Celebrity haunts
Lindy Woodhead feels the spirit in Jamaica It’s impossible not to be seduced by Jamaica — the island is a big, lush, verdant paradise, described by Hollywood hell-raiser Errol Flynn as being ‘more beautiful than any woman I have ever known’. This was no mean endorsement. Flynn, whose yacht Zaca ran aground off the north-eastern shore of Port Antonio in 1946, fell so completely in love with Jamaica that he settled there, buying up 2,000 acres of land along the coast where he farmed cattle and coconuts. Flynn also bought himself a ‘hotel with history’ when he acquired the by then decrepit 400-room Titchfield — which in its 1905 heyday had been a sybaritic location for the island’s first glamour tourists who arrived having hitched a ride on the Boston Fruit Company’s banana boats. The Flynn empire was completed when he acquired his very own mini-paradise called Navy Island, won, so legend has it, in a drunken dice game. The Titchfield burned down years ago; Port Antonio is rapidly becoming a hot spot again.
Jamaica has a long history of resident legendary characters ranging from the Welsh buccaneer Henry Morgan, through to Flynn, Fleming and Coward, not forgetting the local hero Bob Marley. Neither has the island forgotten its own scary lady, the ‘White Witch of Rose Hall’, aka the 18th-century plantation owner Annie Palmer. Of Irish descent but brought up in Haiti, Palmer’s speciality was sex and voodoo, her greatest pleasure seemingly being to murder the young men who had pleasured her. Today, Palmer’s vast plantation house has been expensively restored as part of a hotel complex complete with tour guides who talk laughingly of hauntings — yet there are locals for whom the legend of the slaveowning murderess is no laughing matter.
Undercurrents of Jamaica’s troubled history still run deep, and there is an undeniable dark side to the island’s reputation which, however hard the tourist industry tries to suppress it, is a fact of life and living in Jamaica.
My own first impressions were forged at Kingston’s overstretched and understaffed airport when we disembarked from a BA flight that had left us less than impressed with service in their ‘World Traveller Plus’ cabin and even more frustrated with the hour-long wait for our luggage. Our destination being the distant north-western parish of Hanover — where we were staying with hospitable friends who own a glorious villa at the Tryall Club — by the time our driver had plotted his path through the bleaker side of downtown Kingston on a rain-lashed night, it was a twohour-plus journey winding along hair-bend roads. Small wonder the savvy traveller heading for the north coast beaches flies direct to Montego Bay with Virgin.
Because everything feels better in the morning sunshine, enjoying a breakfast platter of fresh fruits — including the local, sweet grapefruit — on the terrace of Villa Stella, with a view over the lush gardens down to the sea, travel stress evaporated fast. As our visit coincided with two days of fund-raising festivities called the Sugar Cane Carnival it was no ordinary swim-suit and T-shirt trip, including as it did a glittering bash held at Montego Bay’s glamorous Round Hill, where Ralph and Ricky Lauren own two spectacular holiday homes. The thought of wining and dining under the watchful eye of one of the world’s most famous designers had caused me much fretting about frocks, particularly when our hostess emailed to say the theme was ‘Safari’. Such sartorial stress didn’t affect my husband, who adores dressing up. Having edited a glossy book about James Bond’s clothes, and being excited about visiting the island redolent with his spirit, he opted for his white linen tuxedo specially made for the occasion by Old Hat in Putney.
It’s unlikely Mr Lauren, resplendent in his own white tux, noticed us among the hundreds of revellers eating smoked marlin and boogying the night away to Aretha Franklin and Bob Marley. Certainly the man who took Polo as his trademark missed a treat the following day at the local Chukka Blue Polo Club where, to loud cheers and stomping from Jamaican enthusiasts, we watched a tournament which celebrated the long-awaited reopening of the original island polo field founded by local sports hero Willie Delisser over 50 years ago.
Critics are often disparaging about Jamaica’s culinary efforts. Our experiences, at Tryall, Round Hill and the charming Jamaica Inn, were on the whole pretty good. Throughout my stay, I yearned to try some of Jamaica’s fabled home-grown, green, leafy stimulant. Estate-grown Blue Mountain Coffee however remained elusive to the end. Better luck next time.
Previous page
