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None of these ventures were particularly lucrative, but my father never went without food. He’d also pick mangoes, sweetsop, soursop, paw or custard apples; he’d drink coconut water and eat the white jelly of the coconut with some sugar if he had no money to buy food. If he wanted a hot meal, he’d pick ackees and breadfruit or he’d dig up yams or plantain from the fields to cook in the bushes. He’d also play competitive games of dominoes for a loaf of bread or something to eat. My parents worked hard, living off their wits and imagination.

Cricket had given my father some conception of a world beyond Galina. He had been one of the best cricketers in the district, nicknamed ‘HH’ after bowler HH Hines Johnson and then ‘Collie’ after batsman O’Neil ‘Collie’ Smith. HH only played three times for the West Indies, all coming against England, when he was 37 years of age. Despite his advanced years, he had taken 13 wickets in those Tests. Collie was nearly as good a batsman as Sir Garfield Sobers. Sobers is universally regarded as the greatest all-round cricketer in the history of the sport. Smith and Sobers were good friends. Sadly, Smith died aged 26 in 1959 when a car driven by Sobers on the A34 near Staffordshire crashed into a 10-ton cattle truck. Jamaica was in shock. They took Smith’s body back to Jamaica where an estimated 30,000 people mourned his death.¹