ALTHOUGH Jamaica’s 84 year-old Ambassador of Culture, Dr Louise ‘Miss Lou’ Bennett-Coverley last week complained of experiencing pain in her joints, this did not prevent her from giving a strong performanceat the launch of a video documentary on her life.

Prior to the start of the launch of the video, Visiting with Miss Lou, at the Jamaican Consulate in Toronto, Canada on March 22, she declared that she had “pain a joint” and therefore could not say much.

But several poems and folk songs later, Miss Lou was still bright-eyed, and raring to go.

She recited several of her poems, explained the meaning of a number of Jamaican proverbs and sang several folk songs including Evening Time, Dis long time gal me neva see yuh, and her signature tune, Walk Good.

She even corrected a member of the audience for mispronouncing a Jamaican word.

“It’s not your hand, it’s yuh ‘an. Come mek me hol yuh an gal,” she explained. “If we are going to sing our songs in our language, then we must give them the right pronunciations,” she emphasised.

Produced by the Creative Production and Training Centre (CPTC), the one-hour video details Miss Lou’s life, and “the crucial role she played in instilling a sense of identity among Jamaicans at a time when in both language andculture we were in danger of being relegated to second class,” said Dr Hopeton Dunn, CPTC’s chairman and chief executive officer, who was present for the Canadian launch.

Dunn explained that the video was just one in a series that the CPTC was producing as the company fulfilled its mandate to help preserve the culture and creativity of the Jamaican people and disseminate it widely to Jamaicans everywhere.