We arrived in Kingston, Jamaica, on 31st August 1973, and were very relieved when Mr Powell, the headmaster of Excelsior School, arrived on the ship to see us safely through customs and immigration. He then took us to the small ground-floor apartment which had been rented on our behalf. Flat 28, Deanery Court, was in a fairly stark concrete block. On the plus side it was near the campus, it was brand new, and the flat was furnished, but we rapidly discovered that the fridge didn't work, it hot and cramped, and the surroundings were noisy - the local dogs barked all night. One of the redeeming features was that we met neighbours who were also teachers, Graham and his Indian wife Najma, whom we managed to make ill because she was too polite to say she didn't eat avocado, and Stanley, who had arrived to join the Excelsior staff. Stanley was a Polish American who came from New York and had taught in schools where large negroes threw pianos out of upstairs windows.
I liked Stanley immensely, and we set off together the next day to visit the school which was located on the west side of the city and was separated from Long Mountain by Mountain View Avenue. Stanley announced that our first stop should be to the boys' toilet as it was a good sign of the state of the school. It was disgusting.
Gill put Elizabeth in the buggy and set off for 'downtown' Kingston to start the process of getting our Morris 1100, which we had been advised to ship out, off the wharf. She cheerfully walked through a rather seedy part of the town and was told later that it was Trench Town and that no-one in their right mind went near it. The school then lent me a member of the office staff and the two of us, armed with a pocket full of dollar bills, set off for the wharf to bribe our way through the process of getting our car through customs, which took a whole day. Stanley refused any such help, refused to bribe anyone, and couldn't liberate his lovely Ford Mustang - with the result that more and more bits started to disappear off it. Disgusted, he arranged for it to be put back on a ship and flew home.
Once term had started some of the other expatriate staff helped us to persuade Mr Powell to let us have one of the four staff bungalows on the school campus. We were allocated No1 Excelsior School Cottages which....
....was at the end of a short cul-de-sac, Courtney Avenue, and adjacent to the school playing fields, so work was a short walk away.
The living area was at one end, separated from the bedrooms and bathroom by a steel gate which we were advised to padlock at night in case someone broke in. This worried me as Kingston had previously been destroyed in a massive earthquake, and getting out of a locked up house would take time.
Keith in No2 was head of music at the school, a talented man who had written the Jamaican national anthem. He had three children. The head of art, Rick, his wife Irene and two children lived in No3, and one of the technology teachers, Ian, with his wife Cherry and son Mark, lived in No 4. So Lizzie....
....had plenty of friends - she's seen here with Mark. In fact, the cul-de-sac was so full of young children that Rick and I erected this sign as cottage No 5 had been converted into Excelsior's pre-primary school and the parents dropped their children off in the cul-de-sac.
Our next task was to find someone to help in the house. This was easily done as Olda, who worked for Cherry, had a half-sister who came and saw us about the job. This is Blossom, a lady of very determined views whom we loved.
We had just begun to settle when Gill became very unwell. We were covered by medical insurance and had been recommended a very good Chinese doctor, Dr Lee, so she drove down to see him. He announced that there was absolutely nothing wrong with her: she was pregnant.
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