- CONTRIBUTED
Best friends forever are from left, Nicola Croswell, Penny Shaw, Debby Shaw and Felicity Croswell. This picture was taken of them in the summer of 1970, at the Blue Lagoon, Portland.
Nicola Crosswell-Mair and Deborah Shaw-Kolar, Contributors
THIS IS a story of family and friendship - people who became such close friends that not even distance could separate them. Some of them had not seen each other for many years but there was a re-union in May.
"This has been a wonderful, magical experience, reuniting with many friends and family members some of whom I have not seen for decades," said Jennifer Bourke.
Look back with us to 1931 when Jennifer Bourke was born in Kingston.
She was the daughter of Jamaican attorney Alfred Wellesley Bourke, affectionately known as 'Freddy' and Greta Bourke (née Todd). Her great great grandfather was Fabre Nicolas Geffrard, president of Haiti, later exiled to Jamaica where he died in 1878. Her mother, Greta later married Henry Fowler, founder of The Priory School.
Jennifer spent her years between the family owned Trelawny property 'Sportsman's Hall' and Kingston, where she attended St. Andrew High School for Girls and later The Priory School. She remembers well as a child, spending summers with her cousins, Carolyn and Richard Todd, at the old property and having great adventures.
She did ballet at The Rowe's School of Ballet, where she proved to be graceful yet powerful and through this artistic medium clearly demonstrated her presence on the stage.
Her mother, Greta, was part of the Jamaican theatre movement, having co-written and co-produced several pantomimes, and being one of the founder's of the Little Theatre Movement. Greta saw an opportunity for her daughter here and so in the mid to late 1940s, Jennifer went on to appear in several productions, including the pantomime Beauty and the Beast.
While spending a weekend at Goldeneye, St. Mary, with family and friends, Jennifer met renowned English playwright, Noel Coward who lived and wrote many West End and Broadway plays at his favourite spot in St. Mary near Port Maria, called Firefly. He was struck by her beauty and strong presence and subsequently auditioned her at The Ward Theatre in Kingston for a possible place at the Old Vic Theatre Company, London.
Jennifer remembers being extremely nervous, however, she gave a good performance and so Coward wrote a letter of recommendation, to British theatre luminary Glenn Byam Shaw, recommending her. "I was quite stunned when in 1947, I was told that the prestigious Old Vic Theatre Company in London had selected me as one of two women given a place to perform with the Drama Company."
TOUGH GOING
Jennifer studied under the legendary Michel Saint-Denis and George Devine.
She recalls, "It was tough going and the work demanded every ounce of dedication and energy, every day rehearsing and almost every night performing." Other fellow thespians attending the Old Vic at the same time were Sean Connery, Richard Burton and Irish actor, Richard Harris. Soon the clan became best of friends spending what little leisure time they had together, enjoying their vibrant youth in the world of theatre. These years were 1950 to 1952.
It was here that she met and fell madly in love with Robert Shaw, a promising young actor in the clan. They soon married and Jennifer gave birth to their first child, Deborah. While Robert continued his acting, Jennifer elected to give up her career to become a full-time mother.
A couple of years after Debbie's birth, came Penny, then Rachel, then Kathy. Jennifer now spent all her time with her four daughters, determined to give them a loving and balanced upbringing.
Meanwhile, Robert's popularity continued to rise on the stage and in films. He was helped by friend, Sean Connery who by then had struck gold with his role as the formidable British Secret Service agent 007, James Bond. Shaw auditioned for a sub-stantial role as a KGB agent in the second Bond film From Russia with Love (1963) and got the part.
Robert Shaw went on to become an international star in many highly successful films such as Battle of the Bulge (1965) as Colonel Hessler, A Man for All Seasons (1966) as Henry VIII, for which he was nominated for a Golden Globe Award and the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, The Sting (1973) as Doyle Lonnegan co-starring with Robert Redford and Paul Newman, Jaws (1975) as Quint, and many others. He also wrote several novels - The Hiding Place 1959, The Sun Doctor 1961 and plays, one of which Man in a Glass Booth ran on Broadway to high acclaim.
By the early 1960s, Jennifer and Robert divorced and she returned to Jamaica with her daughters to live on Queensway, St. Andrew, near her family. The girls went to The Priory School and later went to school in England, at Wicombe Abbey.
This was a time of transition for her where she looked deep within herself to rediscover her talents. During these years, she wanted her children to experience as much of Jamaica and its culture as possible and so made new friends such as Jean Watson (née Arscott), the late Michael Manley for Prime Minister, Annabella Ogden (now Proudlock) and renewed old friendships.
LIFELONG FRIENDSHIP
One of these long-standing family friendships was with Noel and Barbara Crosswell (Noel Crosswell was the first Jamaican Commissioner of Police appointed before Independence and served his country through Independence until 1964 when he died in active service). The Crosswells had three daughters - Felicity, Nicola and Jane, and immediately a firm, lifelong friendship formed between the daughters of both families, even when distance separated them.
It was this friendship that brought Jennifer and her four daughters back to the shores of Jamaica in May of this year to attend the marriage of Felicity Crosswell-Brandt's daughter Rebecca to Dr. Matthew Barker, at Prospect Chapel and Laughing Water, on May 27.
Jennifer reflects: "It has been many, many years since my return to Jamaica. This has been a wonderful, magical experience, reuniting with many friends and family members, some of whom I have not seen for decades. The beauty of Jamaica faded in those years away and now the images have been sharply restored, never to fade again."
