BORN AND schooled in Kingston, it’s not a surprise that I’ve always felt a connection to Jamaica. Admittedly, though, it has nothing to do with my upbringing in the south-west London borough of Kingston-upon-Thames.
Instead, I grew up learning about the third-largest Caribbean island through my maternal grandmother’s tales of life on the rock. Elaine Joy Sheat, née Edwards, was born an hour from Kingston, Jamaica in the parish of St Ann in 1932. The daughter of Christian missionaries, she spent her early years on the island before moving to the UK before the outbreak of World War Two.
Joy, as she was known, returned after the war for around five years before finishing her education in England. Having qualified as a teacher, she came back for a final stint to teach home economics, largely cooking and textiles, in 1954 and it was during this time that she first represented Jamaica.
As a sport-obsessed teenager, this was by far my favourite anecdote. A keen hockey player, ‘Granny’, to me, played for Jamaica against the likes of British Guiana, as it was then, and even toured Venezuela, as her well-kept photo albums document in detail.
