Letters from Jamaica

In the Arab chest, amongst the packets of letters Richard and I wrote home while we were at school in England, I found the ones Gill and I sent to my parents from Jamaica between August 1973 and July 1975. The first is at top right, a letter from the place where the adventure started, the Victoria Hotel in Amsterdam where we stayed while we waited to board the Amersfoort en route to Kingston. Then there's one from Bilbao (right), our first port of call, while at bottom left is what was probably Lizzie's first effort at writing to her grandparents.

Most of the rest are aerograms. I can tell which ones were read first by my father as he never quite got the hang of how to slit them open, so one part of the letter became detached, much to my mother's irritation. Many of those that were written on paper also show his hand, as they lack their envelopes. I know why: my father was a keen stamp collector. We arranged swaps with several people in Kingston, including Cherry at No 4.

Most of the letters are typed. Gill had been on a typing course and I had learnt to work our portable typewriter two-fingered, mostly to prepare worksheets for my students. One or other of us wrote almost every week but, as can be seen from this letter, the incoming post was very erratic: sometimes two or three would arrive together and we always felt it was a bit of a miracle when a letter actually reached us.

I bless my mother for keeping them. They provide a vivid account of our time in Jamaica, the more so since, by that time, we were able to write very honestly to them. I think also that the process of writing helped us come to terms with some of the difficulties of life out there.