BOUNTY HALL, Trelawny

A cursory glance at Ferdinand Headley would not suffice to determine that the elderly man, whose two legs are amputated just below the knees, celebrated his 101st birthday in February this year.

It is even more difficult to fathom that Headley was unable to speak until he was about 17 years old.

In fact, the elderly man revealed that his speech impediment during the formative years of his life prevented him from attending school during his boyhood days.

“I didn’t go to school. And I can’t blame mi parents and mi parents can’t blame me because, when I was born, I born actually dumb (mute), and in those days children go to school when you reach seven years old and when them 14 them out school. I could only say one word all when mi a 15 to 16,” the elderly man said.

“Mi parents took me to the doctor, and he advised that they must coax me and do everything to make me feel good, because if them rush mi and make mi vex, mi can’t talk and mi heart string will burst,” he recalled.

Born in Green Island, Hanover, over a century ago, Headley, who attributes his longevity to the powers of Jesus Christ, said he grew up with his parents in that rural community.

“The first thing I would point any man to is look to Jesus, take Jesus as his friend. Take Jesus as everything to him because is only him alone can solve our problems,” said Headley.

He said that because his father was a butcher, he and his siblings were never short of meat.

“My father was a butcher, so wi used to have every meat at wi house in Green Island, Hanover, every kind of sea fish… When mi father kill the hog — in those days we call it hog, we don’t call it pig — him go to Green Island market and sell one side and him say to him wife, Mary, ‘A do a good market,’ and the other side him corn [preserve] it and put it down there and we have it,” Headley recalled.

He noted that one of the major highlights of his life was shaking hands with Marcus Garvey, Jamaica’s first national hero, who was visiting Hanover where he had a meeting.

“I was hardly able to talk in those days. One Monday evening I met him in Hanover when he came to have a meeting and he shook our hands. He had on a ‘bun pan’ hat — a so we call it. He had on a jacket with a split-like waistcoat. Everybody, from young to old believed he was a man from Africa. Him big and stout and black, and the hat black, the suit black, everything black,” Headley reminisced.

He also said that he met his cousin, George Headley, a former outstanding West Indies cricketer. The centenarian said he too was a good cricketer and that he represented Frome Estate in Westmoreland.

“Oh God, when me take up mi bat and go out there, the best bowler couldn’t bowl me. I joined Frome, went all around the island with them. If it was now I would be a millionaire. In those days you didn’t get money, but honour and food to eat,” Headley recalled.

He added: “In those days I had to hide from women. Those days mi was a pretty boy you know. The girl them loved me.”

He said he earned a living tilling the soil in Hanover before relocating to Bounty Hall, Trelawny, where a member of his family resided.

According to Headley, it was shortly after he moved to Trelawny that he met the love of his life.

He told the Jamaica Observer West that a previous relationship produced a son whom he has not seen since the boy was seven. The child had at that age migrated to England to live with his mother.

But he noted that he has assisted in the upbringing of other children who now reside in the United States. Those are the children who he said are assisting with his financial needs.

He disclosed that apart from diabetes and high blood pressure, he is not afflicted with any other ailment, adding that he lost both limbs, a year apart, as a result of the diabetes.

He is now a deacon at the Bounty Hall Highway Apostolic Church where he worships most Sundays.

Yesterday, he expressed gratitude to Trelawny businessman Christopher Jobson who presented him with grocery items, as well as his caregivers and friends for their support over the years.