I came across the Jamaica Festival Story souvenir magazine, which was published in 1987 to commemorate 25 years of Festival. As one gets older, it is easy to fall back on memory and judge the earlier years to be the best in everything, and to carelessly dismiss current efforts as second or third place in the categories of good or best Festival year.

True, we have had some very fine performances and events in the second 25 years, 1988-2013, but the first-generation Festival stands out in my mind as the better of the two eras.

Celebrations and competitions in various aspects of the performing arts are not a recent development, as such arts festivals were periodically held in one form or another since the turn of the 20th century.

Indeed, we are told that the Institute of Jamaica held an arts and craft competition as early as 1897 to commemorate Queen Victoria’s 60th year on the throne. Fast-forward to 1910, when who should turn up to win a national elocution contest but a young man from St Ann, Master Marcus Garvey. He placed third overall and was to become internationally famous for the power of his oratory.

The first islandwide festival was staged in 1955 in commemoration of Jamaica’s 300 years as a British colony. These so-called tercentenary celebrations were organised by Wycliffe Bennett, joined by giants of the arts movement such as Robert Verity and Eric Coverley, Joyce Campbell, Hugh Nash, Clover Thompson, Joyce Robinson, Tess Thomas, Enid Chevannes, and a host of others, plus a beloved gallery of artistes headlined by Louise Bennett and Ranny Williams.

In 1963, Edward Seaga, then minister of development and social welfare, made the landmark decision to institute an annual and official Festival of Jamaica.

“We choose to mark the occasion of the first anniversary of Independence with a festival that creates a proper image of Jamaica,” announced the minister on April 20, 1963.

“Festival will be an annual report on the creativity of the nation — a national stage where Jamaicans from all walks of life will have the opportunity to create their own brand of creative expression, reflecting their own life history, and their lifestyles.”

The Festival took off that year with thousands of volunteers working untiringly and enthusiastically to establish the foundation for a national movement.

Jamaicans used the opportunities provided to display their talent in every village, town and parish through singing, choral-speaking choirs, dance, drama, and music. Many of them would become household names in their various fields of entertainment and performance.

As Hugh Nash, the first Festival director, said: “It is important for us to remember what Festival has done for Jamaica. It is difficult to find a poet, playwright, journalist, radio/tv personality, musician, who has not benefited from Festival activities.”

The queen of that first Independence Festival was Joan Crawford, Miss Jamaica, who later that year won the Miss World crown. The Miss Jamaica Farm Queen was Madge Lawrence. The essay competition in the fine arts category was won by Mervyn Morris, today’s Poet Laureate, while special note was taken of the remarkable talent displayed by a young Geoffrey Shields of Manchester in his offering of Beethoven’s Sonata in G Opus 79.

In 1964, it was Mitzie Constantine who was crowned Miss Jamaica at the National Stadium, while the Serenaders from Hanover won the title of best ska band in the competition. Ska reigned supreme that year. Enter my friends, The Skatters, close pals of mine who won the ska dancing competition that year by managing to keep me off the stage.

We are told elsewhere that at one function “the crowds went wild when Opposition Leader Norman Manley climbed onto the bandstand and began to ska to the popular Carry go bring come”.

In 1964 Carey Robinson won nine awards in the literary competition, while Chapelton Primary, in their tie-heads, skirts and John Crow beads, captivated the audience at the National Dance Finals at the Ward Theatre.

Come 1965, a Mrs McEachron’s Quadrille Group wins the Award of Excellence for that category, the Victors Youth Club wins the Dance Finals Award of Honour, and Mervyn Morris again produces another winner, this time for his essay Poets and a Local Audience.

What a Bam-Bam in 1966, as a trio from May Pen, led by a barber named Toots, wins the first Festival Song competition. Lennie Little-White, a 19-year-old car salesman, is awarded a silver medal for his play The Golden Necklace. Little-White also wins 100 pounds for the National Play Awards, as well as several other trophies, making his entry one of the most successful drama entries ever.

The evergreen Alma Mock Yen also gave us an award-winning performance in 1966 from her Harbour View Dance Group and their “Silent World”.

In 1967, we saw Judith Willoughby winning a silver award for poetry, glimpsed Gloria Lannaman and Carmen Manley on stage in the cast of Moon on a Rainbow Shawl, Joan Seaga’s dance group on show, and the Jamaicans, led by Morris Weir, roaring into Festival song history with their immortal Baba Boom Boom.

It was 1968 when Desmond Dekker and the Aces came into prominence as Festival Song winners with Intensified Festival. And fresh from rural Trelawny was Warsop’s Janet Bartley, runner-up in the drama competition, and later to star as the female lead in The Harder They Come.

The Maytals returned with the infectious beat of reggae in Sweet and Dandy in 1969, Carmen Tipling won a bronze for her play During Lunch Time, and the introduction of the culinary arts sector was a hit. In 1970, Hopeton Lewis starred with Boom Shaka Laka, Pamela Bunting reigned as Festival Queen, Elizabeth Lindo was a beautiful Miss Jamaica, Jeff Barnes said it all in speech, Michael Smith won a poetry award, and three Westmoreland youngsters from Unity dazzled with their dance.

Eric Donaldson was a popular Festival song winner in 1971 with Cherry Oh Baby, which went on to become an international hit when the Rolling Stones covered it a few years later.

Ralston McKenzie was the 1973 speech gold medallist, Patsy Yuen was Miss Jamaica, Morin Brooks was the Festival song winner with Jump in the Line, and an arts and craft exhibition mounted by the inmates of St Catherine prison stole the show.

Olive Senior copped two short story awards in 1974, Tinga Stewart score with Play di music, and Patrice Wymore Flynn, widow of the late Hollywood film star Errol Flynn, mounted her craft designs in the National Crafts Exhibition. Roman Stewart was the song winner in ’75 with Hooray Festival, the Chinese Benevolent Association fielded the champion costume in the Grand Gala, while in ’76 Freddie McKay danced his way unto the national bandstands with Dis ya Festival, a Mr Elliott of Old Harbour Bay won the Fishing Regatta, and we merged Festival that year with our Caribbean neighbours as we teamed up with the Caribbean Festival of Arts.

In 1977, the Aboukir Educational Institute from St Ann won two golds for their display which highlighted Jamaican confectionery ranging from paw paw and carrot balls to crystallised breadfruit. Eric Donaldson was back on the victory stage, this time with Sweet Jamaica. Faith Nelson of Ardenne mined gold mine for singing, and Suzanne Roye from Bull Savannah Primary won over the crowds with her award-winning Rumour Factory speech entry at the Denbigh Pavillion.

Eric Donaldson became third-time winner of the Festival song title with Land of My Birth, 1978; six years later he was to set an all-time record winning a fourth title with Proud Jamaican.

Space will not allow me to go further than the other Festival song winners with whose names one tends to associate the spirit of Festival in any particular year. In 1979, it was The Astronauts and Born Jamaican, in 1980 Stanley and the Turbines won with Come Sing With Me, No Where No Better Than Yard became the second Festival hit for Tinga Stewart in 1981, and the Astronauts returned in 1982 with Mek Wi Jam.

The year 1983 was for Ras Karbi with I’ll Never Leave You Again; the Jamaicans were Proud to be Jamaican’ in 1984, Roy Rayon won with Love Fever in ’85, and Stanley Beckford returned in ’86 with Dem A Fi Squirm.

Roy Rayon wrapped up that first generation of Festival songs and had everyone swinging in ’87 with Give Thanks and Praise.

The Festival has continued to be a platform for Jamaican talent in every form. Our dance, drama, art, music have been woven into a tapestry of vibrant colours and beautiful harmonies. It has been an outlet for the creativity of thousands, some of whom we named in the brief sketches above. Consider that in Festival ’66 a young Stephen ‘Cat’ Coore was a music silver medallist. International pianists Grace McFarlane and Paul Shaw came up through Festival. So did Desmond Dekker and a host of other entertainers. The year 1968 saw success for a nervous young playwright, Trevor Rhone.

What is not well known is that the founder of the Festival Commission himself, Edward Seaga, won a gold medal for his poem, River Maid, River Maid, in the Literary Competition in 1967. Seaga describes it as a poem depicting one of the most moving episodes of any Revival function; the dance of the River Maid, possessed by a spirit as she enters the ‘healing stream’. He submitted it under a nom de plume, and it won. It captured the experience, the rhythm, the energy, the chanting, and the emotions of the possessed brethren in the finest literary form. Full of action, the poem wraps up the reader in all the mystical warnings and callings of the Shepherd, who takes the River Maid from wrap head to water, through ‘drop down’ to ‘groan an bow’, from river bath to deliverance.

Towards the end of the journey we get caught up in the tension as the dancers wait for the clearance message: “Drill di river, bank-to-bank, Show me motion, broad and bare, Trampin’ water for a readin’, Kneel to find it when it clear: Hands a search for water message, To stir a readin’ from di wave, Question front di Poco travellers: De message say dem loss, or save?”

And in the final verse, the poignant lines, “in di darkness of a poorman’s yard hear a mother softly blow: Farewell-ll,…Farewell-l-l, me tell yu fa-a-a-rewell, Oh”.

This is one of the most compelling, eloquent and moving pieces of literature to emerge from Festival, and it can be found in the Jamaica Journal 3, No 2, (1969), and in The Revival Cults of Jamaica (Institute of Jamaica).

Lance Neita is a public and community relations consultant and writer. Send comments to: lanceneita@hotmail.com