Hartley Neita

I worked at home on Labour Day this year and did not see any of the activities associated with the community work projects which usually take place on this day. The following day I saw that two pedestrian crossings in my neighbourhood were repainted but could not see if there were any special beautification projects.

The programme of 'putting work into Labour Day' started 35 years ago. Jamaica is the only country in the world where citizens take time out to spend a portion of a holiday working on either national or community projects. Older Jamaicans will remember the rubble which was piledhigh on the median between the cement factory and the Harbour View roundabout in eastern Kingston, and the dramatic change evident after the first Labour Day landscaping project was carried out.

The Labour Day project which I remember vividly was the construction by citizens, on the outskirts of Spanish Town, of three homes for three senior citizen couples sometime in the 1970s. These new homes replaced three shacks in which these couples had been living.

Watching the activities

I remember seeing them sitting in the doorways of their shacks and watching the activity taking place before them. The houses were completed at about 5:00 p.m. and shortly after, three trucks arrived with new beds, dining tables and other furniture for the homes. Then, a group of teenagers went to the couples and led them into their new homes. There were tears on the faces of many who were involved in the project. I must confess, too, that my eyes were wet.

Over the years, I have seen nurses from New York visiting Jamaica and working in hospitals on Labour Day. I have seen tourists joining Jamaicans on work projects in Montego Bay and Ocho Rios. I have seen dozens of basic schools built, including the Jamaica House Basic School. I have seen furniture in schools, police stations and hospitals repaired and painted.

I remember private-sector doctors going to hospitals on Labour Day and assisting the resident doctors. I remember surgeons doing operations, free of charge, on patients in these hospitals. I have seen young girls visiting senior citizens homes and combing their hair and giving them beauty treatments. I have seen diplomats and consuls and business leaders working on public projects.

I remember that the Jamaica Labour Party did not support this programme at first. It was only in the last twelve years or so that they participated.

Photographed memories

Thousands of photographs of these projects have been taken over the years. One photographer who was absent this year was Charlie Kinkead. He was in a hospital in Florida. Sadly, he died last week Friday. 'Gruesome', as he was called - and I will not tell you why - he had seen the history of Jamaica unfold through the lens of his camera for over 70 years.

He was one of the photographers working for the Jamaica Standard newspaper who spent nearly three weeks in the Blue Mountains in 1938 searching for five Jamaica College boys who were lost there.

He and his camera were shooting photographs of Alexander Bustamante and the strikers in the 1938 uprising. He was at every General Election campaign from 1944 to 1983. He saw and captured on film the construction of the National Stadium, Cornwall Regional Hospital and the Holiday Inn, Wyndham Rose Hall, and the New Falmouth hotels, the creation of New Kingston, numerous development projects all over the island, and the hundreds of Labour Day projects done in the past 35 years.

Walk good, my friend.

Over the years I have seen nurses from New York visiting Jamaica and working in hospitals on Labour Day.