MONTEGO BAY
In the preceding letter and memoirs, travel by horse was less of a challenge for some than traveling in a coach or buggy on the Jamaican roads. A century later, although there were automobiles, gasoline was rationed during the war. We lived at Ironshore, which was a sugar estate in those days. It was about 6 miles from Montego Bay, and there was only enough gas to make a couple trips into town each week. Canes were hauled to the sugar factory on large carts pulled by a team of oxen. Sometimes we went into town on a cart on Sunday nights, to return to boarding school after a weekend at home. We children thought the ride was a great adventure.
At Ironshore there were only a few houses then--houses for the overseer, bookkeepers, and factory workers were on the hills, at Ironshore and Providence, while the sugar-cane mill was on the level area near the main road. To the east, the neighboring estate was Rose Hall. Between Rose Hall and Ironshore there was nothing but sugar cane, with a few pastures for livestock. The beach on which the Half Moon and other hotels now sit was a private beach for Rose Hall and Ironshore. It was called Dunn's Hole. The Dunns lived at nearby Lilliput in the nineteenth century.
The Rose Hall great house, home of the Palmers and the White Witch of Rose Hall, was in ruins. According to local superstition, the White Witch still haunted the house, and would seize any intruders. Furthermore, according to the whispered stories, she could still be seen at night riding on Rose Hall and Ironshore estates, wearing a green velvet dress, seated on a large black horse, and flaying with her whip anyone who got in her way. Sometimes my brothers and I would ride over to the Rose Hall ruins. On a dare by my brothers, I would run across the width of the house, crossing the large living room area, gripped by the kind of fear that could only be matched by sitting through a horror movie.
Heading west from Ironshore, there were no houses until you reached the village of Whitehouse. There was no airport. The entire area which is now the airport was a swamp. Queen's Drive, "the high-level road," did not yet exist. Kent Avenue was the road into town. It ran between the sea and the swamp. In bad weather when it was raining, and the waves were splashing over the road, it was a challenging drive. That road is now closed.
The first hotel on the edge of town was the Chatham Hotel. It was across the road from the Chatham Beach. The Sunset Lodge was built next to the beach later. A little further on there was the Cornwall Beach, and the neighboring Doctor's Cave Beach. The groins were built later in that decade, to stop the erosion of Doctor's Cave beach, and to help build the beach back up. The watching locals were skeptical, but the groins achieved their purpose. Originally there was over a hundred feet of water between the beach and the south/western groin, and now it is all sand.
The Casa Blanca Hotel was next to Doctor's Cave, and the Gloucester House Hotel was across the street. Coral Cliff was a little further south, shortly before the hospital, which has now been demolished and replaced by a park. The Ethel Hart Hotel overlooked the downtown area from the hill next to Mount Alvernia school. The Staffordshire Hotel was a business hotel on Union Street, and the Richmond Hill Inn was on the hill near the end of that street. Those were the only hotels in the early 1940's.
Since there was no airport in Montego Bay, tourists and others arrived by road, by train, or by ship. There was no deep-water pier. Ships had to anchor offshore in the middle of the bay. Cruise ships had not yet started to visit the town. After the war, when naval ships pulled into port, they would allow school children to take tours of the ships. We were ransported to the ships from the Kerr & Co. wharf, either in launches, if we were lucky, or in lighters that were usually used for transporting cargo. The distance to the ships was not too far for the boys who swam around them diving for coins.
To leave town and head west, one had to drive on Barnett Street, which also led to Barnett Estate and the canefields which flanked Montego Bay on the other side. There was no Howard Cooke Boulevard to ease the traffic, and Barnett Street was always busy. Apart from that, Montego Bay was a quiet little town.
If you have been to Montego Bay within the past few years, you will realize that the town has changed considerably. It is now served by an international airport, and ships pull in at Montego Freeport. Dozens of hotels serve the area. Homes and hotels have replaced canefields. It happened just the way my father said it would. But in the 1940's nobody believed him. . . .
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