, January 12, 1963). Second, Sir Alexander, ever so faithfully with the West, declared that the words “nationalise” and “expropriate” were “mischievous” because, as was well known, his government stood strongly opposed to measures and principles like these” (January 23). Implications directed at his cousin Norman, the socialist?

Third, Edward Seaga, the minister of development and welfare, tossed a stern warning at sports associations which retained “old and time-worn social barriers”, saying that such prejudiced associations could lose government funding. Mr Seaga continued: “If I functioned as minister with the constitution of some of these associations, I would be in power for 40 years; yet these are the same associations that accuse me of being undemocratic.”

IN THE DITCH

Then there were issues of culture. One writer, Mr Patrick Leach, affirmed that “our vehicle drivers” had “improved noticeably”. Remarking that nine-tenths of our bus and truck drivers “are most courteous and skilled”, he recalled an unspecified early time when these drivers routinely commandeered the middle of the road, forcing other vehicles “into the ditch”, unless your vehicle had “greater bulldozer potential”. Bread vans and furniture vans remained as the “big culprits”; so, pantechnicons were criticised but taximetered cabriolets went unmentioned. O tempora, o mores!

ABOUT COUNTRY PARTS

Culture also touched on urban/rural issues. One headline was quaint, referring summarily to ‘Death in Country Parts’. Another, under the slightly more sophisticated title of ‘Happenings in Rural Areas’, noted that a baptismal service had been held: the editorial decision to include one baby’s baptism speaks volumes about priorities in 1963. It may be noted, en passant, that the juxtaposition of these two headlines implied that “country parts” are different – in at least metaphysical terms -- from “rural areas”.

Matters in court were also featured and help us to appreciate changing realities. Some headlines spoke for themselves: ‘One Jailed, Another Freed for Truck Tyre Theft’ (13 months at hard labour for the guilty); ‘Man Off Radio Theft Charge’; and ‘Decree Nisi Not Granted’ (but private business exposed). At the same time, a named defendant picked up 12 months incarceration for “pocket picking”, with another collecting six months for possession of ganja. The Resident Magistrate’s Court kept journalists very busy, then as now.

BLIND PROVOCATION

On a more serious level, The Gleaner of January 19 indicated – somewhat curiously – ‘Blind Man for Trial on Murder Charge’. The blind man had allegedly stabbed and killed his 37-year-old wife, a mother of five children. There had been marital troubles and the blind man, who had also thrown a stick at his wife after she said she had “no use for no man”, claimed in his defence that he was being “provoked”. One alleged witness in this sad episode maintained that the accused was “blind in the morning but can see in the evenings”. Presumably this was not a case of night blindness – though the eye condition acted counter-intuitively against the adage that “wha gone bad a mawning can’t come good a evening”. The murder must have been done in the evening.

HUSBAND TO BE

Finally, love was in the air in regional and international parts. Under the heading, ‘A Husband for Shirley?’, The Gleaner’s Trinidad correspondent reported on a letter written by a young lady apparently from Port of Spain to Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah, asking the executive president to get her a hubby.

Nkrumah was yet to respond, but an officer in the Ghanian foreign affairs ministry sought to foster his own foreign affair with Shirley, responding: “I should be grateful if you would let me know your views (on my proposal), then I can write a more lovely and sweet letter”, signed “Your husband to be”. As of January 13, 1963, Shirley was considering the proposal. Barkis was willing.

Such was the state of Jamaica after five months of independence, as noticed by The Gleaner, then at the age of 129 years.

Stephen Vasciannie is professor of International Law, University of the West Indies, Mona. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com