Pressure in Babylon

My Father was a Farmer he left Jamaica when he was 22year old and went America to produce for the war for six months went back to Jamaica for a time to work   Cultivating. His grand father used to make foot mats and my father used to carry the banana band to him to make mats. My Father was about 7 years old at the time his grand father died when he was still young my granddad died at 67 he was a very hard working man but never achieved his gold. The last crop of ginger that he planted was a hundred pound weight and all that he got for it was eight shillings and four pence. This could buy a loaf of bread. The War had affected what they were able to earn because Hitler had set mines in the sea preventing export of good from the Caribbean

England set the English Channel on fire forcing the Germans to retreat.  

My father’s life was hard and he was the one that his family depended on. My mother and Father left me and my Sisters in Jamaica when I was just three years old and I would not see them again for another 2 years.

My time in Jamaica was of mixed blessings I was happy up until the time that my Aunts husband died. He used to treat us very nice, but he died suddenly and life became miserable. My Aunties children used to confiscate every thing that my parents sent for us and used to bully us very badly. There was nothing but abuse from them we were treated like my parents had abandoned us and we were just the scrounging relations.

Eventually my parents sent for us and I and my sister left for England leaving my other Sister Pauline who was still living in country with my mothers Sister.

We landed at Heathrow in 1960.  I was the age of five in a strange and far away land

I started school soon after, then the reality begun to hit me, that there was such a thing as racism. I was a warm friendly boy who just wanted to make friends, but that wasn’t easy when you were dealing with the children of the teddy boys. These are the people that use to write on the street walls wogs out and in the shop windows you would see room for rent no Irish no wogs no dogs.

There were not many Indians at that time except for a few from Jamaica.

I had the love of music in me and became very talented at an early age playing Violin and recorder. I was talented with the violin, but I gave that up after my friend saw me carrying my violin from school and told me that I looked like a sissy, so that was the end of that. I then took up the recorder and found that I was a natural for playing it but I found the manuscript reading and writing part of music lessons very boring.

One of my earliest memories in school was that white children found me fascinating because of my dark skin and used to entertain themselves asking me to talk monkey language I use to make some monkey noises for them, not realising that they were actually mocking me. The day that I realised that they were laughing at me and not with me was the day that they realised that I was not a push over, but the real rough neck from Jamaica who was far superior to them in intelligence and badness. It took me about 3 days to realise that I was being bullied.

I was the only black boy in Woodbury Down infant’s school which was full of white kids, my sister is 4 year older than me and was not able to see or realise my pain and suffering that I was going through. It was a lonely feeling, but I decided that I would take on the bully’s one at a time. I remembered my mother telling me that I should defend myself so during the first play period I jumped two of them in the play ground and put some fist in their face after I had pulled them down to the ground, one after the other. After that I found another one of them in the boy’s toilets. Word had gone around the school by then that I was on the warpath and they were now the hunted. In the Toilet I saw a boy stick his head out from the toilet door, when he saw me he tried to duck back in but it was to late because I had kicked the toilet door straight onto his head and he was out cold, they had to call an ambulance for him.

What took place after that I found very strange, that they all wanted to be my friend after that and would be calling me to beat up other people for them.

I had to be able to fight because I was attending school from the age of three in Jamaica; my aunt Edith was head Teacher for Meadow Broke School in Kingston.

In Woodbury Down Primary School I was the only black boy in my year I was not aware if there was any older black boy because we did not come into contact with them. I found that you got respect for being able to fight and it was soon established that black boys were the better fighters. There was only one white boy who was a threat I don’t even remember his name now but all I remember was that a next black boy from Jamaica joined the school his name is Winston MacLean he was short and muscular, while the white boy who I don’t remember his name was built like a giant, compared to the rest of us he was like a Saumur wrestler and it was easy to be weary of him.

He and Winston had a fight and Winston had to jump up off the ground in order to hit him in his face. That was quite a sight to see when Winston hit him in his face and he started to bleed the fight was over before it started. There was blood everywhere every one expected him to Muller Winston but instead it was the other way round.     

There were a few blacks in the school and we all stuck together, after all we had to because we were still a small minority dealing with a vicious lot who were the children of the Teddy boys, also two new groups had sprung up and called themselves, Mods and the Rockers, it seemed as if you had to be either one of them but most blacks did not identify with any of them.