Harkness – MacGillivray Stories

The title of the book ‘No Woman, No Cry’ comes from a Bob Marley song that is often misunderstood. Due to people’s lack of understanding of Jamaican English, the lyric has often been misunderstood to mean something like “If there is no woman, there is no reason (for you) to cry.” But if they paid attention to the song’s lyrics, they would understand that it actually means “No, woman, don’t cry.” The lyric is rendered  “No, woman, nuh cry” in Jamaican patois. ‘Nuh’ is Jamaican for ‘don’t’. 

The singer is leaving and reassuring her that the slum they live in won’t get her down; that everything will be alright; and “don’t shed no tear.” Yet at the same time, it hints to  some form of nostalgic remembrance and looking back.  Our partial understanding of the song lyrics remains blurred.  This is perhaps only appropriate as my mother’s scrapbook is about ‘stories’ that are quickly fading in the mists of time, and are often vague.

Without claiming to have a deep understanding of Marley’s song, or a deep empathetic understanding of my mother’s life, I’m left with the impression that my mother was a ‘sad’ woman; perhaps even one who shed many tears on the inside despite always putting on a brave face on things. 

My mother was successful and happy in many ways – as a wife, mother, and career woman. However, she also had regrets that she rarely expressed. To put it bluntly, in the past, women had to accept their lot in life and make the best out of it.

If my mother were to read this, I don’t think she would agree. Nevertheless, in quiet, intimate moments, she would say, “If I could start all over again, I would do it differently.” But she never expressed openly what ‘doing it differently’ would entail. She obviously had her own private thoughts; still I’m not sure she was fully able to express her own dreams and wishes, even for herself.

What she did say on some occasions was something like, “You know, it wasn’t always that easy being married to your father.” Yet, she never elaborated on why it wasn’t ‘always that easy’. One of the issues was undoubtedly his love of whisky. This caused him to occasionally go AWOL, something she wrote about in her diaries. This will be addressed later in this series of books.

‘Cause, ’cause, ’cause I remember when we used to sit
In the government yard in Trenchtown
Oba observing the ‘ypocrites
Mingle with the good people we meet
Good friends we have, oh, good friends we’ve lost
Along the way
In this great future, you can’t forget your past
So dry your tears, I seh
No, woman, no cry
No, woman, no cry
‘Ere, little darlin’, don’t shed no tears
No, woman, no cry

Said, said, said, I remember when-a we used to sit
In the government yard in Trenchtown
And then Georgie would make the fire lights, I seh
A log wood burnin’ through the night
Then we would cook cornmeal porridge, I seh
Of which I’ll share with you
My feet is my only carriage
And so I’ve got to push on through
But while I’m gone

Everything’s gonna be all right
Everything’s gonna be all right
Everything’s gonna be all right
Everything’s gonna be all right
Everything’s gonna be all right
Everything’s gonna be all right
Everything’s gonna be all right
Everything’s gonna be all right

So no woman, no cry
No woman, no cry
I say, oh little oh little darling, don’t shed no tears
No woman, no cry
No woman, no woman, no woman, no cry
No woman, no cry, one more time I’ve got to say
Oh little, little darling, please don’t shed no tears
No woman, no cry
No woman, no woman, no cry.

Who is No Woman, No Cry written for?

I’m not quite sure. This story about my family is also a story about whores; murderers; sinful liaisons; adultery; illegitimate children; abusive parents, teachers and siblings; conniving brothers; thieves; swindlers; tax dodgers; paupers; illiterates; alcoholics; and so on. Most families have skeletons in the closet – but many secrets remain buried, or erased by the passage of time. 

However, my research has uncovered many ‘secrets’ that some people in my family probably think should have remained buried. But I’m not saying my family is that much different from other families; for example, illegitimacy; poverty; prostitution; adultery; abusive parents and teachers; and theft were all quite common in nineteenth century Britain, (although less common in the twentieth century). Any reader of Charles Dickens’ novels, such as “Hard Times” (1854) and “Oliver Twist”, (1837) will be aware of this.   

I’m not quite sure if I am the ‘victim’ in the story (rather the opposite), but at least I will have the ‘last laugh’, as I am the one writing the story. In other words, these stories could be my ‘last laugh’ – in the sense that “it is the victors who write history.”¹

Memories are longer than the road that stretches out ahead²

This account isn’t supposed to be any kind of a biography or ‘book’. Rather, it’s just a noting down of memories that will be washed away by the flow of time. 

It is also a sorting out of my mental filing cabinet – a tidying up of my hard disk (to use a modern metaphor), which is starting to be a bit full, and putting some of the information on an ‘external’ storage disk (as written-down recollections).

¹ Quote attributed to Winston Churchill: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/winston_churchill_380864 Read: 4 Feb 2023.

² “Two of Us” by the Beatles.