6 / 12
was the year before we were married and we
spent it in New York.
SG: Checks with book shops since your
arrival revealed that all of your books
have been sold out. How do you feel that
after all these years, hundreds of children
continue to receive gold, silver, and bronze
medals for their interpretation of your
work in the national festival finals.
MISS LOU:
I feel proud and I’m happy
about it because I am glad to transmit the
love of the folklore of our country to others.
The songs, dances and stories, it is a joy to
see how well people respond to them. At the
beginning when I started to write for
The
Gleaner
there were those who wrote in to
criticise and say people will never be able to
speak it but I just fix up one man who used to
write in several times, with one of me poems
- ha, ha, ha.
So you a de man me hear bout,
A you dem seh a tek
Whole heap a English oath
Bout you gwine kill dialect
Mek me get it right maas Charlie
Me no quite understan,
You wa’n kill all English dialect
Or jus’ de Jamaica one?...........
For if we k’ean sing Linstead Market
An wata come a me y’eye
Yuh wi haffie tap sing ’Auld lang syne’
An ’Comin thru de rye’
An mine how yu dah read dem English
book de pon de shelf
For if yu miss a H, yu mighta haffi kill
yuself.
I never heard from him again, him nevah
write another letter to the Gleaner.
SG: How do you manage to retain so
many of the poems at this age?
MISS LOU:
I used to say them a lot, I
hear them recited a lot and they are very alive
and around me all the time.
SG: Many Jamaicans loved the popular
television series ’Ring Ding’, what inspired
you to do it?
MISS LOU:
It was at the time when
Sesame Street had begun in the United States
and they were contemplating bringing it
here. The then JBC television invited me in
to ask me if I would do a children’s show to
introduce each episode of Sesame Street. I
did that for about a month but people started
asking for more and so started Ring Ding for
children - it was based on Jamaican themes,
with riddles and jokes and games and it was
well received.
SG: Joan Andrea Hutchinson, Amina
Blackwood Meeks and Carolyn Cooper are
among those who currently encourage the
use of and appreciation of our dialect. Do
you think enough is being done to continue
building on the foundation you have laid
in encouraging us to be proud of what is
ours?
MISS LOU:
I think on a wider scale it
could have been done better, but it’s good
to take it quietly like I did. I have been on
programmes with Carolyn Cooper when she
comes overseas to give talks and lectures in
Toronto. I used to go all over the world and
everywhere I went I spoke about the
SG: Take us back to where it all began
for you.
MISS LOU:
When I was a student in
London, the BBC would invite us, (Carib-
bean students), to come and send greetings
to our home countries. I was among invitees
one year and the others before me were us-
ing their best English to say ’Hello mamma,
hello pappa, Merry Christmas, it is cold...’ I
thought to myself, ’me not going up dere go
do dat.’
So when my turn came, I said:
’Fambly and frend
Me journey end
Me ketch a London town
A Chrismus time a London town
It cold, it cold a London town
But is Chrismus time so happy up yuself.
Afterwards we were on our way to lunch
when a gentleman said he would like to talk
to me in his office the next morning. When I
enquired who he was, I found out he was the
General Manager for the General Overseas
department of the BBC and his office was
right there at the BBC. He said he had heard
me and had long wanted a programme with a
Caribbean flavour. He saw my greeting and
liked my style, so he would like to speak to
me.
I attended the meeting the next morning
from nine and left after 12 with a contract. I
named the programme Caribbean Carnival
because it reached a Caribbean audience. I
also had the BBC’s 20 -piece variety orches-
tra and on Tuesdays I had a programme with
a live audience that was broadcast later at
night to the general overseas audience. It took
off so much that by the third week people
were standing in the snow waiting to come in.
So I give God thanks for everything.
SG: Do you have the loving support
of the wider Caribbean community in
Canada now?
MISS LOU:
Oh yes, especially Jamai-
cans more than anybody else and they are
from all walks of life.
SG: Are you still writing poetry?
MISS LOU:
I do and I have a lot of un-
published material; the thing I’m really con-
centrating on now is my memoirs. There are
a lot of requests for interviews from people
who want to do my memoirs but I would pre-
fer to do my memoirs myself so that I don’t
get people writing things that aren’t so. I have
started making recordings to that effect.
SG: Are you happy with the Jamaica
you see now or do you wish for the Jamai-
ca of your youth?
MISS LOU:
Jamaica is still the most
beautiful place in the world, the people are
still wonderful, what happen to us is that we
too follow fashin. When we are overseas and
hear bad things it makes us sad. When I was
young the worst thing you heard, was that
somebody drop down dead. And everybody
say, ’Lawd de poor ting drop dung dead.’
SG: We notice your passion for bright
vibrant colours, is that deliberate?
MISS LOU:
First of all, Coverley used to
love to see me in red (she smiles wistfully),
but I also like bright colours. My mother who
sewed her whole life made my clothes. When
my outfits are being made, I have to have
enough fabric to make a turban and some-
times matching handbags. When my mother
was alive I went to bed to the sound of the
sewing machine and woke up to it.
SG: If you could live your life all over
is there anything you would change or do
differently.
MISS LOU:
I doubt it because I have
this strong feeling that there is always a very
good reason for things. Even though life has
not always been a bed of roses, when I would
say I’m so disappointed about something, my
mother always said never say you’re disap-
pointed because something better is in store
for you that does not seem likely at the time.
Look at my life, everywhere I go, someone
has heard about Miss Lou. I am happy with
the legacy I am leaving for the people of
Jamaica.