Barbara Ellington, Senior Gleaner Writer
Ambassador Don Mills is caught in an expressive mood during conversations about his upcoming book at the Cherry Gardens residence of Buddy Pouyatt on Saturday. Beside him is veteran actor Barri Johnson. - RICARDO MAKYN/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
HAPPILY, THERE'S a plethora of new and old authors on the local landscape. Many of the island's newsmakers, history shapers and internationally famous, are documenting the events of their lives for posterity. Beverly Anderson-Manley (author in embryo) is now in gestation, Gleaner columnist Heartley Neita's tome on the life of former Prime Minister Hugh Shearer is selling like hot Boston jerked pork. And, retired Ambassador Don Mills is about to add something interesting to bookshelves.
Ambassador Mills divulged some of the details of his project to an intimate gathering of friends and contemporaries at the Cherry Gardens residence of Buddy and Cissy Pouyatt on Saturday. It is not yet titled but will span several decades of public and diplomatic service and discussions over breakfast centred around many anecdotes and travels of the former diplomat's life
But details will be kept secret for now. Meanwhile, it was the consensus that research grants should be available for those who helped shaped the events of modern Jamaica, to comfortably write or even establish museums to house their tangible evidence of contribution.
So, as two lizards fought for grassy turf and lawnmowers competed with birds and fowls for decibel control, Heartly Neita and his daughter Michelle; Rev. Marjorie Lewis and her daughter Kizzy Cooper; Cissy Pouyatt; John Robertson, Barri Johnson, Thelma Manley and Jackie Peat-Smith sipped the Blue Mountain's finest and thanked God that Hurricane Dennis had passed.
