IWAS ENJOYING A RARE MOMENT of relaxation with some magazines one morning in the spring of 1978 when the telephone rang. I answered a call from Grenada.
“May I please speak with Mrs. Hosten-Craig?”
The voice was completely familiar and unmistakable. Sir Eric Gairy, the prime minister of Grenada.
I identified myself and said, “How are you, Sir Eric?”
“I’m fine, thank you. More important, how are you and your dear family?”
“We are all doing just fine, thank you.”
“That’s splendid. Well, the reason I’m calling you is to ask if you would consider taking on the position of Grenada’s ambassador to the United Nations in New York. We have a current vacancy. I think it would suit you well. I would particularly like to have a capable Grenadian woman in the job, and I believe you would be ideal. It would, of course, require that you live in New York.”
My head spun with excitement. I nearly had to pinch myself. Taking a deep breath, I responded carefully.
“I am indeed honoured that you thought of me, Sir Eric. I am, of course, most interested in the offer. However, I will need to discuss this with my husband and get back to you. May I call you back in about two days?”
“No problem at all, Jennifer. I understand that such a decision would require a great deal of thought. But I will need to hear from you soon. Two days will be fine. I look forward to hearing from you then. It’s good talking to you again. Goodbye for now.”
I hung up the telephone slowly and stared at it for a full two minutes before picking it up again and dialling David’s number at work.
“David. Could we meet in town and have dinner somewhere tonight? I’ve just had a call from Sir Eric Gairy in Grenada. He has made me a very interesting job offer which, I think we should discuss alone.”
Our children were still young. David had work commitments. There were certain negative issues as well as positive ones to consider. When we met for dinner that night, David was not at all flexible. He was totally opposed to the idea of moving to New York. I had feared as much, and while disappointed, I did not want to do anything to destabilize our marriage and our family. Two days later, I telephoned Sir Eric Gairy. I told him that while we deeply appreciated the offer, I had no choice but to decline since we would not be able to live in New York for personal and family reasons. He sounded genuinely disappointed but assured me he understood my position.
“Jennifer, does that also rule out a similar position somewhere else?”
“Well, I’d certainly like to help if I possibly can. Please let me know if there is something I might be able to take on in a more conducive environment, which would not be quite so disruptive to my children.”
Approximately three months later, I received another call from Sir Eric Gairy.
“Hello, Jennifer. Something urgent has come up, which, in light of our last conversation, might be of interest to you. I would like to offer you the position of Grenada’s high commissioner to Canada, based, of course, in your own city of Ottawa. I would be most pleased if you could help us out.”
The person who was supposed to be accredited as Grenada’s high commissioner to Canada, a Mr. Dolland, had decided not to accept the position. Sir Eric asked me if I held Canadian citizenship. I told him I held both Grenadian and Canadian nationalities.
Canadian citizenship had been very easy for me. I had received a phone call one day from the citizenship office asking me if I was interested. The press coverage accompanying my arrival in the nation’s capital must have marked me as a potential candidate. The office made the application procedures quite uncomplicated, and in 1975, I became a Canadian.
Ironically, under these particular circumstances introduced by Prime Minister Gairy, my Canadian citizenship proved to be an obstacle. It was not common for a person holding down a diplomatic position in a country to be a citizen of that country. Diplomats have what is known as diplomatic immunity, a form of legal immunity that exempts them from prosecution under the host country’s laws. Countries are more amenable to exempting foreign visitors from their laws than they are their own citizens. Sir Eric assured me he would speak with his friend Pierre Trudeau, Canada’s prime minister at that time, to seek his assistance in the matter.
Several days passed without my hearing anything further. I went about my daily routine with Air Canada and at home with the kids, not mentioning the appointment offer to anyone except David and his father. Jack Craig was very supportive of my being appointed Grenada’s high commissioner to Canada. If I did not take this prestigious position, he said, I would probably spend the rest of my life with regrets. David, going along with his father, was also more amenable to this idea than he had been to the previous offer.
I was soon advised that the government of Canada had broken with tradition and agreed to make an exception in my case. I would be a Grenadian during the day, granted diplomatic immunity for all of my job-related duties, and as soon as I arrived home after work each day, I would carry the status of any other Canadian citizen.
One of my very first duties was to locate a suitable residence in downtown Ottawa. The previous high commissioner, George Griffith, had given up his Ottawa residence when he transferred to New York to take up the post that I had declined. We settled on an elegant old house in Monkland Avenue, close to the lovely Rideau Canal that flows through the city—in winters, it becomes the world’s longest skating rink.
I knew that with additional duties to perform, I would need adequate help with the children. My sister Pommie was her usual helpful self, arranging for one of my cousins, Annette, who lived in Barbados, to come to Ottawa, along with one of Pommie’s own staff members, Lenore, who had been personally trained by my sister to both cook for her family and look after the children. This arrangement worked well for most of my three years in office.
The office of Grenada’s High Commission was situated on Queen Elizabeth Driveway, also near the Rideau Canal and close to our new residence. The staff at the time consisted of three members, the first secretary, George Soltysik, and two secretaries. It took me a long time to get used to being addressed by them as Your Excellency.
Sir Eric had specifically requested that I attend the upcoming Commonwealth Games in Edmonton as Grenada’s unofficial representative (it took some weeks for me to be officially installed). Given that the office staff had all been in their jobs for at least three years and knew them well, I had no qualms about leaving them to their own devices and flew to Edmonton, Canada’s northernmost city.
It was June. The air was fresh, and the sky a brilliant blue, typical of the Canadian prairies. I joined members of the Caribbean Corps and other Commonwealth diplomatic representatives from around the globe for the opening ceremonies. Before the parade, I requested an opportunity to meet the Grenadian team, which consisted of two men and two women. I immediately realized that none of these young athletes had proper footwear. When questioned, they advised me that they were wearing all they had.
I was shocked to hear this, wondering how on earth such a situation could have come about. Without wanting to make an issue of it, I decide then and there to fit them out with proper sporting shoes from my own purse and make an official report after the games. The young people were delighted. Their training was no better than their footwear, and they made an average showing at the games, but the important thing was that they represented Grenada well.
Returning to Ottawa, I made the usual round of courtesy calls to my new colleagues, the representatives of other countries ranging from powerhouses like the United States and United Kingdom to others, such as Mali and Barbados, closer in size and influence to Grenada. Before setting off to each appointment, my driver would attach the Grenadian flag to the car’s flagstaff, signifying that we were on official business.
News of my appointment preceded me. Reporters from the Ottawa Citizen had arrived at our farmhouse in Osgoode to take pictures of my family. The children were young and cute, and the article appeared to be a popular one. I was later given a framed plaque stating that this particular edition of the Citizen sold a record number of copies.
Maclean’s magazine, a national newsweekly in the style of Time magazine, also ran an article on me, and this one led to controversy. The editors of Maclean’s decided to sensationalize the article by publishing a photograph of me from the Miss World archives. I was wearing a swimsuit. The choice of photograph no doubt helped with their sales, but much criticism was raised by those who regarded the portrayal as sexist and disrespectful to the office of ambassador. In any event, I was relieved that the story had put their credibility and reputations in jeopardy, not mine. I did not and would not pose for pictures in my new circumstances, and I was never criticized for this policy.
One of the rites of passage for diplomatic people arriving in Ottawa is a trip to the Canadian Arctic. I had heard a great deal about this from other diplomats and very much wanted to go and experience it for myself. When the Department of External Affairs announced a trip the following April, I sent a note to Michael Doyle, chief of protocol, expressing my interest. When I ran into Michael at an official function a week later, I asked if he had received my note.
“Jennifer, I would like to be able to confirm your place with the group, but as I understand it, there are no suitable facilities for women on the tour. In fact. it has come to my attention that no woman has ever gone on the tour for this reason.”
I expressed my regret to Michael, saying how much I had hoped to be included but accepted his explanation. Two days later, I ran into Prime Minister Trudeau at another function. I slowly made my way to where he was standing.
“Hello Jennifer,” he smiled at me. “How are you getting along, and how are things in Grenada?”
We chatted for a while, and he said, “I understand you’re going to the Arctic this year.”
“Well, I was very much hoping to go, but I understand there are no suitable facilities for women. I’m disappointed, but I suppose I have no choice.”
Trudeau looked at me intently. “You’re not going to let that stand in your way, are you?”
“What do you think?”
“Well, I really wouldn’t if I were you.”
At that moment, others interrupted us, and the matter went no further. The next day, however, I was surprised and overjoyed to receive a telephone call from the protocol department confirming my place in the forthcoming Arctic tour. I had no doubt that Trudeau had interceded. We departed in June from the air force base at Ottawa’s airport, about twelve of us aboard a special Canadian Forces Hercules.
My first experience of the Arctic was Iqaluit (then called Frobisher Bay), some twenty-one hundred kilometres (thirteen hundred miles) due north of Ottawa on Baffin Island. That you can fly so far north in Canada and still only be about halfway to the northernmost extent of its landmass gives you a sense of the country’s enormous size (as does the fact that you could fit almost thirty thousand Grenadas in Canada).
Frobisher Bay has a tundra climate, with average lows in deepest winter of -32 degrees Celsius (-26 degrees Fahrenheit). The average temperature in June varies between 6 degrees Celsius (43 degrees Fahrenheit) during the day and -10 degrees Celsius (14 degrees Fahrenheit) at night, too cold to permit the growth of trees. The permafrost does not allow taproots deeper than six inches, which discourages the growth of anything tall. It occurred to me that if there was a part of the world with a climate opposite to Grenada’s, this was it. It was a strange sensation to play baseball with my colleagues until after midnight, taking advantage of the almost twenty-four hours of daylight during summer in the far north.
We flew west over thirty-three hundred kilometres (two thousand miles) of tundra to Dawson City, which almost a century before we visited had been the headquarters of the famous Klondike Gold Rush. Poets dressed in period garb read us Robert Service’s famous poems of the north, and in Whitehorse, the capital of the Yukon Territories, I tried my hand at panning for gold (landing a small nugget). I met a number of Inuit people, some of whom remained my friends for many years, including Edith Josie, an elderly, almost toothless journalist from Old Crow, who told me amazing stories of her life and work. Our Arctic trip was all too short, but I cherish the memory of it.
As high commissioner for Grenada, I was determined to show the cultural side of the Caribbean to Canadians. I was instrumental in organizing a Grenada Night at the Ottawa Press Club. We served all sorts of Grenadian delights, including callaloo, a large leaf vegetable very like spinach; various fish and chicken dishes; and a delicious local soft drink called Sorrel, which is made by boiling flowers from the sorrel bush. Many of the ingredients were specially flown in from Grenada for the event. A traditional steel band, The Old Maestros, was arranged. Most of the band’s members were from Toronto, having emigrated from the islands.
About six months after my appointment, I received a note from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Grenada requesting me to accept the additional position of Grenada’s representative to the Inter-American Commission of Women. At about the same time, my staff approached me to request salary revisions. They had not received a salary increase for more than three years. I spoke with the permanent secretary of the Grenadian ministry, who suggested that I meet with the prime minister’s delegation the next time he was in New York. I saw that he was to attend a United Nations session in about a month’s time. I arranged for my schedule to intersect with his and booked into his hotel in Manhattan.
I arrived on time and met the prime minister and his delegation for drinks in a hospitality suite. The mood was jovial and relaxed. I paid my respects to Sir Eric, chatted with him for a while, circulated to say hello to friends and colleagues and, after confirming my appointment with the prime minister for nine the next morning, excused myself. As I slept, all hell broke loose in Grenada.