Drumblair: Memories of a Jamaican Childhood

Rachel Manley was born in England to a European mother and a Jamaican father. When she was two and a half years old, her mother was ill, so she was sent to Jamaica to live with grandparents she had never met. In Drumblair: Memories of a Jamaican Childhood ( published by Key Porter Books) she tells the story of her life with her grandparents.

There was nothing spectacular about the old wooden two-storey house set far back from the road. It was not even in a fashionable area, but rather poised precariously on the journey between the city and its ghettos, and the lofty slopes of the suburbs. It has often been described as elegant, but it was too visceral and self-willed a place to be so, for elegance is a product of control.

Drumblair is the house that sustained the Manleys, one of the premier families of Jamaica. Rachel’s grandfather, Norman Manley, was very active in national politics and instrumental in helping Jamaica achieve independence from British rule. He was elected the first Premier of Jamaica. Her grandmother, Edna, was an artist who supported her husband in his endeavors. They were both strong, loving, compassionate people. Rachel’s father, Michael, became active in one of the unions and politics, eventually becoming Prime Minister.

In Drumblair: Memories of a Jamaican Childhood , Rachel Manley gives us an inside peek of what it like to grow up in such a dynamic family. This book is her homage to them. This book won the Governor General’s Literary Award for Non-Fiction (a Canadian book award) in 1997.