EVEN though he wasn’t a lawyer, that didn’t stop Noel Carr from making a name for himself in the legal business over 50 years now.

Despite the many ups and downs, his business, NA Carr Assistant Services Expeditors, is still up and running today.

And although he is now 80 years old, Carr, who grew up in downtown Kingston, is still very much a part of his business and had no problem recalling the events yesteryear that led him to where he is today.

“First of all, I was at the titles office and at that time the Government was sending letters to all the legal departments because they wanted a core of barristers. And when it was sent to me, it was too late to make the application, but I still had the legal knowledge,” Carr told the Jamaica Observer.

His interest in the legal field came while Carr was still in the real estate business, even though he said it was for a short while.

“Why I shifted into the legal practice is because you have to eat regularly; and when you sell one property, sometimes it takes you another six months before you sell another one, so you couldn’t find food,” Carr said.

He said that, in addition, people would find themselves getting into debt because they weren’t fortunate enough to have the terms and the conditions that accompany loans in today’s society.

Carr explained that at the time on the real estate scene, one would have to depend on the lawyers that after a place was sold, “yuh would get a likkle money”, which would be considered the realtor’s commission at the time.

“So, I said to myself one day, no, this can’t work for me because I’m a man who love money, I don’t pray to money, but I love money… and you can’t go into the supermarket and tell dem seh you have this education and this education, because dem want money,” the octogenarian said.

He said that one night he went to bed and it was then he realised that there was a gap in Jamaica, as people, based on his experiences with attorneys, wanted things to be done quickly on the legal scene. He later went to his friend, Jackie Stewart, who was the vice-president of planning at the then Jamaica Telephone Company, to pitch his idea.

“I told him I have an idea to do things expeditiously for all persons in the legal profession and the surveyors”, said Carr who was about 24 years old at the time.

Carr explained to his friend that the plan was for people to send their requests into his office, since he had total knowledge of the titles office, the survey department, the parish council, and the resident magistrate’s courts he would be able to get information to them quickly without them having to come to court to search for the documents.

Even though he had no money at the time, Carr said his friend encouraged him to draft the letters that would include his service fees, take it to him afterwards, so he could make any amendments if needed, and then he would take care of the rest.

“He took them, made amendments, and he printed 200 letters for me. I went and bought the envelopes and I bought a stamp with the name NA Carr Assistant Services Expeditors… You know I send out the 200 letters and I got 95 replies — 95 out of 200,” a still grateful and proud Carr said.

The then young entrepreneur said the requests started coming in steadily and that this kept him on his toes as he taught himself how to type. He didn’t go to bed early and operated out of his bedroom until he rented a place on Orange Street.

He said that with the encouragement of friends, his business started to grow so much that the ‘biggest lawyer’ in Port Antonio at that time used to send all his business to NA Carr Assistant Services Expeditors. The lawyer went as far as to visit his office and helped to spread the word about his services all around the North Coast.

Carr told the Sunday Observer that by word-of-mouth through the various law firms, his services became popular in London, England and even in New York. And as him ‘name gone abroad’ people knew if they had anything to be done fast, it should be sent to Noel Carr at NA Carr Assistant Services.

“I spent a lot of time during the days and the nights (at work) because I didn’t have much staff, I had some girls, and you had to teach them, because some of them come from west and they were not accustomed to these activities,” Carr recalled.

He said he remembered telling the girls not to go out to lunch because he was afraid they would take too much time. So he told them to have their lunch in the office. Carr added that he quickly realised that some of the girls were tricky and had to go as far as getting rid of one of them, as she used to take the stamps out of his office, even though she denied it, and would also sell information from his office to other people.

Carr said he was eventually contacted by Donald Fitz Ritson “and a Mr Ramsey” who invited him to work downstairs their office as they would send all their work to him.

He said it was by this association that he was introduced to the late reggae icon, Bob Marley’s father, Norval Marley, who also had some attachments in the legal arena.

“I started to do work for him (Marley) at the titles office and also at the survey department and other areas in the Kingston and St Andrew Corporation…He was a very strict man, he used to stand up ram rod straight, very soldier-like in his deportment”, Carr recalled.

Carr, who later moved his business to Tower Street, had by then expanded to three offices, which included his personal office and a cooking place.

“What I do now is that because all these lawyers had to walk in front of my office to go to their office in the daytime from the Supreme Court… An idea hit me, I have all this space wasting, what I’m going to do is get things to sell to these lawyers,” he said.

He then proceeded to build some stands and bought legal books, law reports, journals, and other law-related items from England.

He said that the lawyers would come in, enquire about who owned the business, and buy anything that interested them at the time.

“Then I see the female lawyers take interest and I know they want shoes and dem want frock and all the paraphernalia that women like,” Carr stated.

He said that the business started to grow, and he acquired more and more stock, but he didn’t realise that not everyone was as they seemed, as some women used to come in and spy on the place. He said because they couldn’t break in through the door, they would jump on the rooftop from Duke Street to gain access to his office.

“One morning I come in and when I look I see all the women’s garments, in particular, gone and me wonder how dem come in … dem tek rope and get a little boy to send him down with a flashlight and tell him weh fi tek up”, Carr said in disbelief.

The businessman said it was so bad that he went to Hippolyte Road to an obeah man who came to his

office to pray and brought with him a white fowl, whose blood was sprinkled around the room and the meat cooked and eaten in an effort to rid the place of thieves. He said that this, however, did not work as the thieves still came in after the ritual was performed.

“When the office settle down, one morning, I came in, yuh better believe it, and when I entered my office I could look straight out into the other premises — the tief dem tek weh di

air-conditioning unit, come into the office tek weh di likkle fridge, everyting was gone, that was a very sad day,” Carr said.

He had to move again, this time to East Street where two of his friends in the legal fraternity gave him a “likkle space” to operate. However, as Carr could not see eye to eye with them on certain matters he later ended up at Bailey’s Corporation on Church Street, But this arrangement was not to last long, as he could not afford to pay the rent.

“Because I couldn’t pay the rent Mr Bailey pack up all the things and pack up mi secretary on top of the things and put them out on the sidewalk, and she a knit same way when they lift her up and put her out on the streets”, a smiling Carr said.

This would mark yet another move, this time to the corner of Church Street, where Carr stayed until he moved further up the road and finally when he was invited by Paul Fitz-Ritson to come uptown where he ended up at his final and present location, Jennifer Messado and company attorneys-at-law in New Kingston.

Even though the octogenarian spends most of his days on the corner of Carter Avenue at his good friend’s Joshua’s auto repair, he still continues to do specialised work when the need arises.