Between bursts of song and flag waving we looked to see if he would come. The Queen’s motorcade finally appeared, approaching from the direction of Kingston Harbour. To my six-year-old self it seemed as if he had come to us across the sea in this sleek silver vehicle. After all, she was the one who ruled the waves, so that seemed entirely possible. When the magnificent silver car drove past, I could see that the Queen was not wearing, as I expected, a golden crown, but a very modern-looking hat. She looked beautiful and smiled the whole time as she waved a white-gloved hand to the crowds on one side and then to those on the other side of King Street. This was November 1953 and I was seeing the incarnation of Britannia, the newly crowned Queen of a people adamant that they would never, never, never be enslaved. I also cheered for the Queen of Jamaica, where most of the people are descendants of Africans who were enslaved by the British. I had heard my older brothers opine about the unfairness of it all, so maybe that was why I had told my mother that morning that I didn’t want to go stand and cheer in the street. “You are very much your own,” my mother said sternly. I went. Children are practical and we had school holidays. Jamaicans cheer and applaud during the Queen’s three-day visit to Jamaica to celebrate the year’s jubilee in 2002. Photo: Lynne Sladky/AP In those years before Jamaica’s independence in 1962, evidence of Britishness was still everywhere on the island. On special occasions we enjoyed Peek Freans biscuits, believed in the nourishing and soporific powers of Horlicks, bathed in Pears, Yardley and Bromley soaps, disinfected with Dettol and Jeyes and answered the call to help rebuild Britain after the Second World War by boarding the Empire Whirlwind and sailing for Homeland. The prevailing wisdom was that everything worthwhile came from abroad, and for most Jamaicans at the time, abroad meant England. Even the cane grown by the Jamaicans under the most inhumane and brutal conditions was sent, in its final stages of production, to England to be ground into a snowy powder or formed into pure white cubes of “refined” sugar. For some, this could be taken as a good metaphor for what a proper colony subject should aim for. For our dark selves to be truly refined, we needed to be law abiding and cultured, and women would have to speak in polite tones like the Queen whose message went over the airwaves of Radio Jamaica and Rediffusion every Christmas morning without fail. But there have always been those who knew we had to be our true selves. Some of our philosophers, like Marcus Garvey and the early Rastafarians, pointed out, in the thundering style of the Old Testament prophets, how futile our colonial imitation could be. However, Caribbean musicians, artists and writers have always been fascinated by the Queen. Perhaps this has to do with the ancestral memory of African societies ruled by powerful female monarchs. Rastafarian men usually address their wives and women as their queens. And while Cleopatra, Nefertiti and Queen Nzinga are often cited as role models for Rastafarian queens – even the most militant Dread would admit that since none of these queens lived in our time, their ideas of how they should be she is a queen in the world no doubt shaped by what most had actually heard and seen. Tarrus Riley’s She is Royal remains one of reggae’s most beloved songs. Peter Tosh urged us to visit Buk-in-Hamm Palace… and, surprise, light a chalice. The Mighty Sparrow performed a risqué calypso inspired by the 1982 incident in which a man found his way into the Queen’s bedroom. Sparrow should, in all fairness, have given Her Majesty credit for the courage and grace she displayed in the situation. But cover songs are not to be confused with praise songs, and our quest to define our true selves certainly involved making authorities more human and less like distant deities. Queen Elizabeth II chats with Ashanti dancers who performed for her and the Duke of Edinburgh during a visit to Montego Bay. Photo: Martin Keene/PA Archive/Press Association Ima As everyone knows, the Commonwealth was very dear to the Queen’s heart. He traveled to Jamaica for the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in 1975, although our then Prime Minister Michael Manley was not a monarchist. I know that he personally admired, perhaps even loved, the Queen, but as he said, he could not have meant it in his heart when he had to take the oath of allegiance to her as required by the constitution. As Jamaicans began to care less and less about what Britain thought of us, the Republican debate grew louder in parliament and in the press. But officially the Queen remained the Queen of Jamaica and so, during these visits, there was much discussion about whether the ladies who were presented to the Queen should be tiring, a gesture associated with historical servitude. In the end, some women chose not to, and some of those who bent their knees in the Brigadier’s presence later claimed that they had actually stood still. On the night of a state dinner during a royal visit in 2002, there was a massive power cut, but by the light of candles and motor vehicle headlights beaming into the kitchen and dining room, the meal went ahead. Some suspected sabotage by anti-monarchists, but everyone at the dinner left completely mesmerized by how composed the Queen had remained when suddenly everything was killed. Barbados has now, after nearly 400 years, severed its ties with the monarchy and become a republic. Jamaica, I have no doubt, will eventually follow the same path and few will shed a tear for it. But when I was informed that I would be the first Jamaican to be awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry, I went and sat in my back garden in Kingston and watched the hummingbirds and cried. I am, as the Jamaicans say, a lot of crybaby. and I cried because my mother, Doris, who had ordered me down King Street in 1953, had not lived to see it. My husband and I, as the Queen so often began her official remarks, traveled to London and on the morning of March 5, 2020, we were received at Buckingham Palace, where England’s Poet Laureate, Simon Armitage, and I were escorted up the stairs . in Her Majesty’s study. Queen Elizabeth presents Jamaican poet Lorna Goodison with the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry. Photo: Jonathan Brady/AFP/Getty Images One of her corgis fell asleep on a round pillow that lay in a patch of sunlight in the passage as we entered an ante room where a lady-in-waiting shared fond memories of that unforgettable lights-out dinner in Jamaica. And then I was taken to meet the Queen. In the photos we are standing there beaming at each other. She presented me with the medal and invited me to sit next to her on a couch. We spoke for 15 minutes, during which she allowed how Jamaica held a special place in her heart. Her voice became tender when she spoke of the island’s natural beauty. He hoped that people would not be allowed to build buildings in the Blue Mountains. She asked about some of the poetry programs I had started as a poet laureate and seemed pleased that I had chosen to focus on opening up opportunities for younger Jamaican poets. I told her that I now live in a place called Halfmoon Bay, British Columbia in Canada. I told her how I often saw seals from our deck and that my Aunt Alberta had married a man named Mr. Sill, so whenever I saw a seal I took it as a sign, a sign as my mother would say, that one of them had relatives come to check on me. Honestly, I’ll never forget the free and girlish sound of how she laughed out loud at my seal story. I then learned that the Queen’s personal chaplain was Rose Hudson-Wilkin, an Anglican priest born in Jamaica. Was that why he seemed so comfortable talking and laughing with this Jamaican? Later, at a celebratory meal with a dozen old friends, everyone kept asking what was it really like? I think I kept replying, nice, it’s really really nice. I doubt many Commonwealth citizens will be waving flags or singing the praises of the Queen’s successors. But of this I am sure: those of us who grew up in Elizabeth’s reign will still think of her as our queen. Establishing our own identity, shaking off old ties of allegiance to Britain never clashed with that affection. Sure of who we are, freed from the duty to do so, we can at least in our hearts wave our many and varied flags and sing Elizabeth of England, safely at home. Lorna Goodison has been named Poet Laureate of Jamaica 2017.
