By Stanley Greaves
To celebrate my 88th birthday on the 23rd of last month, I felt it would be good to share this history of the tenement yard, a cooperative environment that contributed much to my formative and subsequent years.
132 Carmichael Street was the location of a tenement yard on the eastern side of the street one lot away from Church Street on the south. I was born in the Georgetown Public Hospital to the sound of the six o’clock cannon in Kingston. A royal welcome but the only throne I ever occupied was a humble object found in working class homes that was given that honorific title. The cannon located in the Kingston Ward took the place of an alarm clock for the working class, signifying that it was time to “drink tea” ( bush tea with bread or Wieting and Richter “edger boy” biscuits, origin of the name is unknown) as breakfast was referred to and be off to work. Lunch was the midday meal, if one was available. I lived there with my parents John and Priscilla (familiarly known as Lydia) Greaves from age three and a half reaching seventeen in 1951 when we left. Three and a half is when my consciousness arrived faster than the speed of light and I immediately became aware of myself and parents. Years later it was my Mum who gave me the date when I described the event to her.
