TORMENTED, I have searched my mind, soul, and consciousness all week on what to write for this, my first column. The dilemma is not a lack of subject matter. Rather, so many topical issues whip their index fingers high in the air shouting in a din, “Me, teecha, me!”

So, to hear my muse I head — or maybe I was led –towards the University Chapel. The tents for extra seating for Dr Olive Lewin’s send-off are still there. The Chapel gardener works and sings to the Heptones. Despite his attached headphones, I can still hear:

“Every man has an equal right to live, and be free,

No matter what colour, class or race he may be…”

He works a few feet from the memorial stone of another icon, Professor Rex Nettleford, also recently transitioned. Recent, that is, in nation years.

And that is what Miss Olive, and Maas Rex, and Miss Lou, and Maas Trevor, and Miss Edna, and so many other icons worked to declare and establish through their art and their work – the right and equity of all Jamaicans to live, to be, and to be free.

So with a column to debut, and with John Maxwell looking over my shoulder, I sit on the steps of this deconstructed sugar mill house.

History alone suggests that the blood, sweat and tears of our ancestors splattered some of these stones, even as many would have been ballast for the criminal ships stealing our ancestors from home. These stones would have heard the seaborne captives sing in Swahili ‘Ishe Oluwa’ — which meant “the work of God can never be destroyed”. These stones, as a 1799 constructed sugar mill in Trelawny, would have heard suppressed African, dominant English, later Indian and Chinese languages meld into a common language; call it what you will.

These stones would have heard much of what Dr Lewin wanted us to hear, remember and preserve. They, having been reconstructed as a chapel on the purchase of first University Chancellor Princess Alice of the British Royal family -the irony is too obvious – would have heard the hymns of the Europeans and of the new Jamaica, including the works of Lewin, Noel Dexter and others.

And these stones would have heard, on Saturday, the glory of God and of the Jamaican civilisation in Lewin’s arrangements, sung by her “children”, The Jamaican Folk Singers, and the many well-wishers. They heard the beauty of the voices of the Carifolk Singers, Hampton School (with their beautiful song Peter I am Coming). They heard tributes from the Government, and strong memories from her daughter, Johanna. They heard the lilt of a weeping former prime minister – still fresh in my memory’s ear – bemoaning the lack of full due recognition.

I want to look at things germane to, but far more important than, a mere plot in National Heroes Park.

Don’t get me wrong. Many have heard me spout the great impact Dr Lewin has had on the consciousness I have of the power and dignity of us as a Jamaican people. Dr Lewin has indeed made such an impact through her pioneering in the research of the music of our folk and the presentation of this music to us and the wider world. For me, it is a no-brainer. She deserves interment in Heroes Park.

But what do I know anyway? There is talk that only one spot is left in the section of Heroes Park in honour of our stalwarts. Are we talking of the same plot of land? One spot left? Are we then saying that no future generations of Jamaicans will make any contribution to this nation to allow them this honour? Well, if there is only one space, and Dr Lewin was not the one…. (deep sigh).

I wish we saw some things as above the issue of scarce benefits. The bigger issue, though, is that we as a nation have forgotten so much, so quickly. I asked a set of bright, young high schoolers recently who Dr Olive Lewin was. They said she sang folk songs. Yes, they know her name and a little about her, but that for me is not good enough.

If this nation seeks to be really great, we have to stop being distracted by just that which is transient and deemed popular. The media plays a role in this. There was a time in this country when the work and worth of a Dr Lewin would have taken up more space in the air time programming of all media. How many stations have played programmes or music from her albums and documentaries over the past few days? Media cannot afford to. ‘Ole people ting dat.’ And is young people time now. The bottom line is the bottom line.

The cruel irony is that it was Dr Olive Lewin who created the vast resource called the Memory Bank, which is housed and available at the Afro Caribbean Institute of Jamaica. This resource aimed to capture oral histories of our nation which our elders held as clues of our national identity.

Thankfully, there are numerous young people who are immensely interested in arts and culture who are hearing all this. I did see many young people at her nine-night at Ranny Williams Entertainment Centre on Thursday. There is hope.

And that is where Heroes Park comes in. Heroes Park is not a reward to those who die. It is a memorial, a teaching tool to the living. It is a place that samples the work and worth that the nation needs. It is a sacred classroom, constructed in the philosophy found in the second verse of the song, Find us faithful:

“After all our hopes and dreams have come and gone

And our children sift through what we’ve left behind

May the clues that they discover

And the memories uncovered

Become the light that leads us to

The path we each must find”

I hope we never see the day when her life’s work is lost to us or to the generations of Jamaicans to come.

I close with the text of a letter I sent to Hazle McLune and the Jamaican Folk Singers.

Hugh and Nexus

My Dear Hazle,

I am lost for words. I cannot find the

right words. But I must speak.

Dr Olive Lewin is one of the reasons I

am who I am, and do what I do today.

I was raised by parents who exposed

me to the best of all things that they

could, particularly music. Olive Lewin

was a household name, especially in my

household. Though I am the son of a

music teacher and a singer, I had no

intention of becoming a teacher, a singer

or a musician. But on Sunday afternoons

the music of the Jamaican Folk Singers

was played on the Telefunken record

changer right before (or after)

Montovani, The Frats Quintet, Lord

Lebby, the London Philharmonic, (Shaw

conducting),and Ernie Smith, among

others. I never saw our folk music —

because of her work and my parents —

as a form of music of any lesser quality

than any other. Dr Lewin did that for me.

So my mental musical conversations

with her started long before I was ten.

She told me in her arrangements of how

exasperating Eva was, as she was so

restless and ‘ hard ears’. She told me at

the same time how community women

raised their young women and supported

each other in this.

She painted the vivid merriment of the

moonshine tonight, and made me yearn

even more for the age when I could drink

“mi coffee”. But it was her arrangement of

Alleluia which stood on an equally high

pedestal as Handel’s – I confess, I put hers

a little higher because while Handel’s

roused me, hers resonated within me.

The last time I saw this icon of whom I

was always star-struck, I had the honour

of helping to seat her for the performance

of the Royal Philharmonic.

I am still lost for words.In de words of

a song weh mi did arrange.

May de angels lead you into paradise

An may de matyrs welcome you

An lead you into

Da Holy City

(Holy Mount Zion)

Jerusalem (schoolroom, where I school)

May de choirs of angels greet you

(I am de nothing in my hands I bring)

May the choirs of angels greet you

(You going to wipe your weeping eyes)

And as with Lazarus, who once was poor,

May you have everlasting life;

And as with Lazarus, who once was poor,

May you have everlasting life.

Alleluia.

I am lost for words.

But tenk you, Miss Olive.

Tenk You.

God bless all of you, Hazle.

Peace and Love.

Hugh Douse is an educator, musician, actor, and cultural activist. He is a postgraduate student in cultural studies at the University of the West indies, Mona, and the founder and artistic director of the Nexus Performing Arts Company. hugh.douse@gmail.com