JAMAICAN RADIO AND DRAGON STOUT
In the spring of 1986, I sat down at my dinner table and penned two letters. One was addressed to the Jamaican Gleaner and the other to Radio Jamaica.
Two months later, the Gleaner responded to my letter and informed me they were about to write an article about my search for my family and publish my letter. They requested a recent photograph of myself to accompany the piece.
Oh my God!
It was a huge moment. I asked the kind people at the Gleaner to send me a copy of the newspaper when the piece ran.
Is this really happening?
A few weeks following the publication of my article, dozens of letters were sent to me via the Gleaner. I eagerly opened them.
Every single correspondence was from a young Jamaican woman wanting to know if I was searching for a wife. They included recent photographs of themselves, and they promised to cook for me and look after me well if I could only sponsor their visa application. They empathized with the search for my family and promised that they would never allow me to suffer loneliness. Reading the handwritten notes did wonders for my ego, but Beverley wasn’t impressed.
Radio Jamaica finally replied to my letter stating that on one of their scheduled programs, they had a slot that helped Jamaicans from overseas reconnect with their families on the island.
In August 1986, Radio Jamaica broadcast a thirty-second clip about my search for my parents.
My father Alfred was enjoying a cool Dragon Stout in a bar in Old Harbour when he heard the announcement. He almost choked on his favorite beer. When he overcame his initial shock, he penned a letter to me via Radio Jamaica, and it arrived through my letter box in mid-September 1986.
I read my father’s words through disbelieving eyes. He apologized for not returning to England to claim me, but he had thought that I would be looked after very well. (How wrong he was.) He invited me to come over to Jamaica and visit, but before doing so, I should look for his sister Hermine, who still lived in Brixton.
I have an aunt who lives in Brixton? Are you fucking kidding me? Why wasn’t I told this before?
I reread my social services files. I couldn’t find any mention of a Hermine. Rage swelled in my chest. This so-called father abandoned me, placed me in care, and didn’t bother informing the social services that I have family living in Brixton. How fucking cruel is that?
I controlled my fury enough to visit Hermine on Milkwood Road, Brixton (only five minutes up the street from the Lambeth social services area three office). I didn’t know whether to skank with joy or to weep bitter tears.
Aunt Hermine herself opened the door and gazed at me for a long while. Her smile almost kissed the doorframe. Tears ran down her cheeks. “Alfred cyan’t deny you,” she said. “You favor him. Come in! Come in!” She called out to her husband: “John! John! Come here! You never going to believe this!”
Uncle John came in from the garden and did a double take. “Freddy!” he said. “You favor your daddy!”
I wanted to jump around and scream. Jennifer Lara’s “Jah Will Lead Us Home” played in my mind.
Uncle John led me to the front room and poured me a generous rum and Coke. “Yes, me know your daddy good,” he said. “We cuss his backside becah we know he had ah son––”
“He wouldn’t tell us where you deh,” Aunt Hermine cut in. “But t’ank the lord! You have found us now.”
For the rest of that Sunday afternoon, Aunt Hermine and Uncle John told me about things that my father loved doing: going to the dog track, wearing suits and skinny ties, listening to big bands, riding the bumper cars at the funfair, and so much more.
I was shown family pictures. There was one photograph of Aunt Hermine and Uncle John on their wedding day in the fall of 1962. My father was the best man. There he was in a dark suit, beaming at the photographer. It was taken a few weeks before my birth.
Anger soared in me once more, but I managed to control it.
There were other framed family photographs hanging from the walls, including one of my paternal grandparents’ wedding way back in the early 1930s. My grandfather, Louis “Charlie” Wheatle, had been born in 1900. Family legend says he arrived in Old Harbour as a teenager, unwilling to speak about his family or where he came from.
Aunt Hermine searched for documents in her bedroom, and when she found what she was looking for, her grin stretched as wide as a Shaka double-bass speaker box. What she handed to me blew my mind.
PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL
10 Downing Street
Whitehall
December 14, 1956.
Mr. Louis Wheatle,
I have the honour to inform you that the Queen has been graciously pleased to approve the Prime Minister’s recommendation that the Medal of the Order of the British Empire (B.E.M.) be awarded to you. Your name therefore appears in the List of Honours to be published on January 1.
I am, Sir,
Your obedient Servant
Aunt Hermine couldn’t stop laughing as she passed me another official letter. “My fader won the award for long service to Bodles Agricultural Station inna Old Harbour,” she explained. “Him start work there as a teenager way back in 1915.”
PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL
29th December, 1956
My dear Mr. Wheatle,
This letter will probably not reach you before the announcement is made but I am very glad indeed to congratulate you on the fact that Her Majesty the Queen has awarded to you the British Empire Medal in the New Year’s Honour List.
I am delighted that the excellent work which you have done over the past years has been recognised in this way.
I should add that the first announcement will be made over Radio Jamaica after the 9 o’clock news on New Year’s Eve and the List of Honours will be published in the papers on the 2nd of January. Until the official announcement is made you should, of course, treat this as strictly confidential to yourself.
Yours sincerely,
Hugh Foot
Governor of Jamaica
I felt a surge of pride.
Aunt Hermine cried and hugged me.
“How is Granddad now?” I asked.
“He’s quite sick,” Aunt Hermine told me. “I’m going to see him next month. Can you come with me?”
“I don’t have the money for the flight just yet,” I replied. “I’ll save up and go as soon as I can.”
Louis Wheatle passed away before I could meet him. He never knew it, but he played a big part in me finding my identity. (Years later, I employed my grandfather’s mysterious young adult life to build my Island Songs narrative.)
I was introduced to Aunt Hermine and Uncle John’s children: Jackie, Gary, and Debbie. Aunt Hermine also had an older son, Junior, who had left home.
Later that night, I asked, “Did you know my mother?”
Aunt Hermine and Uncle John shared a knowing look.
“Of course me knew her,” my aunt finally replied. “Alfred loved that girl! He was always chatting about her. She had beautiful long hair. Indian blood was in her. Pretty she was pretty! He called her Myna. Somebody told me she was married, and that Myna’s husband was in Jamaica. Alfred never care.”
“Me did warn him,” Uncle John said. “Don’t get yourself involved wid another mon’s wife. But Alfred never listen to anybody.”
“They were two grown people,” Aunt Hermine said. “They knew what they were doing. The both of dem were responsible.”
“There was all this bangarang and fuss,” John added. “But you, the chile, shoulda come first. They shoulda work together to come up wid the best solution.”
I started visiting Aunt Hermine and Uncle John every other Sunday. I introduced Beverley and my young children to them.
Uncle John would entertain me in the lounge with his video collection: he was a big fan of Clint Eastwood, Bruce Lee, and Sylvester Stallone. He also had an impressive record box of ska, rock steady, and reggae albums. “Al, do you have this?” He would grin as he played a 7" track from the likes of Alton Ellis, Desmond Dekker, Jimmy Cliff, the Heptones, Stranger Cole, or Toots and the Maytals.
I wrote to Alfred every month or so, sending him photographs of my children and bringing him up to date on family events. On one level, we bonded, but on another, I simply could not let go that this was the man who had abandoned me to a childhood hell. I wasn’t sure if I had the goodness within me to ever forgive him.
“Listen to what him have to say,” Simeon advised. “Give him ah chance. Don’t do anyting foolish, Alex Wheatle.”
“But he dumped me in care and didn’t come back for me,” I countered.
“Everybody mek mistakes,” Simeon reasoned. “Including me. Some sufferahs in this world never get to know dem family. You have ah chance.”
Although I couldn’t offer Simeon any guarantees, I saved hard for my trip to Jamaica.
I decided to travel just before Christmas 1987.