Olga - A Daughter's Tale by Marie-Therese Browne (Marie Campbell) Page A
Tags: Religión, Biographical fiction, London, Biography, Family Saga, Memoirs, Nursing, Single mothers, Jamaica, ww2, prejudice, a memoir, illigitimacy, obeah
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and Minah and all the family outside the Holy Trinity Cathedral. But in pride of place, right in the middle of us all is a cutting from the London Evening News.
Pops’ hero is Marcus Garvey. He gets his cuttings from the supply of old newspapers he keeps to wrap the meat in that he sells.
Extract from Marcus Garvey’s Speech to an audience at The Royal Albert Hall, London, 1928
“… .you can enslave as you did for 300 years the bodies of men, you can shackle the hands of men, you can shackle the feet of men, you can imprison the bodies of men, but you cannot shackle or imprison the minds of men. No race has the last word on culture and on civilisation. You do not know what the black man is capable of; you do not know what he is thinking and therefore you do not know what the oppressed and suppressed Negro, by virtue of his condition and circumstance, may give to the world as a surprise”
We all know Marcus Garvey. He’s a bit of a troublemaker. Mad as a hatter going round preaching and stirring up trouble. The first time I heard his name was a few years ago and I’d gone down to the market to pick up our meat. Wherever I looked on the docks there were hundreds of red, black and green flags tied to everything and anything, all waving in the wind. Pops told me that all the decoration and bunting was for a “glorious man” The Hon. Marcus Garvey, D.C.L. who was arriving from the United States. When I asked him what D.C.L. stood for he said “Distinguished Coloured Leader”.
Garvey is Jamaican and from a big family too. His parents were poor and as a child he knew about hunger and colour prejudice and some people say that’s why Garvey hates white people. But he says what he hates is the system in Jamaica which keeps the poor man down and the poor are mostly black people.
Pops says black people lack self-esteem and Garvey wants them to have sense of pride in their race, colour and country so Garvey encourages them to “study hard and go into business and unite and help each other and become independent of white Jamaican society who have created two Jamaica’s, one white or near white and wealthy and the other black and poor”.
Sydney hates Garvey and says he’s a troublemaker, a swindler, a crook only wanting to get rich quickly and Vivie says he practises Obeah.
Well, honestly, doesn’t everybody?
Garvey holds political gatherings in Edelweiss Park where he puts on entertainment, shows, dance contests, musical presentations, plays and boxing for the benefit of the black people in Kingston. Ruby, Dolly, Pearl and I were forbidden to go to his rallies, but in true Jamaican tradition, we went in secret.
******
Chapter TEN
Olga’s Diary
Dear Diary
Big Scandal: My very favourite nun, Sister Marie-Thérèse, told me one day when I was at Alpha Academy, that Jamaica has the largest number of churches per square mile in the entire world. Many are beautiful, old, stone buildings going back to the 1800s. Religion has always been important to Jamaicans and especially to my family. Mammie says we are high Catholics, which I think makes us sound special, but to be honest, I don’t know what the difference is between a high Catholic and a low one. It’s one of those questions I don’t like to ask in case people think I’m stupid.
We always put on our best Sunday clothes when we go to mass. Mammie says how we dress is important because clothes say a lot about you. Ragged clothes are a sign of poverty but even the poorest person wouldn’t dream of going to church without putting their best clothes on, clean shoes and a proper hat, and not a scarf, because that doesn’t cover your head properly. Mammie is very particular about us all looking clean and smart and when we were at school she would keep us away rather than send any of us off without clean, ironed school uniforms. In Jamaica being well dressed is a sign of your social status and it’s important to your sense of self respect and self
Pops’ hero is Marcus Garvey. He gets his cuttings from the supply of old newspapers he keeps to wrap the meat in that he sells.
Extract from Marcus Garvey’s Speech to an audience at The Royal Albert Hall, London, 1928
“… .you can enslave as you did for 300 years the bodies of men, you can shackle the hands of men, you can shackle the feet of men, you can imprison the bodies of men, but you cannot shackle or imprison the minds of men. No race has the last word on culture and on civilisation. You do not know what the black man is capable of; you do not know what he is thinking and therefore you do not know what the oppressed and suppressed Negro, by virtue of his condition and circumstance, may give to the world as a surprise”
We all know Marcus Garvey. He’s a bit of a troublemaker. Mad as a hatter going round preaching and stirring up trouble. The first time I heard his name was a few years ago and I’d gone down to the market to pick up our meat. Wherever I looked on the docks there were hundreds of red, black and green flags tied to everything and anything, all waving in the wind. Pops told me that all the decoration and bunting was for a “glorious man” The Hon. Marcus Garvey, D.C.L. who was arriving from the United States. When I asked him what D.C.L. stood for he said “Distinguished Coloured Leader”.
Garvey is Jamaican and from a big family too. His parents were poor and as a child he knew about hunger and colour prejudice and some people say that’s why Garvey hates white people. But he says what he hates is the system in Jamaica which keeps the poor man down and the poor are mostly black people.
Pops says black people lack self-esteem and Garvey wants them to have sense of pride in their race, colour and country so Garvey encourages them to “study hard and go into business and unite and help each other and become independent of white Jamaican society who have created two Jamaica’s, one white or near white and wealthy and the other black and poor”.
Sydney hates Garvey and says he’s a troublemaker, a swindler, a crook only wanting to get rich quickly and Vivie says he practises Obeah.
Well, honestly, doesn’t everybody?
Garvey holds political gatherings in Edelweiss Park where he puts on entertainment, shows, dance contests, musical presentations, plays and boxing for the benefit of the black people in Kingston. Ruby, Dolly, Pearl and I were forbidden to go to his rallies, but in true Jamaican tradition, we went in secret.
******
Chapter TEN
Olga’s Diary
Dear Diary
Big Scandal: My very favourite nun, Sister Marie-Thérèse, told me one day when I was at Alpha Academy, that Jamaica has the largest number of churches per square mile in the entire world. Many are beautiful, old, stone buildings going back to the 1800s. Religion has always been important to Jamaicans and especially to my family. Mammie says we are high Catholics, which I think makes us sound special, but to be honest, I don’t know what the difference is between a high Catholic and a low one. It’s one of those questions I don’t like to ask in case people think I’m stupid.
We always put on our best Sunday clothes when we go to mass. Mammie says how we dress is important because clothes say a lot about you. Ragged clothes are a sign of poverty but even the poorest person wouldn’t dream of going to church without putting their best clothes on, clean shoes and a proper hat, and not a scarf, because that doesn’t cover your head properly. Mammie is very particular about us all looking clean and smart and when we were at school she would keep us away rather than send any of us off without clean, ironed school uniforms. In Jamaica being well dressed is a sign of your social status and it’s important to your sense of self respect and self
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