Eunice Scott-Baird remembers 1962

August 6, 1962, came along when Eunice Scott was about 14 years old and a student at Beaufort School in Westmoreland. She was always in the know.

“As a matter of fact, my aunt, Nurse McIntosh, the nurse in the area, had taken us to a meeting in the square held by my cousin, Arthur Crooks, who was the councillor for the division; and N. W. Manley had sent down the Honourable Michael Manley to address the people and tell us what Independence means, and what it was we were supposed to be looking forward to,” she recalled.

To prepare them for the big day, teachers taught them the national anthem and the national pledge. At the time, the space at the school at Darliston was bigger, and that was where they were taken on August 6 in their blue-and-white uniform by their teachers. It was a time of joy and excitement, and they were given Jamaican flags and cups with the motto and Independence date emblazoned on them. Hers were stolen from her house not too long ago.

“There was a big feast. Cows were killed, and pigs, and all sorta something; ice cream, ‘back-and-front’ shave ice with syrup … . We had a cricket match, Beaufort playing against Darliston, Caledonia playing against Big Wood, etc. It was a day of fun,” she recalled, when Count Prince Miller band played popular songs, including Wash Wash.

But, the evening and the night belonged to “big people”. So, the teachers escorted the children back to the nearest possible point to their homes. From a hilltop, Scott and her siblings could see what was happening in Darliston, but a brother of hers stole away to Darliston to get a much better view. They kept the door open for his late return and a summary of what happened at the dance, where patrons ‘dropped legs’ to big-people music, such as Run Man Run and I’m a Lonely Girl.

The festivities continued the day after, for “from up Orange Hill through Beaufort go down, you have the Jonkonnu band coming down, and the district was behind the Jonkonnu band, and it was a march out to Darliston”. She recalled a reveller giving five shillings to one of the masqueraders to take one shilling from it, and he disappeared with the entire five shillings.

There was another dance that night, and Phillipine, the biggest sister, decided that it was not going to miss her. And did she enjoy herself? She danced to every record until 1:30 a.m.

DANCE SCHOOL

“When Papa went out to Darliston, somebody tell him say, ‘Maas Phillip, what a way yuh gal can dance. She drop some foot deh!’ So, Papa go dung a Phillipine madda yard, go ask har say wha’ kinda pickney she a grow … . Papa say, ‘Since yuh running a dance school down here, she is to be boarded.’ So, he boarded Phillipine. But, that never stop Phillipine. She got round the boarder same way. Phillipine climb through the window.”

Scott has evolved from a teenager who could not attend the evening segment of the 1962 Independence celebrations to Scott-Baird, a justice of the peace and a community stalwart who has significantly contributed to the social and cultural development of Sligoville, where she has been living since 1991.

“When I came, I couldn’t understand how such rich heritage was left to rot,” she said. So, over the years, to revive and keep the heritage of Jamaica’s first free village alive, Scott-Baird had been a member of Sligoville’s Emancipation Committee, Cultural Development Committee, and Sligoville’s Support Committee.

She was taught the quadrille by dance connoisseur Joyce Campbell, and had, in turn, become a volunteer teacher of the quadrille in several schools in the Sligoville area. She, along with her husband Harry Baird, Sylvester Ayre, Mavis Hall and Daniel Smith brought back Emancipation celebrations to Sligoville in 2002. Since then, ‘Emancifest’ had been held annually on August 1 in Sligoville.

However, as it relates to this year’s celebrations, Scott-Baird said she was not consulted, has not seen her member of parliament in five years, and did not know what was going on. “What I have come to realise now is that the younger people [are] not interested in the older folks. They don’t want you near nothing that they are doing. They just want to do their own thing, despite your value. They don’t want to hear anything from you,” she shared.

Scott-Baird knew what was going on in August 1962, and that is why she has fond memories of it. It was a time of great joy, yet children had to be disciplined and well-mannered, in spite of Phillipine’s free-spiritedness, and things were looking promising. It is now 60 years after, and what have we become as a people?

Baird replied, “We have lost respect for ourselves. We have lost respect for our elders. We have lost respect for Christianity. And because of that we are sliding down a hill that is so steep that we don’t know when we going to stop.” But, what about the infrastructural changes? “That is infrastructural improvement, have nothing against that, but we have lost ourselves in getting there,” she quickly responded.