Page 241 - Michael Frost-Voyages to Maturity-23531.indd

north of Kingston, and their rented house had plenty of accommodation. And
I found that my parents could also come over, Father always having wanted to
go to such exotic places.

But my cup ranneth even further over the top. Upon hearing that in September
we were to travel to the Caribbean for ten days, two of the young ladies working
with me, Linda and Joyce, declared that they would like to go too! The fact that
Judith would be there (I believe her Eatons’ ‘rank’ was above their mothers’, but
she was in any event regarded as being a perfect temporary guardian for these two
young things) meant that any parental reservations were allayed. They received
the necessary consent.

Thus, at the end of August we arrived in Kingston – the traffic was every bit
as savage as I had remembered – and were greeted by the Shepherds and Susan,
who was still living with them, and a couple of days later, my parents arrived.
The house was typically Jamaican, open and airy, but well protected from the
afternoon rain-storms. There were surprises (one went outside in the morning
to pick the breakfast oranges, very little talk was audible during an evening
on the veranda, so noisy were the frogs, and we were never unnecessarily
disturbed, Brutus, the family Doberman, being amiable but looking ferocious)
but servants looked after the cooking, cleaning and gardening. Indeed, this was
a pretty good way to live.

The mechanics of getting married were not necessarily so simple. Mr
Shepherd had engaged the services of the new Bishop of Trinidad to officiate, but
the pre-Marriage Certificate had to be obtained (not so simple in such an anti-
bureaucratic country) and then notarised. Finding a Notary was not simple; when
we did find one, he had already sampled a few tots of rum. As it was unbelievably
hot at the time, Judith decided then that she no longer wanted to get married and
to go home forthwith.
Fortunately, next day she changed her mind. Wedding day proved
exceedingly hot, and the ceremony at Constant Spring Church went well (as
did the excellent Prime Rib, obtained with much difficulty, although with not
Sauternes but Chianti). However, as we had and have no idea whether there was
a residential requirement for the wedding to be valid, even now we cannot be
sure that we are legally tied!

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