Beverley Anderson Manley - Ian Allen/Staff Photographer

Beverley Anderson Manley

Beverley Anderson Manley is the former wife of The Most Hon. Michael Manley, People's National Party (PNP) leader and Prime Minister.

She grew up in Rollington Town, East Kingston. Her father was a railway station master and her mother a housewife. In the 1960s she came to public attention as an accomplished model and radio broadcaster with the Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation (JBC) and businesswoman. However, in 1972, after she married Manley at age 30, she gained instant recognition.

Over the years, Mrs. Anderson Manley has been a political activist who has served as Jamaica's representative to the United Nations' Commission on the Status of Women and the Organisation of American States.

Currently she is completing her memoirs. She told Flair that it's at the stage where she is working with an editor and she hopes to launch it later this year. She notes that she has taken a sabbatical leave from radio and television but is hoping to return by May 1. She is also currently involved in facilitating transformation workshops to facilitate the process where people get a sense of self. Plus, she occasionally travels overseas where she lectures at universities and to civil society groups. Mrs. Anderson Manley is also a columnist the Gleaner Company.

Mitsy Constantine Seaga

Mitsy Constantine Seaga is a former Miss Jamaica and also the first wife of former Prime Minister and Leader of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), Hon. Edward Seaga. They were married in 1965 but divorced in 1995.

Mrs. Seaga won the Miss City of Kingston 1962, later becoming Miss Jamaica in 1964. In 1984, she started the SOS Village in Stony Hill, an organisation that catered to orphans. However, after the JLP lost the elections in 1989, she was asked to resign by the chairman at the time. "I not saying being asked to resign was politically affiliated," she said.

Since her resignation from the SOS Village, she has not been involved in any other such project. "It was a very sad time in my life, it left me broken hearted because I regarded the village as my village," she said sadly.

However, lately she has been reconsidering taking up the mantle once again. She told Flair that recently she met a young man who was an orphan at the SOS who wanted to give backto the village. He asked her to assist him with a fund-raising event so that he will be able to help the children with things such as education, which she notes she has been giving it a lot of thought.

Her marriage to Mr. Seaga produced three children, Christopher, Annabella and Andrew. In 2002, Andrew was married and Annabella followed in 2005. Currently, Mrs. Seaga has two grandchildren and another is on the way. She notes that she is focusing on her children and grandchildren. In fact, she flew to Miami last month to celebrate her granddaughter, Chloe's, birthday. She said that she tries to visit her grandchildren as often as possible because it is important for them to be close to their grandmother.

Since about 1984-85 when she graduated from Anita Priest School of Interior Designing in Miami in the United States of America, she has been doing interior designing. She notes also that she has been learning to paint and has been for the past six years.

- Nashauna Drummond