JOURNEY TO THE MOTHERLAND
The story of my poetry can be traced back to my mother. It was she who gave me words, she who gave me rhythm, and it was she who gave me my appetite for verse. At times she spoke in rhyme, not necessarily to encourage me to become a poet, but because it was the way she spoke. For instance, when me and my brothers and sisters were young, Mum would say things like: ‘Let’s go to the show; we have to go now, you know, cause if we don’t go now we cannot go tomorrow.’ She would stretch out syllables to make sure certain words rhymed, which is something all dub poets do. That’s me mummy.
Rhyme was in everything she did and said, and so rhyme was part of our day-to-day lives. She was always singing and there were plenty of nursery rhymes or skipping songs for the girls. She never wrote any of this down, but she could rhyme a line for just about every situation. She would never call herself a poet; for her it was a great way to aid her memory and entertain us.
Lineve Faleta Honeyghan was born in the parish of St Elizabeth, in the southwest of Jamaica, on 29 June 1934. Her little area was known as Bluntas District, thirty minutes’ walk from Treasure Beach. I’ve been there many times and I’ve always been struck by the appearance of people from that area. Most of them are very light-skinned and there is a reason for this. The history of the area shows that at times African slaves were allowed to mix with some of the Irish and Scottish folk who were sent there for being naughty in Britain, so many of the names and the physical features of the people reflect that. When I was young I remember my mother boasting of her Scottish ancestry and feeling ashamed of any African connection she might have.
There’s a story that members of my family tell, which all of my Jamaican relatives believe to be true. It’s the story of a ship that sailed from Britain with a mainly Scottish crew of forty men who got into trouble at sea. They fetched up on the coast of Panama and the captain asked if they could land but they were refused permission, so they turned around and managed to get to Jamaica. At Treasure Beach they were given permission to land. They soon recovered from their ordeal but it was so nice that instead of moving on they decided to stay, and being all men it wasn’t long before they began to chase and marry local girls. We were always told that we partly descended from these explorers, and not the ‘criminal’ kind.
My mother’s grandfather was William Moxam – not your average Jamaican guy but a Scottish white guy whom my mother still remembers. He had a shocking temper and used to smack her and beat her all the time. He would come down on her with fury for any little ‘wrong’ thing she did. Even though she was only a little girl, William would not spare her.
My mother was born in the same house as William and his African–Jamaican wife, Caroline. Their daughter, my grandmother, Adelyn Moxam, married a dark-skinned man called Honeyghan, and they had a baby, my mother. My mother’s sister went on to marry another mixed-race man, so all of her cousins are very light-skinned, but my mother was darker than all of my auntie’s kids because her father had been black, so she was a shade darker.
Jamaicans used to comment on the colour of people’s skin all the time. Sometimes it’s hard for non-Jamaicans to understand, and to some it sounds racist, but that’s not the case. It’s a bit like saying, ‘Pass me the black ball, not the green one.’ It’s just how they recognise and describe people; they simply mention such things in passing. People were called black, red, yellow, collie (Indian) or Chinee (Chinese), but most of the people in my mother’s family were light-skinned, or ‘red’.
The Jamaican side of my family was neither rich nor poor. By no stretch of the imagination were they wealthy – they had very little money but they had lots of animals, including cows, goats, chickens – and my mother even had her own horse. A lot of that was down to William Moxam. He had a strong work ethic and he strove to buy land and ensure that even if the family was short of cash they would still have food. They would grow yams, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, corn, cashew nuts and more. So they always had food and clothing, most of which was homemade by them or by neighbours, and most of the food – animal and vegetable – was grown in their yard.
My mum remembers with some pride (to my horror), how she actually drank milk straight from the cows’ udders, especially from her favourite cow, Rose, who was particularly quiet and demure. At night she would tie up Rose’s calf so he couldn’t get to her to take the milk. Then, in the morning, Rose’s udders would be full and ready for my mother to drink from. She claims that the cow didn’t mind, and would shake her tail approvingly. I think differently, but I wasn’t around then to object.
The most important person in my mother’s life was her uncle, Richard Moxam, known to everyone as Moody. Her mother washed her and put her to bed, but Moody played with her, he gave her money and advice, and he would listen to her if she had something to say. He, like many Jamaican men of that time, went to Cuba to find work, and it was he who gave my mum her names: Lineve Faleta. It was said that he was a bit of a ladies’ man, and my mum thinks she was named after one of his Cuban girlfriends. To family and friends my mum was known as Faleta.
So Faleta was born at the family home in Bluntas. That was a perfectly normal thing to happen. There were midwives in the area, but they weren’t trained as professionals; they were just women with experience (which usually meant they’d had a few kids of their own) who would pass on their knowledge to other women by word of mouth, and sometimes trial and error. If there was any trouble during a delivery they would call the hospital and a bed would be made available if they could get there on time.
My mother came from a big family; she had two sisters and five brothers. She was the eldest girl and the second eldest child, but the older boy died young, so my mother ended up being the eldest. By Jamaican standards she had a good education, starting school at seven and leaving at sixteen. By all accounts she enjoyed it, using her time constructively to learn as much as she could. She loved school so much that she attended even on days when she didn’t have to. On Fridays lots of pupils didn’t turn up, attendance was very lax, but she never missed a lesson.
After my mum finished her school studies she went to Munro College for a further two years. Now, don’t start thinking of European-type private education, as it was nothing like that. It was as far away from fee-paying college in England as you could get. It had very few facilities, very few up-to-date books, and the staff looked like they weren’t being paid, but she still had to pay and, as ever, Uncle Moody funded her. The family lived by the seaside, so to reach Munro College she had to take a long bus ride up a steep hill, which she hated, so she stayed at the college and only went home at weekends.
She graduated when she was eighteen, and spent the next couple of years enjoying herself, going to parties and dances, but living at home. She had a carefree life with few problems and she always had a bit of money in her pocket. Although her father was around he had very little to do with her. He never gave her a dime – he didn’t have much money anyway – but he was a distant figure. Uncle Moody was the complete opposite. He travelled, he owned land and hired people, and he gave her all she needed. He loved giving presents, and my mum loved receiving them. He was particularly generous on birthdays or during celebrations like Christmas and Easter. My mum, and the rest of the community, recalls how she once had six new dresses – an almost unheard-of abundance. She was the talk of the town, and for the following few months wherever she went they could see her coming along the street in one of her lovely new dresses.
Inevitably her first child came along during that fun-filled post-college period. She met a young man and they courted Jamaican-style – under the moonlight with the palm trees swaying; a little bit of dancing and a little bit of rum. Both were enjoying themselves after leaving college, and then my mother fell pregnant and Tina came along.
One day in the mid-1950s, Mum and her sister stopped to look at one of the many posters that were put up around Jamaica around that time as part of a campaign headed by a Conservative politician. The poster said: ‘The Motherland calls. Jobs and a great future await you in the land where the streets are paved with gold’. It is now well known that there was an extensive campaign in Jamaica and other Caribbean islands to get people to apply for the jobs that English workers wouldn’t do after the Second World War. The British were desperate for people from overseas.
My auntie said there was no way she was going to England; she had heard it was cold and dark, but my mother wanted to give it a try. Once again, Uncle Moody stepped in. He was convinced it would be a good move for her, and she was very eager to go, but her daughter Tina was only two, so it would mean making a tough decision.
The culture around having and raising children was a lot less formal in the Caribbean compared to Europe. In Jamaica big families were the norm, and they tended to live together and look after each other. Living under one roof you could find mothers, grandmothers, aunties, brothers and sisters, and all would offer support. Even members of the local community who weren’t blood relatives would provide plenty of free childcare, so she knew Tina would be well-cared-for.
People were also fairly happy; it was only when they started coming to the UK and comparing themselves to people around the world that they began to consider themselves poor. But my mum never thought like that. She had money in her pocket, lots of dresses and lots of shoes.
The decision to migrate to England was made easier by the fact that another uncle, Neville, was already there, and she would listen to the radio and hear advertisements calling for people to go to England and work. Neville would write regularly saying how good it was, so Uncle Moody paid her fare, and her mother said she would look after the baby. So that was that, the decision was made: my mum would go to the UK and stay with Neville in Sheffield.