Island in the Sun – Growing up in Jamaica 1948-1954 

Monica Carly was 12 when she moved to Jamaica after her Baptist minister father was called to lead a theological college on the island. Now 87, she has written a memoir documenting her time there 

 
The Bible is full of stories concerning men of faith who received a call from God asking them to take on a task for which they felt personally inadequate and ill-equipped. Despite their anxieties they went on to discover that, with God’s help, the seemingly impossible could be achieved.

Down through the ages God’s call has continued to be heard by both men and women, challenging them to accomplish great things in His service. To this ever-growing list should be added the name of my father, the Revd Keith Tucker.

A typical Baptist minister, he had held three pastorates, the first in Cheltenham, then in Peterborough, and after that he was the minister of Cemetery Road Baptist Church in Sheffield. The year in question was 1948, when the war, thankfully, was behind us and the family now numbered five.

One day my father received a call from the Baptist Missionary Society asking him to take on a totally different role in a tropical island 4000 miles away – that of Principal of Calabar Theological College, in Kingston, Jamaica. Although he had no experience that especially befitted him for such a task, he nevertheless, in an enormous leap of faith, said ‘yes’.

His main task would be to train Jamaican young men for the Baptist ministry, and in the process to raise their standard of education, which he undoubtedly achieved.

In addition he was to work alongside all the ministers of the Jamaica Baptist Union to further the cause of the Gospel, and also to support the churches all over the island by leading their Sunday worship whenever he could.

To this end, undaunted by the twisting, mountainous roads, he would often set off on a Sunday morning in his little green Austin Devon to find a country church somewhere up in the hills, leaving behind a rather concerned family all too aware that his knowledge of matters spiritual far outstripped his understanding of what went on under the bonnet of a car.

And so it was that in May 1948, when I was 12 years old, we set off on board a banana boat bound for Jamaica. It was the very same month  HMT Empire Windrush travelled in the opposite direction carrying 500 Jamaican men and women who had bravely decided to answer the call from Britain to help fill the many vacancies in the public service occupations of nursing, public transport and the post office, which were short of workers due to the war.

As we now know their reception by many in England was markedly unfriendly, in stark contrast to the one we received when we arrived in Jamaica.

Perhaps our warm welcome was partly due to the fact that we belonged to the church denomination that had worked so hard a century previously to have the abhorrent practice of slavery abolished.

Baptist missionaries who had come to Jamaica in the 19th century, initially to help with the education of the enslaved people, were so horrified at what they saw that they went back to England to inform Parliament of the facts, and to bring pressure to bear, greatly contributing to the achievement of the abolition of slavery in Jamaica in 1834.

Our new way of life in Jamaica involved challenges for all of us, especially for my mother, who had left school at 16 and become a shorthand typist. She now had to cater not only for her own family but also for some 15 theological students, and also to keep the accounts.

Not only did she have to cope with unfamiliar foodstuffs, but also with a primitive kitchen containing an old metal stove, an icebox for food preservation, and a table with its legs in tins of water to keep the cockroaches at bay.

We all adapted surprisingly quickly to our new way of life and grew to love this island in the sun, with its vibrant colours, mountainous terrain, beautiful beaches and amazing people. Those six years affected all five of us deeply for the rest of our lives.

Realising that I wanted to preserve those memories, at the age of 87 I have risen to my own personal challenge – to make a record of those times which began for us 75 years ago. I found I could still remember it all in surprising detail, my memories aided by the family collection, in sadly dilapidated albums, of original photographs, many of which are inserted throughout the text.

As I began to write, the memories came flooding back and I loved reliving all those varied experiences, both the happy and the not-so-good moments.

I have been so overwhelmed by the positive feedback from readers that I have been encouraged to bring my memoir to the attention of a wider audience.


Images |
Monica in a tree with her little sister on a beach
Monica on her bike setting off to school
 

My book is available as a paperback, ISBN 9781739254933, from online book stores (or from me personally by emailing monicacarly@yahoo.com or as an ebook, ISBN 9781739254940.) I do hope you enjoy it.