In this enjoyable autobiography, Jamaican born Errol Samuels looks back on the first 27 years of his life ~ an eventful period in which he travelled extensively between the Caribbean, the United Kingdom and the USA, spending a few of his formative years in each location.
It is an inspiring story of determination and triumph over adversity, containing many interesting insights into the lives of Jamaicans at home and abroad during the 50s and 60s, interwoven with a good number of amusing and insightful anecdotes and observations on a wide range of subjects, from mento, ska and reggae music to Jamaican food and family life.
In common with many of their fellow Jamaicans during the 1950s, Errol’s parents became migrant workers, leaving their Caribbean island home in search of better paid work elsewhere. To begin with they took Errol with them to England, where he lived for a few years, but the damp British climate did not agree with him, so he was sent home to Jamaica, along with his younger brother, to live with his grandmother.
Here he lived for the remainder of his childhood and teenage years, being raised by his grandmother as a ‘barrel child’. Although benefiting from the money and presents his parents were able to send home from abroad, he missed them terribly and consequently much of his young life was blighted by the feelings of loneliness and abandonment he felt.
Perhaps because of this he underachieved at high school, after showing early promise, and it was only after leaving school and trying a number of unsatisfying jobs that he decided to improve his employment prospects by obtaining a university education in America.
Thus began a new chapter in his life, during which he lived in New York and worked his way through college, overcoming all kinds of hardship in order to gain a qualification in accountancy that would eventually lead to a successful career in corporate finance.
