MEN are haunted by the vastness of the ages. But even a half-a-century devoted to one single purpose can be mind-boggling to those who search for answers to why one’s journey leads to a particular place in time.

Even at 75 years old and after 52 years on the sprawling cane fields of Worthy Park, St Catherine, Peter McConnell is in no shape to retire. But retire he must and retire he has.

At the end of December 2015, McConnell turned away from the job as co-managing director of the centuries-old Worthy Park Estate, looking now to begin a new chapter that will not be written in molasses or flavoured by the intoxicating aroma of ancient king sugar.

Still, he is in no mood to romanticise retirement, hinting that he has a lot more to give, but proud, he says, to be leaving behind a legacy of success for the capable ones who will carry the baton into sugar’s uncertain future.

If anyone, McConnell knows the sugar industry like the back of his hand. He says, for example, that the vaunted Chinese acquisition of several state-owned sugar estates has not turned out to be what he had optimistically hoped for when they first entered.

“I was very glad when the Chinese came because they brought some innovation and technology to the business. But the sugar estates they acquired — Bernard Lodge, Frome and Monymusk — are in a worse situation than before. Factories that used to do 180 tonnes of sugar are now hardly doing 50 tonnes,” he laments.

McConnell has a sense that the sugar industry is in for some tough times which could prove challenging to his successors. But his watchful eye and vast experience — they say molasses runs in his blood — will be available to them in his capacity as chairman of this family business; though from some distance as he trades the bushes of Lluidas Vale, St Catherine for the bright lights of the capital, Kingston, which he abandoned 52 years before to begin his odyssey in sugar.

Oliver Clarke and Billy McConnell

Peter Dermot McConnell, it could be argued, might well have been fated for a life in sugar long before he was born on December 12, 1940 in quiet Reading, St James. He is a scion of the powerful Clarke family out of Westmoreland, the best known of whom, perhaps, is his cousin Oliver Clarke of

Gleaner fame.

His antecedents go way back in time and are interwoven with the history of Jamaica. Worthy Park was established in 1670, that is, 15 years after the British ran out the Spanish and took over Jamaica in 1655. Peter’s grandfather Fred Clarke bought the estate from the Calder family in 1918, almost two- and-a-half centuries after its establishment and 80 years after the abolition of slavery.

The grandfathers of Peter and Oliver were brothers. Peter’s own brothers are David and Stuart McConnell. He is also the cousin of William ‘Billy’ McConnell of Wray and Nephew legend and is married to Mary Joan Desnoes, cousin of John and Betty Jo Desnoes (of ATL/Sandals fame).

The 1963 union of Peter and Mary McConnell produced three daughters — Sharon McConnell Feanny; Anita Bicknell, wife of Tankweld’s Chris Bicknell; and Amanda Gore-Booth, who lives in England.

At an early age McConnell was sent to boarding school at Hillcrest in Brown’s Town, St Ann, followed by DeCarteret College in Mandeville and Munro College, St Elizabeth, before attending Millfield in Sommerset, England in 1955, and then McDonald College in Canada.

He returned to Jamaica in 1961, by now a keen sportsman having played as captain of the cricket team; captain of the soccer team, the tennis team and the hockey team at Millfield. He recalls that he was invited to play at Junior Wimbledon in 1958. Before that he captained the cricket team at Munro, scoring a century and taking five wickets in his last match; and played soccer for Munro, scoring all seven goals in a 7-0 drubbing of their opponents.

Record-setting marksman

Later as an adult he did extremely well at fishing and shooting. He represented Jamaica at hockey and skeet shooting, as well as sporting clay shooting, holding the record as the only Jamaican to score a perfect 100 out of 100 in sporting clay shooting, a feat achieved by only a few in the world.

Back in Jamaica from his educational sojourn abroad, he joined the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, now First Caribbean, where he had the distinction of becoming Jamaica’s first drive-in teller, at the Half-Way-Tree branch, St Andrew. He would later serve as a board member of the bank for over 20 years.

All that was prelude to the journey in sugar.

In 1961, his maternal uncle Clement Clarke, who was running Worthy Park, offered him a job in the accounting department for which he was paid 10 pounds a week, three more than his bank teller job. But he had to start at the bottom and work his way up.

The early days, he recalls, were more certain. “We had a guaranteed price for sugar which we exported to Britain under the preferential trade agreement between Europe and her former colonies in the African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) bloc. We got a reasonable return on our investment, producing 30 tonnes of cane per acre.

“When I got involved, my feeling was that a reasonable return on investment was to improve on those figures. That’s what we did. We relied on rainfall so production fluctuated, but today we are fully irrigated,” McConnell recounts.

Depending on rainfall, they were averaging 35 tonnes of cane per acre and using seven tonnes of cane to make one tonne of sugar. The real point here is that Worthy Park was the only estate in Jamaica which could achieve that.

When MConnell entered sugar, there were 19 sugar factories, five of them owned by transnationals, and five family-owned. Today, there are only five factories and Worthy Park is the only one that is family-owned. It is his view that some of the estates that went under were too small to survive and others were never expanded to keep pace with what was desired for an economical unit.

“We at Worthy Park tried to be as efficient as possible. If you don’t produce cane, you can’t produce sugar. We did the cultural practices on a timely basis to ensure maximum yield possible from the land. There is a whole level of efficiency here that is not necessarily displayed at the others.

“Of our 9,000 acres, 3,500 acres was originally devoted to sugar cane, another 3,000 to cattle rearing and just over 1,000 acres to citrus. We abandoned citrus after disease wreaked havoc with the orchards, and we found that we could not make money from beef. To boost our cane supplies we bought cane from about 2,000 small cane farmers.

“After a time, we were getting less and less cane from them so we converted the estate entirely to sugar cultivation,” McConnell remembers.

His decision paid off handsomely and sugar production doubled, with Worthy Park becoming the only factory that could boast of record production in the last two years (27,650 tonnes and 27,630 tonnes of sugar respectively).

Bleak forecast

“I put that down to two things: having an extremely dedicated and efficient workforce led by management; and the fact that we are probably the only estate where those who own it live on it and run it. The majority of the 800 staff also live on it.”

Worthy Park is highly self-contained, boasting a health clinic and a service station among other modern amenities.

Still, the forecast for the industry is bleak, distressing even, he says. Sugar is definitely no longer king. That’s why he was hopeful when the Chinese came. But his optimism was shortlived. He notes that Bernard Lodge was closed; Monymusk is only producing 16 tonnes and Frome 38 tonnes.

“I don’t see anything that tells me that they (the Chinese) are serious about sugar,” he says shaking his head.

McConnell does not hide the fact that life in the bushes can be lonely. In the beginning he used to go to Kingston on weekends to party, then return to Worthy Park, sometimes at 4:00 am on Monday.

“It helped me to appreciate my wonderful wife Mary, who is very supportive. She has a great love for gardening and planting trees that has kept the place alive,” says McConnell.

But he kept up a busy schedule becoming at one time or another a founding member of the Jamaica Society for Agricultural Sciences; chairman of the Coconut Industry Board; member of the Seprod Board and chairman of the LluidasVale All-Age School.

When he feared Jamaica was going Communist under Michael Manley’s 1970s administration, McConnell threw in his lot with the Opposition Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and ended up serving three prime ministers, Hugh Shearer, Edward Seaga and Bruce Golding, as a fund-raiser for the party.

For a time McConnell turned his gaze beyond sugar and joined with his brothers in acquiring the defunct Bybrook factory and planted out the land in citrus, giving birth to the now familiar Tru-Juice brand in 1982.

The board made him chairman. Then, looking for value added from sugar cane, they began producing rum, a by-product, and branded it Rum-Bar Rum that is now 10 years old.

The community is McConnell’s heartbeat. He served it in several areas, including with the establishment of the Lluidas Vale Youth Camp, noting that residents get first bite at the cherry in employment on the estate. He partnered with the HEART Trust to encourage and promote training.

“I have had a wonderful life here and will miss the people when I return to Kingston. We have benefited greatly from this community and we tried to give back as much as we could. That is why most of our workers come from the community where the fact that we have so many trades — like mechanics, electricians, plumbers, welders, et cetera — make it possible to create employment for them,” he says.

For his services to the community and agriculture, McConnell was awarded the Commander of the Order of Distinction in 1983. His board, recognising his success in keeping the Worthy Park estate profitable over the years, appointed him chairman in 1996.

McConnell, whose stride could easily match a man much younger than his 75 years, is uncertain how the wheels will turn in his new life beyond sugar. But of one thing he is certain. “I’m not ready to ride into the sunset. There are a few projects that I’d like to take on. I’m actually looking forward to it.”