by Lenny Henry
When I got a bit older – sixteen, maybe seventeen – on Christmas Eve I’d get in from wherever I’d been, on my way to wherever I was going. I’d have my night all planned out, but my intentions would always be swayed by the heroic, mouth-watering fragrances oozing from the kitchen. Mama and my big sister Bev would be stationed amid dozens of sausage rolls and mince pies, Mama elbow-deep in a turkey, prepping it for the uncertain hell known as the ‘overnight roast’.
Our Christmas cake would already be in the oven. By now, Bev and Mama would have partaken of some sherry and be sharing stories of Christmases past. Yuletide hits would play nonstop on the radio, like Eartha Kitt’s stunning version of ‘Santa Baby’ (the line about the platinum mine always cracked Mama up). And as the stories grew longer and the sherry-drinking became more brazen, a large, undulating mass of cloud, dark in colour, would slowly envelop the entire kitchen.
The cake is burning. THE CAKE IS BURNING!
Mama would look up, point with her turkey-encased fist and say something like, ‘Hmmm, hmmm, look ’pon the h’oven nuh?’
And we’d all look at what can only be described as a ‘blouse and skirt, raatid inferno!’ Mama would rush over and open the white-hot oven door (no gloves – Jamaican mums are hard), the flames belching from within. Despite this inferno, she’d kick the oven door aside and retrieve the now blackened husk of a cake.
This wasn’t the first time this had happened. Bev’s expression told the story – yet another Christmas cake incinerated. But Mama would have the whole thing under control. The next stage was not to dump the charred remains in the bin; instead, Mama would fetch a very sharp knife and proceed with her patented debridement treatment, removing the dead cake tissue. Sometimes she would remove as much as an inch of burnt cake skin, and within, at the heart of the tragedy, would be the perfectly cooked remains. The cake would, of course, be a third of its original size, but still, it would be just right.
Once this work of culinary genius had emerged from its smoking chrysalis, Mama and Bev would proceed to decorate it with icing, small silver bells and coloured flowers. It was like a fourteen-course meal in one triangular lump. You couldn’t eat too much of it due to the alcohol content: two slices and you’d find yourself wandering around the streets, unaware of your name, the location of your house and your purpose in life.
Chris Tarrant received one of my mama’s cakes after the Christmas edition of Tiswas. She’d saved up a big one just for him, a special, unburnt one. Mama loved Chris. He’d looked after her when she came on the show as a special guest and really made her feel like one of the Tiswas family. He took the cake gratefully, put it on the back seat of his car and drove home.
After twenty minutes of, it must be said, some quite wobbly driving, Tarrant realised he was being followed by the local constabulary, who were signalling for him to pull over. Tarrant also realised that he felt … a bit pissed. He pulled the car to the kerb. The copper was in fits.
‘Bloody ’ell, Tarrant, you was all over the road! Do you wanna lift to your house?’
Tarrant opened the window, and what can only be described as a solid fog of what smelt like 100 per cent proof alcohol wafted past and enveloped the police officer’s head like a rum-soaked burlap sack. I still don’t think they believed his protestations of ‘Lenny’s mum’s cake got me drunk on the way home …’
Since Mama passed away in 1998, there’s been a series of subtle attempts to usurp her baking supremacy. Bev’s cakes are delicious, sweet and alcohol-free; Paul’s are almost there; Kay’s had a go and they have a good taste to them; and Cousin Nena’s attempts are so sodden with alcohol only a brave person would even attempt a slice – one whiff and you’re out until News at Ten. Trust me.
I once made a recording of Mama discussing her recipes. I thought it would be our family’s legacy. However, Mama was getting on a bit by this time, the conversations would ramble, and she would absolutely refuse to reveal any of her secrets.
Me: ‘So, Mama, how much sugar is it again?’
Mama: ‘I don’t know, you know – mi jus’ dash it in.’
Me: ‘Yeah, I know you do, fair play to you, but is it one or two cups of sugar?’
Mama: ‘It depen’.’
Me: ‘Depends on what?’
Mama: ‘It depen’ on how much cake you wan’ to mek.’
Me: (a leetle frustrated) ‘OK, so what about the raisins and cherries and sultanas and that?’
Mama: (drifting off slightly) ‘Jus’ dash in whatever you wan’.’
Me: ‘So … you don’t actually know exactly how much you put in?’
Mama: ‘Mi nevah measure nutten, yu know? Mi jus’ dash it in, and the Lard will provide.’
Unfortunately, the recording continues in this vein for quite some time, and then Mama falls asleep. Finally, you hear me going ‘Rarghhh’ and jumping out of a nearby window.
The point is, my mama could really make a cake.
BEING A LITTLE JAMAICAN KID
Imagine Victoria Terrace. It wasn’t a council house, but it wasn’t a mansion either. It was a big multi-roomed place, chock full of our noisy extended family. It wasn’t perfect: it seemed rickety and in need of constant repair. It smelt of cooked-down chicken and Saturday soup and cakes and carbolic. There always seemed to be music booming from the large radiogram: Prince Buster, Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Chuck Berry … This was our house, in the middle of our street … well, number 4 to be exact, just off the main road, a short distance from the zoo and very close to Rita’s corner shop. We lived and thrived and argued and laughed a great deal here.
As a teeny tiny child, I remember being portable, with everybody’s face way up in mine and saying things like:
‘Look ’pon the chile, him cute-ee?’
‘Him favour yu, yu know, Mrs Henry.’
‘What a way, him big! Him big, him big, him big so til.’
I grew up in a Jamaican household where everyone spoke in the Jamaican dialect. There were these explosions of Caribbean noise:
‘Unnu put the something down!’
‘Wha’ wrong wid yu, yu finger’s bruk? Go fetch yu own water!’
‘Mama! Len put di hot peppa in me mout’ an’ it a bun mi!’
And Jamaican swearing is horrible. Something I really feared were the words that rang out whenever Mama and Papa were angry. Papa would stub his toe, and I’d hear:
‘AH WHA’ DE BUMBO CLART!’
Mama would burn her finger on the stove, and it’d be:
‘RAAS HOLE!’
And when the arguments kicked off, these phrases were grouped together and spat out in staccato fashion:
‘Oh, me? Yu tink seh me care what yu tink to bumbo hole? Well, tek yu raas clart backside an’ garn den.’
‘Is me yu a talk to, woman – if I tek my bumbo clart han’ to yu.’
‘Gwarn den nuh? If yu tink seh yu raas clart bad, pick up yu fis’ an’ try beat me. I will kill yu two time before yu even re-a-lise yu dead!’
And then one of them would add an ‘Ahoa!’ at the end just to make sure everyone knew where they stood punctuation-wise.
This was normal to us. And the swearing wasn’t even that bad once translated:
‘raas clart’ was toilet paper;
‘bumbo clart’ was toilet paper too;
‘bumbo hole’ was your anus;
‘raas hole’ was also your anus;
‘pussy clart’ was a sanitary towel;
‘pussy hole’ was your front bottom, if you were in possession of such a thing.
When these words were mixed up with old-fashioned Anglo-Saxon, you had a linguistic party. One incredibly brilliant Jamaican derivation from a British swear word was ‘fuckery’. It described a mess, a terrible situation, a cock-up: ‘Wha’ kinda raas clart fuckery is dis?’
There wasn’t much cursing in our house, but when there was, it was rarely with a Dudley accent. Jamaican was the norm, and to all intents and purposes I was a little Caribbean kid, eating
Jamaican food, listening to Jamaican conversation or arguments, watching my brothers and sisters and nephews and nieces behave in singularly Jamaican fashion. It was (mostly) heaven.
2
The Magnificent Seven
These are my siblings: (left to right, back row) Paul, Hylton, Seymour, me; (front row) Kay, Mama, Bev, Sharon.
Hylton, Bev, Seymour and Kay – Jamaica-born, in that order; me, Paul and Sharon – British-born, in that order.
HYLTON
Eighteen years older than me, my big brother Hylton was an adult when I was born. I never saw Mama or Papa say to him, ‘Go to your room.’ In his younger days, he always fought anyone who bullied Bev or Seymour. He had a powerful sense of justice.
I was a pageboy at his wedding, when he married Betty. They put me in charge of the ring. I was five and I had my brother’s gold wedding ring in a box. I’m not sure why he trusted me. When I look at the group photo from that wedding, I can see myself standing at the edge of the picture looking bewildered – who are all these people? Hylton’s at the centre of the picture with Betty. They both look like Jamaican royalty. Hylton’s smiling, like Sidney Poitier’s younger, better-looking, more charismatic brother. He was tall – six foot seven – the Jamaican BFG, long and maaga (skinny). Mama called him Sunny because his smile was so spectacular. When I was little, he seemed so tall I thought Mama had named him after the hotel.
I remember Hylton making a regal appearance at my infant school’s open day, when I was about six. I had taken the letter home and had said to Mama, ‘Mama, there’s an open day for mums and dads to come and find out how we’re all getting on.’ This is what I heard in response: (Mama sucks teeth) ‘Open day? How dem mean “open day” … of course it’s open. If the place not open, that mean I have to take Len to work with me.’
Jamaican mamas and papas go to work; they don’t follow their children to school unless something’s wrong. So the open-day thing wasn’t going to work. My parents were not going to come to my infant school to watch us play with Lego and stickle bricks.
A week goes by and the open day comes. About an hour into it we’re playing and drawing and the Lego’s out and no one knows what to do with the stickle bricks, and then suddenly the door opens and Hylton walks in, tall and handsome in his church clothes. He has to bend down to get in through the door. There’s chaos! The other kids see him, run and hide – they’ve never seen an elongated Jamaican person at the school before.
But I was proud, because here was this lovely person who looked like me. He’d come to visit me, only for half an hour, but he showed us how to use the stickle bricks and the Lego, and he charmed everybody with that smile. He was always kind to me when I was growing up. I don’t remember him ever being angry or saying something mean.
Hylton was a real presence at all our sibling gatherings and always wanted to talk about Jamaica and growing up. We’d get a map and he’d point out places: where they went to school or played or got beaten up, or a particularly fine ganja tree, huge like an oak. Jamaica is beautiful, God is good, the tree was bless.
He had a stroke when he was seventy-one, and it changed him. But the more debilitated Hylton became, the more peaceful and calmer he was. He’d decided to become a Christian once more and his faith brought him great comfort in his final years.
The first time I went to see him in hospital, I was told he was in a certain room on the second floor, so I went up there – didn’t ask or anything, just nosed around until I found the room. I went in. He was covered up and his familiar grey head was facing away from me. So I put my hand on his shoulder and said, ‘H.’
He turned around, and it wasn’t Hylton. It was some other man whose head was the same shape as my brother’s! When I did find Hylton, he laughed his head off when he heard what had happened: ‘We all look the bloody same to you.’
Near the end, he lost the power of speech and we had to communicate with looks and hand signals – thumbs up for good, thumbs down for bad. Whenever I saw him, no matter how much pain he was suffering, there was never a thumbs down. The last time I saw him, his eyes were alive and sparkling. He didn’t have his teeth in, but he still looked handsome. Eventually, I had to go, so I told him, ‘I’m off now, Hylton. I love you.’ In response he gave me a wobbly yet triumphant double thumbs-up.
I will always remember him as I knew him best: tall and handsome and smiling. He had a big laugh – really big if something was really funny. He’d come and see my shows, and even if I was terrible, he’d be laughing up a storm.
Hylton loved his kids, loved his grandkids. All of them. He was predeceased by some of them, and although he never articulated his innermost feelings, you could tell he would never be the same again.
He was always kind to me, and I miss him terribly.
KAY
Kay came to the UK in 1959 with my papa. We used to say her name was Kay O’Brien Majority Henry, but it was actually Kay O’Brien Marjorie Henry.
Kay was a huge influence on me due to her impeccable taste in clothes and even better taste in music. She would go clubbing at the weekend, and when she came home she’d have all the latest funk and soul 45s with her. She got me into the Fatback Band – ‘Nija Walk’, ‘Wicky Wacky’ and ‘Bus Stop’ – and tunes like KC and the Sunshine Band’s ‘Queen of Clubs’.
When Mama wasn’t in, Kay played some great music in the front room on our prized radiogram, which was totally forbidden. She took care of her records too and wouldn’t let any of us play them. Of course, when she was out, we were all over them, thumbing them, licking them – just to see if they tasted as good as they sounded. After she’d introduced me to the Fatback Band and their ilk, I began to buy my own tunes at Graduate Records in Dudley. They would package ten non-hit singles together and sell them for 50p, and if you were lucky, one of them might be half decent.
Kay was my hero. Ever since I was at infant school she protected me from bullies and stray dogs. She would just jump into whatever fray I had managed to find myself in and get involved:
‘Leave him alone, he’s my brother!’
‘You mess with him, you gotta mess with me.’
I had a terrible crush on her best friend, Lorna Wilson, an Afro-wearing sidekick who accompanied my big sister everywhere. They’d sneak out of the house with impossibly sized hair, platform boots, hot pants and hippy-style tops. Mama frowned on this surreptitious behaviour, but Kay knew that if she approached our mother and said, ‘Mama, can I have some money to go out?’ she’d have been laughed out of town.
Kay and I used to get into scraps because I was always in her bedroom. I don’t know why. I had my own room, but Kay’s was like an Aladdin’s cave, especially when I was eleven and twelve. She was experiencing stuff in her life that I had no idea about. Her bedroom was locked most of the time, but when you got in there, there were so many things: brassieres and tiny rectangular boxes with strange names … I was intrigued and would open all of these products and lay them out to look at them.
One day Kay caught me in her room, and we had a big fight that ranged all over the house. We fought a lot and I would often get the better of her, but once she’d turned sixteen there was no beating Kay. She was a young woman now, and you’d better not go in her room and mess with her feminine products or you’d get a beating. During this particular fight, Kay was dealing out punches and kicks like Emma Peel in The Avengers. Unfortunately, I was a twelve-year-old kid on the receiving end of a major beat-down, wondering when exactly it was going to stop. But it didn’t – she was furious at the invasion of privacy and wanted to teach me once and for all that I was not welcome in her room. The battle raged on and eventually took us into the front room. I fell in, and Kay followed me. There we were on the pristine, super-clean carpet, amid the antimacassars, pictures of Jesus at the Last Supper, leather sofas and such. On the mantelpiece was a chalk dog – quite a large item. Kay picked it up and hit me on the elbow with it, right on the funny bone. I began to cry uncontrollably; I thought
she’d broken my pointy elbow. It felt like something had given way in there, and Kay was going to pay for what she’d done to me. So I drew on all my powers of concentration, calmed down, stopped crying and waited for Mama to come home. I knew that as soon as Mama found out that Kay had hit me – and not only that, but with one of her best chalk dogs, and not only that, but she’d been in the front room when she’d committed this heinous crime – she was toast.
Mama came home, and both of us received the power of her fury. She wanted to know who’d messed up her tidy front room. Who’d chipped the chalk dog? We both got told off in Jamaican, which is hard to take at the best of times. Just for kicks, I could have said, ‘This is all down to Kay,’ and Kay might have been beaten. But Mama didn’t lay a finger on us – she was concerned that I had been genuinely hurt – but she also understood, once Kay had blurted out what I had been doing, why I had been hit repeatedly. She took Kay upstairs and spoke to her, and then came back down and told me not to go in Kay’s room any more because ‘She’s a young woman now, and there are things in there that are none of your business.’ I nodded and agreed that I would never go in Kay’s room again.
And then did exactly the same thing two days later. I was an idiot.
Eventually, Kay got all growed up and left home. When she got a terrible case of shingles, Mama took care of her, but also told her off for getting so stressed out. We all looked after her then. I was glad to, because Kay had been a non-stop supporter of me at school, had helped with my homework and was my chief protector. I don’t think I ever said ‘Thank you’ (usually too busy bawling), so I’m saying it here. Thank you, Kay. You’re the best, most badass sister anyone’s ever had.