There is a quality of sorrow that only a father can feel for the loss of a beloved daughter, taken away in the prime of her life, on the threshold of glorious womanhood; that only a son can feel for the passing of a model father; that only a brother can feel for the untimely departure of a blossoming sibling. When it is one and the same man who must bear the terrible burden of losing all three, who amongst us can fathom it, the depth of such grief!

JACKSON. I will block out everything and focus exclusively on my goal

And yet, this is not the picture we have come to form of John Jackson. A man who comfortably resides in the cold, dark figures of accountancy, the uncertain success of stock analysis and the often dire financial predictions that have an uncanny way of coming to pass, might not be expected to have his heart so completely broken.

John Hermas Jackson, son of a banana man, bequeathed to his nation out of Cambridge, St James, on July 28, 1948, can now write the book - A Tale of Untold Sorrow it might be titled - but a script, too, of how to bear it and cherish the memory of love left behind by those now called home, too soon, O God, too soon, to their rest.

Darkest hour of sorrow

But if Jackson mourns the loss of loved ones, he also laments the absence of a national organisation, akin to an Alcoholics Anonymous, that can grieve with those who grieve in the darkest hour of their sorrow, when the consoling crowds have long departed to their daily routine. In the meantime, he warns them not to drive a dagger further into the heart of the mourning souls by the way they express their condolences. "Sometimes a hug is the best means of empathising," he advises, seeming to relive momentarily - he can't help it, can he - his own personal pain.

But shed no tears for John Jackson, dear reader. For out of death's frightful tirade, he has emerged with awesome strength to live and share of himself. Crunching numbers for a living, he has helped others to enrich themselves, and through a fund set up to honour his daughter's memory, provides education for the less fortunate.

And the Jackson manuscript depicts a man concerned for country, the country he could not give up for England. Ask him about economic and social issues, but make sure to have the time. With a disarming chuckle, he admits with mischievous honesty that he should have forewarned the interviewer that "I'm a pseudo-politician". He'll tell you the bitter inside story of how the sugar industry was lost and of his own frustration, from his days at the National Sugar Corporation.

Carl Stone apologised

If you are lucky, he'll also tell you the story of how he became the only man to whom the late Professor Carl Stone had to apologise publicly, and how he was libelled by the now-defunct Workers Bank and the full page apology the bank consequently had to run. Jackson has no fear of controversy. It's the reason every current affairs and call-in show producer has all his telephone numbers.and use them frequently.

But above all, John Jackson loves to deal in stocks, and he'll be remembered for it. The stock market is a passion with him; nothing like predicting that a particular stock will do well and watching the numbers climb tantalisingly. This passion for numbers is a gift of birth, humble though it is, in the hills of Cambridge above Montego Bay, and from where we'll pick up this engaging story.

Clement, Mark, Andrew, Moses

Frederick Jackson and his wife, Lucille nee Burgess, loved children. They had eight of them, John being the fourth. The others are: Clement; Frederick Jnr, Mark, Olive, Prisca, Andrew and Paul (deceased). A cousin, Carby was also a member of the household.

Frederick Jackson was brother to Arnold Jackson, the popular grassroots politician and member of parliament for Eastern Hanover who was affectionately known as "Dutty Shut" and the father of Jamaica's leading business journalist Moses Jackson.

While Mrs Jackson took care of the home and the children, Frederick Jackson tried his hand at several enterprises, including farming and cabinet-making.

His main produce was banana, but he also planted breadfruit, oranges, cocoa and coffee, on the Delisser family property. John remembers Cambridge as a bustling town and for its abundance of breadfruit. He'll probably be forgiven for boasting that Cambridge had the best breadfruit. "They roasted very easily; they had yellow heart, whether ripe or turned, they had an exceptionally wonderful flavour."

Religion and politics

At the corner store, the adults either discussed religion or politics and John recalls that he would tag along with his parents. He has memories of Norman Manley and Alexander Bustamante dancing with supporters (separately) at political meetings in the village. Those were crime-free days. From an early age, John loved to play table tennis, cricket and football. Table tennis would become his passion later.

At four years old, he was sent to Cambridge Infant School and can't forget his parents trying - unsuccessfully - to force worm medicine down his throat, in preparation for school. The headmistress was a Mrs Edwards. From there, he went to Cambridge Primary and saw a cultural mix of students, some Chinese among them.

He remembers people like Patsy Hastings, Patsy Evans, Ruel Cooke, Thelma Cooke and Patsy Chin. He was good friends with Patsy Chin and her brother Patrick Chin. There was also Joy Comrie, who later became an Air Jamaica flight attendant.

And there were special teachers like Mrs Hinds, strict but an excellent English and Mathematics teacher, and Teacher Kentish, who gave extra lessons for the Jamaica Local Exam. In the year he took the exam, John was the only successful candidate from the school. It was there that he first saw signs of a flair for Math when he got a distinction in 'O' level and won the prize for the student with the highest mark throughout his years at that school. He has pleasant memories too of Miss Medley and headmaster Mr Sweeney.

Holmwood Technical

John enjoyed school and seemed set for academic success. But his first major obstacle came when he could not sit the Common Entrance Exam because of the parlous state of the family finances. Instead, he sat the technical school exam, what people popularly called "over age" exam at the time.

He remembers feeling traumatised on the morning of the exam and that affected his performance, causing him to fail. On his second attempt, he passed, and in that same year did the same at the Jamaica Local Exam.

This was 1962. The young John was struck by the excitement of the age. The Independence celebrations were on and people around him spoke of hope and great expectations. He was sent to Holmwood Technical High in Christiana, Manchester.

Holmwood was a boarding school and was also one of the first schools to introduce a book rental scheme. With assistance from the government, he was able to pay the £30 boarding fee. But Christiana was cold, requiring sweaters and the traditional ragging of a 'grub' by the older students was not funny at the time.

That aside, Jackson liked Holmwood and excelled there. He represented his house in cricket and football and tried out for the school's football team as a goalkeeper but did not get very far.

Students who stood out in his mind included Barbara Blake (not the journalist); Byron Buchanan, Vannel Levy and Franklin Williams who later made a name for himself at Carib Engineering. There were also teachers like Mr Wallace, the outstanding Math teacher; Mr Lowe, who taught English and Mr Melbourne, the Spanish teacher. Headmaster was a Mr Johnson.

Haile Selassie came calling

Jackson did exceptionally well in Maths, although, he admits, "I struggled with decimals". While at Holmwood, he got a close look at Haile Selassie, the late emperor of Ethiopia who visited in 1966. That same year, Jackson sat and passed the AIB, an exam similar to the Cambridge 'O' levels.

As he contemplated graduation, he thought he would work on the land, having long cherished a desire to find a career in agriculture, noticing the satisfaction he used to get from cultivating a few suckers of banana. He applied to the Jamaica School of Agriculture and was accepted. That did not start out well.

One day, a teacher's foot accidentally enmeshed with Jackson's and he reported to the headmaster that the student had tried to trip him up. Jackson received a caning. He thought the whole thing was unfair to him. "During the holidays, I went back home. Suddenly, one day, it was as if I heard a voice from above saying 'This is not what I had planned for you'. After that, my interest in agriculture began to wane," Jackson relates.

Gloria Royale-Davis

Now 18 years old, he stepped out into a man's world and got his first job at the St James Parish Library. It was a brief stint, he recalls. "Gloria Royale (later Royale-Davis) was deputy librarian at the time. We had a branch library at Glendevon and I was responsible for seeing that everything was in order there.

On one occasion, she was not pleased with what I had done and sent me back to re-do it. I did. Still not pleased, she sent me back to do it over again. I refused and that was the end of my library stint," Jackson recounts.

In 1967, Jackson got a job with the National Water Authority. Those were the days before rural areas got sewerage systems. He used to be sent out to the Barnett River and the Montego Bay harbour to test for water quality. After a year, he left to join Peat Marwick Mitchell and company, the auditing firm now known as KPMG, complaining that the pay at the Water Authority was pitiful and in any event he did not like the lab job, even though he had studied Physics and Chemistry at school.

Turned down by Price Waterhouse

He had also done a bit of book-keeping at Holmwood and it came in handy at Peat Marwick. He had applied first to Price Waterhouse but the manager, Richard Downer's father, was not familiar with the AIB exam. Shortly after, Jackson saw an ad for an audit clerk at Peat Marwick and applied. John Atkinson, an Englishman, interviewed him and offered him the job after he saw evidence the young man had been reading up on accounting in his spare time.

Jackson settled down at Peat Marwick and found to his great relief that he liked the job. The staff got on well together and as Jackson was one of the few persons in the group with a motor car, he used to ferry them, from the many parties they used to attend. In 1973, he was given a two-year scholarship to Southwest London College in England to complete his studies for the Certified Accountants Exam.

Cold, gloomy England

He recalls that initially he did not like England. "It was a different culture. It was cold and the place was gloomy looking. I never got used to the cold. I like to wake up and feel the sun on my back," he says. "My plan was to focus on my exams and get out of England."

But with time, he felt better about the place. He also liked the idea, though it came as a surprise to him, that he knew a lot more than many of the British students and could outshine them. Suddenly the place did not look so gloomy after all. He met many students from all over the world and found that he enjoyed the cultural interchange.

It also helped that Orville Haslam, the outstanding Jamaican TT player at the time, was there and he could get to play table tennis with him.

Although the course was two years, Jackson planned to do it in one year. It would mean doing two sections - four and five - in half the normal time, but he felt up to it.

His head had 'swelled' somewhat when his British assessor agreed that he had the ability to do it. And he remembered that Anthony Bell of Wray and Nephew had done it before him. So why not? People had always accused him of being an optimist because of his overriding confidence in self. Now he would have to prove what he was truly worth. But bad luck awaited.

Failing accounting

On the morning of the exam, he woke up late and dragged himself into the room half asleep. Not surprisingly, he failed his accounting exam. It was a big blow to him and his assessor.

John Jackson does not fail accounting! Now he would have to do both sections four and five all at once, and as far as he knew it had not been successfully done before. But the college agreed to let him try and he planned his strategy. A Guyanese whom he had made friends with dropped out after a month.

Jackson purposed in his heart that he would do this thing. He would have to forego all breaks and party time and study, study, study. It was rough going. When he sat the exam, he passed everything else but taxation. Where did he go wrong?

"I prayed to God to give me the guidance. When I zero in on something, I have the tenacity. I will block out everything and focus exclusively on my goal. I tell myself that I will succeed and I find the means to do so," Jackson explains. He re-sat the taxation exam and passed, in time to have completed the two-year course in one year as planned. Once again, he had proven himself right and he headed home.

Farewell Peat Marwick

Jackson remained with Peat Marwick's Montego Bay outfit until 1976. During that time he gave voluntary service through the Jaycees Movement, now Junior Chambers. Sevens Estate in May Pen, Clarendon made him an offer he could hardly refuse. In any event, he was getting bored with auditing.

"I thought I had more creative skills than the job required." He joined Sevens as business manager, working with Trevor Donaldson, the managing director.

Jackson thought he had done the right thing, even though he had found it hard to leave Peat Marwick after eight years. Things were looking up and he was feeling his oats. Nothing could have prepared him for the events ahead as he plunged into the job.

Suddenly Susan

In the same year, in August 1976, he married Celia Stewart and in the immediate years following she bore him three children - Susan, Steven and Joan.

They were the delight of his life. But Susan would reserve a special place in the deepest reaches of daddy's soul. He had always been proud of her spirit of philantrophy and he tingled when she told him she wanted to work for the less fortunate through the United Nations.

He recalls with equal pride how, in her final year at the University of the West Indies, she had established a programme to take street boys off the road and educate them. Susan had become interested in the fate of the boys when she interviewed them for her sociology course project. She would go to the home and clean them up. He couldn't help loving her, this wonderful child of his.

On a student exchange programme to Switzerland, she became fast friends with a Swiss girl. Everything seemed to be going well. In 1998, as a student, she went to Cuba and from there left for Ecuador with her Swiss friend. On the night before she was due to return home, Jackson received a telephone call. It was about Susan.

What the person at the other end of the line told him was something no father ever wanted to hear. Cold sweat washed over him and he felt as if someone had just ripped out his innards. Oh God, this can't be true!

Next week: Overcoming the spectre of death
Send comments on this interview to desal@cwjamaica.com

Your View of the Interview

Dr Derrick Aarons

. After reading your masterpiece today, I just had to write to say a big "Thank You!" The article was wonderfully woven together, and was as interesting as it was informative. Thanks again for the privilege, and best wishes for the continued excellence of your work.

Derrick Aarons
daarons@mail.infochan.com

. Although of an earlier vintage, I share the area of birth, Brown's Town/Franklyn Town, and attending Kingston College with the good doctor, Derrick Aarons. But my reason for writing is the mention that he attended Franklyn Town Primary, which I also did, where his fifth grade Teacher (note the capital "T") was Mrs Cammock.

When I left Franklyn Town School at the end of 1955 to attend Kingston College she was then Ms Monica Jennings and as you noted she taught not only the subject matters but imbued in us character.

Only a few months ago in New York at Ducketts Barber Shop on Nostrand Avenue a few of us who attended Franklyn Town School agreed that she was the greatest Teacher at that school and I am happy to know that someone of a younger vintage also has that opinion. I would be grateful if anyone reading your article is aware of her whereabouts and could let me know so that I may visit her when next I come to Jamaica.

Lenworth C Smith
Freeport, Grand Bahama
smithlenworth@yahoo.com

. I am very grateful for your interviews of wonderful Jamaicans which I read on the Observer site every week. I would like to recommend a really fine person for an interview. His good works as a medical doctor and a human being deserve to be put before the nation.

He is Dr Lucien Jones, former head of the Medical Association of Jamaica who has a medical practice in May Pen. He's been our family doctor for many years and took care of our elderly family members until their passing. I live in the USA and at times have had to ask Dr Jones to make a home visit to a sick relative.

He always made time to do so, which gave me peace of mind knowing that even though I and other family members couldn't be on the spot we were assured of first-class care for our loved one.
Dr Jones is a humble and God-fearing man who is a Christian in the truest sense of the word and cares for people regardless of their station in life.

Pauline Graham Binder
sitir@aol.com

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