Independence celebrations 1962 - Part 2

Lance Neita, Contributor

Her Royal Highness The Princess Margaret opened the first Independence Parliament on Tuesday, August 7, in the midst of a hectic five days of activities following her arrival on August 3. The next day she boarded the Royal Coach accompanied by her husband Lord Snowden for a train ride which took them through the winding hills of inner Jamaica and the cockpit country and ended with a civic reception in Charles Square, Montego Bay.

By then the focus had shifted to rural Jamaica where the festivities and jubilation matched whatever had been taking place in Kingston on the official calendar.

The organisers had taken care to ensure that the ordinary districts would be not be left out, and activities were organised by Sugar Welfare and the Jamaica Social Welfare in over 1,000 villages islandwide.

Large turnout

From Beacon Hill in St Thomas to Mt Airy in Westmoreland, people danced and sang to digging songs, quadrille, kumina, jonkannu, ring games, and maypole. They enjoyed boat regattas, donkey races, domino, bonfires, cricket, boxing, street dancing, curry goat, speech festivals and drama presentations.

Rains could not diminish the enthusiasm of the 8,000 persons who turned up at Mandeville's Brooks Park on Sunday night, August 5, for the formal occasion. The function included speeches from Custos R. Williams, MHRs Winston Jones and Ernest Peart, and Mayor Cecil Charlton.

Just down the road at Porus, some 2,000 attended the religious services led by Rev Neville DeSouza and Rev E.A. Ritchie-Haughton.

Above Rocks in St Mary celebrated the day with foot and sack races, grease pig and pole climbing. Miss Lilly Wall was declared "Miss Above Rocks" and sent on her way to Spanish Town to vie for the parish title.

The Falmouth Jaycees organised a one-half mile float which curved through Duncans, Sherwood, Clarks Town, Duanvale, Bunkers Hill, Deeside and Wakefield, culminating in a grand fair at Hague. Later in the evening, Trelawny's custos, Val Parnell, led a crowd of young and old in dancing the mash potato and twist or to calypso and rock and roll music at Water Square.

St Elizabeth drew the largest rural crowd with some 25,000 turning out at Pepper to watch a 30ft diameter bonfire and join in the Byron Lee dance party organised by Kaiser Bauxite.

Back in Kingston, it was entertainment around the clock as a series of roadside concerts toured the Corporate Area featuring Louise Bennett, Ranny Williams, Charles Hyatt, the Frats Quintet, Eddy Thomas and Ivy Baxter dancers, the Mapletoft Poulle orchestra, and Count Prince Miller.

Float parade

But it was the two-mile National Float Parade from Cross Roads to Victoria Park on August 11 that put the icing on the cake. According to The Gleaner, "every conceivable aspect of the country's life was depicted in the pageant, magnificent in concept and in execution".

The colourful parade had thousands lining the streets to greet the beauty queens, costumed groups, cyclists, youth clubs, students, and representative floats from the Chinese, Indian, and African communities.

Caricatures of Busta and Manley, Miss Lou and Mass Ran drew gales of laughter, while bands, uniformed groups, agriculture, tourism, religion, industry, commerce, trade unions, the civil service, sports teams including Senator Frank Worrell, saluted the viewing platform graced by the governor general, Sir Kenneth Blackburn, the mayor, Frank Spaulding and Miss City of Kingston, 18-year-old, Mitsy Constantine.

It was an unforgettable show, and a fitting prelude to the next grand event, the opening of the IX Central American and Caribbean Games which took place at the Stadium that night.

Correction

Thanks to Major Joe Williams former conductor, Jamaica Military Band, for reminding that the music for the national anthem was composed by Mapletoft Poulle and not Robert Lightbourne as erroneously stated earlier. More on that to come.

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