Last Months in Jamaica

Our friend Bob, the American drama teacher, moved in to No 1 Excelsior Cottages with me, and he was good company, particularly as he brought with him a pile of Bob Dylan LPs which could be stacked up on his record player. I had listened to Dylan before but had always felt that Joan Baez sang his songs so much better. Bob's collection changed my view.

There were plenty of other friends to keep me company, including the Wiles in No 3 - Mike is seen here with Bob.

By this time Bob was the proud owner of a very fine white MGB in which we drove to various beaches. It wasn't entirely fun: Bob was a very haphazard driver, caused, I discovered late on, because he was partially blind in one eye.

Bob also brought a fine china potty full of ganja and smoked spliffs the size of Churchill cigars, so the house stank of it - much to my concern as one of the parents who came to pick up his children from the Pre-Primary School opposite our house was the chief of police. He also invited a couple of crazy American friends of his to stay, and they spent their time taking uppers and downers. I drove them over to Ocho Rios for the weekend, where Bob had contacts at the Playboy Club, but spent most of the evening in its gardens watching a full moon rise, which suddenly went through an eclipse.

Then a school in York called me for interview and - amazingly - I was able to go as a return flight was funded by the Overseas Development Ministry. So I flew to the UK, had an interview in York which started, by my Jamaican clock, at about four in the morning, failed to get the job, and flew back to Jamaica.  Picture shows the 'plane coming in to Kingston over the Hellshire beaches to the southwest of the city which we used to frequent.

My luck changed at the beginning of June when, totally unexpectedly, a school wrote to say that they would appoint me, on a temporary basis and without an interview, to a post teaching geology. It was a huge relief.

Saying goodbye to the many people who had been such good friends was hard. Blossom (left) wanted to come to England with us to continue looking after her girls; Bob Morris gave us a copy of Thor Heyerdahl's 'Fatu Hiva' and wished us well in 'all life's cockeyed adventures'; and the gang came to the airport to say goodbye.

We weren't sorry to leave Jamaica and its many problems but at least we felt that, despite them, we had fulfilled our contract; and there were so many things - the beaches, the flowers and insects and birds, the many wonderful people we knew, and the laughter and adventures - which we would never forget.

We had arrived as a family of three. We returned to England with one extra, born in Jamaica.