Independence celebrations have changed – 71-year-old

Seventy-one-year-old Clovis Brown, a resident of Sligoville, St Catherine, was nine years old when Jamaica got its Independence from Britain in 1962.

She recalled attending the Sligoville All-Age School at the time, and the efforts made by teachers to prepare them for the celebrations.

“I remember the day we were at school, I was from a poor family so I went to school barefooted. Children were there whose parents bought material with the logo and the 6th of August printed on it, but I didn’t have any, so I turned up at school in my plain uniform,” Brown recalled.

“Our teachers had prepared us for this day, so we had learned the songs and we were singing the songs, and we were given little flags and some cups with the black, gold and green colour on them, it was a good time,” she declared.

According to Brown, it was a day of festivities at school where the children were required to sing the cultural and national songs they were taught in preparation for August 6.

“Oh the food, too, was prepared at school all local cultural food; I remember getting rundown made from coconut juice and yam, banana, sweet potatoes and so on,” Brown recollected.

Drawn from a poor family in a small rural community, Brown said there was nothing else for her to do after the celebrations ended at school, except to go home, not knowing there were big celebrations going on in Kingston.

“There were no TVs in Sligoville, so I went home after school not knowing that celebrations were going on in Kingston; our teachers made this known to us afterwards,” she explained.

Brown said there were hardly any festivities to mark Independence Day in Sligoville, but each year at that time, they knew it was independence because of the initial celebrations at school.

“Street dance and so on was not common in Sligoville, the little festivities would be like Jonkonnu and little street parade, so we didn’t see much celebrations, most of it was done in Spanish Town back then, but even if there was street dance, we couldn’t go because we didn’t have shoes on our feet,” she stated, adding that most of the Independence activities took place at school.

The Sligoville native said Independence has not brought any significant development to the community over the years.

“The first free village after Emancipation and Sligoville is still way underdeveloped,” she said, “We can say that we get light and water, but there is still water problems, telephone came after, but roads are still bad, we didn’t get a government school until 1951.”

Brown said a lot has changed since Independence, in terms of the culture and family, because although her family was poor, they would have time for family events.

“Nowadays the songs have change, we use to have ska, people don’t even dance like how we used to dance, I don’t see the waltz no more, growing up parties were different, two people would do a dance we call waltz, all that have disappeared,” she said .

According her, the Internet although good in some respects, has been substituted for quality family time, like having meals together.

Brown said we have to revisit some of the family values that were taught while she was growing up to create stability in the society, noting that Independence could be used to recreate that cultural awareness.

ruddy.mathison@gleanerjm.com