Anderson-Manley

Sacha Walters, Staff Reporter

She is not afraid of taking a second look at life and, if necessary, shaking everything up and rearranging it.

Beverley Anderson Manley, journalist and former wife of late Prime Minister Michael Manley, created waves when she married a man 17 years her senior, and with three other marriages behind him.

This dark-skin Jamaican, who proudly wore an afro, came from humble beginnings and would marry a man who, on the surface, was completely different from her. He was of mixed race, the son of Norman Manley, former premier, and a member of the upper class.

Beverley and Michael were very similar, with a love for life, a zeal to initiate political change in their country and, at that time, an insecurity about their race.

For some, they became the John F. Kennedy and Jackie Onasis of Jamaica. They brought youth, glamour and transformational politics to the country.

Anderson-Manley would confront head-on the politics of change in the country, playing an integral part in campaigning and connecting with the people. She believed strongly in her husband's democratic socialist stance.

They made it through wins and defeats at the polls. But there came a time when they too drifted apart.

Anderson-Manley has hosted the 'Breakfast Club', was a Gleaner columnist and has written about her experiences in The Manley Memoirs, which will soon hit the shelves of bookshops.

To launch the serialisation of the book in The Gleaner, Flair sat with her to discuss this revealing book.

You are putting your entire life on display once more. It is a very brave move, but were there times when you felt apprehensive?

For me it was more how authentic do I want to be? Do I want to be so authentic that I'm not holding the characters in the book who were characters in my own life lovingly in my own arms? And my answer was a resounding, "I want to be respectful of people, I want to be respectful of myself and where I was during those years. So, I'm as authentic as I can possibly be without hurting anybody. Because people kept on saying, "Is this a tell-all story?" And I kept saying it's not. To the extent that it may be disappointing to some who were looking for the kind of revelations that would destroy people, I like to think, I'm using my life in the book to tell every woman's story, in the case of this particular woman, me. I came from humble beginnings to marry a prime minister and became an activist political wife charting new ground all the way.

There was no concept of a prime minister's wife's office at Jamaica House. I had to fight that because I knew I didn't want to be a wife who just cut ribbons. I'm not making cutting ribbons look wrong at all, that's a role. I use the example to emphasise the kind of wife who just wanted to be a wife. I felt I could have it all. I could be a wife, a political activist, I could work with my husband at state level to bring about change and at the same time, I could work inside the party. So I had to overcome a lot of stuff.

One of the things I realised early is that Jamaica is really a very conservative society. Those days, to be black, have an afro and to wear African clothes, I was really doing all of this stuff and getting a lot of praise for it, but simultaneously, a lot of criticism. At one stage I wish I had kept it. I had letters coming to me that said, why do you have to have an afro? We are embarrassed, we are so embarrassed with you and this afro. Why don't you straighten your hair like everybody else? Why are you wearing those head wraps? I used to wear these fabulous-looking head wraps. So there were people who were uncomfortable with the sight of a young, black woman who combined several things.

You speak of being a prime minister's wife with regard to creating change. What do you feel at the end of the day were your contributions?

I was really clear when I married Michael Manley that I was going to be unapologetic about the social class that would guide what I did and would always be up front in my face. Because I had seen my mother and I had seen my own growing up, I knew that I was going to be for the most vulnerable in the society. I knew the others were better able to help themselves, not that I was hostile to other groups, but I would see other groups as contributing to the welfare of the marginalised.

I knew what it was like to have porridge every day for lunch. I knew what it was like to have dreams that couldn't be fulfilled.

One of the first things that hit me when I moved into Jamaica House, just sitting and talking to the household staff, was how low the wages were. I said, 'Michael, as a former trade unionist, do you know what these women are getting?' These conversations with Michael late at night would often lead to some kind of change. And so that was the initial idea for minimum wage. There were people who then took it and worked and made it happen. But in a number of cases those seed ideas became policy and became implemented.

In the 1970s when I was talking about early-childhood education, it was just not possible to get everybody on-board. It was hard to pierce through that vale of tribalism to reach to the interests of Jamaicans.

One of my proudest achievements is that today, the school (a school built on the grounds of Jamaica house) still continues, and successive administrations have participated in the school.

The other thing I am proud of is the social legislation. When we came to office, in a number of areas the social legislation was lacking. And I am not saying that I did it. We always did it as a group. Where I was critical was where I was a voice in Jamaica House.

How has your childhood shaped who you are?

I think in many striking ways the strength of my mother, even when I was being the most resistant to her, she was very clear, for example, that every woman must have a title in her hand and it wasn't until later in life, especially now, that I understood what she was saying. Because a title was more than owning a house; it's an asset you can use.

A woman should have some savings stashed away that her man does not know about because you never know when he might walk out on you, when you may get into some kind of crisis. And you should not ask men for money even in the case of a husband. That didn't mean that if money was offered you shouldn't take it from your husband, but you should never put yourself in a position of vulnerability where you would have to ask .

The other thing my mother told us was: "I have four of you for a reason, you can be each other's company. You don't need anybody else's company. Company can be dangerous." We were not even able to spend a night at somebody else's house. She chose very carefully where we went.

Do you think she was restrictive in terms of allowing you to form relationships?

At the time I just thought that this is how things were and often I thought, 'This is rough.'

And because this was before the pill, she was very clear that none of her girls was going to get pregnant. It would ruin their lives. Looking back, I'm glad for those rules because it was just so easy to get off track.

The way I saw her marriage play out long after it had ended, in her mind it was still 'till death do us part'. How I reacted to that was when I didn't feel that my marriage was helping me in the way I thought a partnership should, I didn't say 'till death do us part'. That was for my mother. Because of people like my mother I had choices. It did have an impact on me but in the opposite way.

Also, I think it has largely defined my relationship with men because there's something about the way my father was that I wanted to make sure that any relationship I had with a man was not. So I didn't want a man who drank, I didn't want a man who had women. Listen to that! Who did I marry? These things were uppermost in my mind, but to a certain extent, I think my father did define my relationship with men. Maybe I was looking for him, but there's always some of my father, either his very sensitive or soft side because that's what he exuded.

How did you feel at that time that your father had other women?

I think it affected my older sister more. I don't remember being particularly embarrassed by it growing up. But I just thought that was just the way things were. My father was a very gentle man. My mother was not. What I watched play out in my family was a very strong woman who would stop at nothing to make her children succeed.

See Part II of this interview in tomorrow's Flair.