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Heyday of Vernamfield
published: Saturday | March 29, 2008
Hartley Neita
The village in which I grew, my early years went into a semi-coma a year or two after World War II started in 1939.
Before, it was busy and bustling, especially during the first four months of each year with a citrus packing plant that exported oranges to New Zealand. Dozens of women were employed sorting, washing and grading the citrus according to size. A few men operated and maintained a steam engine which generated the electricity used to operate the plant. In addition, drivers and sidemen were employed to drive the trucks to Manchester and the Mocho districts of upper Clarendon to transport the oranges to Four Paths and the crated fruit to the wharves in Kingston.
Gifford Lawson and his brother Alvin who owned the factory sent a box of oranges which were too ripe for the three-week journey to New Zealand to our home every week. My younger brother and I finished the box of fruit in two days. Greedy! Because of the danger of German submarines which searched the Atlantic and Pacific oceans for ships carrying passengers and cargo, the citrus packing operations slowed, then ceased.
breaking stones
The women who worked packing citrus also found alternative employment breaking stones to pave the roads, growing cash crops and reaping the mangoes which grew all across the village to sell in the May Pen and Four Paths markets. They also worked on the Lawsons' cattle farm which supplied milk to the condensery in Bog Walk. The trucks also transported children from Four Paths and neighbouring districts to May Pen where they took the train to clarendon College which was founded at the time in Chapelton.
Other sources of employment were from Felix Waddell's property where he reared cattle, and also cut logwood which in those days was a major export industry. The economy of Four Paths survived.
The next boost came when the Americans decided to construct the air and naval base at Vernamfield in south Clarendon. The railway stations nearest to the site of this base were Four Paths and May Pen. At the crack of dawn, Mondays to Saturdays, a train shunted into the Four Paths railway station with scores and scores of carpenters, masons, welders, electricians, painters and other skilled personnel from Kingston and other stations.
Four Paths' men who had learned trades such as carpentry, mechanics, welding, and other skills at the citrus factory also found ready employment at Vernamfield. From there, the trucks which formerly carried citrus transported them to Vernamfield. During the day, trains came one after the other with lumber, cement, zinc, glass, rolls of electric wire, paint, stationery, cases of nails, nuts and bolts, steel rods and other material from Kingston to use in the construction of the base.
Some women also sold fast food - buns, breads, aerated water, cheese and fritters - at the railway station.
little benefit
Four Paths did not benefit as much as May Pen did from the Vernamfield construction. May Pen had electricity, a cinema, restaurants, and other facilities which were used by the American airmen, marines and sailors. Marriages took place between the migrant workers and the women of the two towns. Some of these men bought land and houses in the area, and helped to create Denbigh which now joins the two towns.
Before the end of the 1940s, America changed its defence focus to the Pacific. Vernamfield was closed. Fifteen years later when we became independent there were suggestions that the Government should seek to persuade the Americans to return. This did not materialise, and since then (for a while) the area grew rice and was the site of motor car races.
published: Saturday | March 29, 2008
Hartley Neita
The village in which I grew, my early years went into a semi-coma a year or two after World War II started in 1939.
Before, it was busy and bustling, especially during the first four months of each year with a citrus packing plant that exported oranges to New Zealand. Dozens of women were employed sorting, washing and grading the citrus according to size. A few men operated and maintained a steam engine which generated the electricity used to operate the plant. In addition, drivers and sidemen were employed to drive the trucks to Manchester and the Mocho districts of upper Clarendon to transport the oranges to Four Paths and the crated fruit to the wharves in Kingston.
Gifford Lawson and his brother Alvin who owned the factory sent a box of oranges which were too ripe for the three-week journey to New Zealand to our home every week. My younger brother and I finished the box of fruit in two days. Greedy! Because of the danger of German submarines which searched the Atlantic and Pacific oceans for ships carrying passengers and cargo, the citrus packing operations slowed, then ceased.
breaking stones
The women who worked packing citrus also found alternative employment breaking stones to pave the roads, growing cash crops and reaping the mangoes which grew all across the village to sell in the May Pen and Four Paths markets. They also worked on the Lawsons' cattle farm which supplied milk to the condensery in Bog Walk. The trucks also transported children from Four Paths and neighbouring districts to May Pen where they took the train to clarendon College which was founded at the time in Chapelton.
Other sources of employment were from Felix Waddell's property where he reared cattle, and also cut logwood which in those days was a major export industry. The economy of Four Paths survived.
The next boost came when the Americans decided to construct the air and naval base at Vernamfield in south Clarendon. The railway stations nearest to the site of this base were Four Paths and May Pen. At the crack of dawn, Mondays to Saturdays, a train shunted into the Four Paths railway station with scores and scores of carpenters, masons, welders, electricians, painters and other skilled personnel from Kingston and other stations.
Four Paths' men who had learned trades such as carpentry, mechanics, welding, and other skills at the citrus factory also found ready employment at Vernamfield. From there, the trucks which formerly carried citrus transported them to Vernamfield. During the day, trains came one after the other with lumber, cement, zinc, glass, rolls of electric wire, paint, stationery, cases of nails, nuts and bolts, steel rods and other material from Kingston to use in the construction of the base.
Some women also sold fast food - buns, breads, aerated water, cheese and fritters - at the railway station.
little benefit
Four Paths did not benefit as much as May Pen did from the Vernamfield construction. May Pen had electricity, a cinema, restaurants, and other facilities which were used by the American airmen, marines and sailors. Marriages took place between the migrant workers and the women of the two towns. Some of these men bought land and houses in the area, and helped to create Denbigh which now joins the two towns.
Before the end of the 1940s, America changed its defence focus to the Pacific. Vernamfield was closed. Fifteen years later when we became independent there were suggestions that the Government should seek to persuade the Americans to return. This did not materialise, and since then (for a while) the area grew rice and was the site of motor car races.