When Me Was a Boy

What was it like to be a small boy growing up in Kingston, Jamaica in the 1930's? When Me Was a Boy tells exactly what it was like. Charles Hyatt remembers his boyhood in vivid detail, and is his own inimitable voice talked about it in his radio programme When Me Was a Boy. In his selection from those pieces, Hyatt brings his school days to life: the tramcar and horse-and-buggy days when cars were few and far between and taking a walk was a social occasion. These are hilarious moments―look out for the Black Heart Man―and historic ones, and Hyatt's sharp observation and remarkable memory put us right on the spot sharing his feelings and experiences.

" This tidy little book...offers an insight into social life in Jamaica over fifty years ago. It is written in Jamaican creole, Hyatt style. It is a boy's vision recaptured several years later and written with good humour. It can only be a fragment of Jamaican social history since it addresses the experience of one man, his family and associates. It would be a major service to social historians if more Jamaicans do what Charles Hyatt has done."

- Patrick Bryan, University of the West Indies, Jamaica