As well as our parents, we had invited several friends to come and visit us while we were in Jamaica but only Tony and Hilary took up the offer. They arrived out in July of 1974, not long after Katy was born, and stayed for five weeks. Although it was the summer holidays, for the first couple of weeks I had a commitment to a teacher-training course which limited some of our activities, but otherwise we managed to visit many of our favourite places, not least....
....Ports of Call. In fact, we all enjoyed ourselves so much we went there twice, and it was great to be back, but the proprietors, who had been so good to us, had fallen foul of some local politicians and were being forced out, with the result that the place became increasingly run-down.
Tony was a non-swimmer so we set about putting that to rights in the warm water off the hotel beach but we also....
....enjoyed the sea in a more leisurely fashion in a glass-bottomed boat from a neighbouring beach, which was a superb way of seeing the coral reefs and their abundant life.
We drove into the foothills of Blue Mountain, Jamaica's highest peak, and walked up the long path to Governor's Bench with its views over Kingston. Tony and Hilary also took themselves off to the north coast to see its magnificent beaches.
Tony was a keen fisherman so he and I made the most of Palisadoes though it was only later on that we were fully equipped and able to land some fish: this is a jackfish.
Tony and I ventured down-town to buy a roof rack which would enable us all to make the rather longer journey to the beaches of Nigril but we had to abandon our plans when Hilary became ill. She managed to struggle on but it did dampen the last days of the holiday - though we were thrilled to discover on their return to the UK that there was good reason for it: Hilary was expecting a baby.
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