It was probably one day in 1995 or thereabout when Juliet and her good friend Tamara drove past Vale Royal, the official residence of Jamaica’s prime minister.
“I’d love to be able to visit there one day,” Tamara remarked, looking at the great house with admiration.
“Don’t worry,” Juliet laughed. “One day, I’ll invite you over.”
It was my first visit to Vale Royal. I had come prepared to deal with some snooty airs or even some high-nosed attitude from the first lady with the long list of accomplishments, but her down-to-earth, efficient manner quickly disarmed me. Very soon, we were chatting like old pals.
Juliet then isn’t much different from Juliet now, I learned.
In a time when girls dreamed of weddings complete with fairy godmothers and baked cotton candy pies in the sky, young Juliet was making life plans and drawing up her to-do list.
The first of six children of Stephen and Alverga Landell, she joked that she might have been born an adult.
“As the eldest, I just always felt like I was responsible for the others,” she shared. “So I was in the kitchen from as early as about 10 and I looked out for the younger ones with everything they had to do from very early. I always just took charge.” Catching herself, she laughed. “I must sound like I was a very boring child.”
Juliet came from a working-class Seventh-day Adventist family in Ensom City, Spanish Town. Her mother, Alverga, sold goods in the Falmouth Market before eventually opening up a small store in Spanish Town. Her father was a supervisor at a factory before becoming a taxi driver.
“I used to sell in the market with my mother during the summer and at Christmas time,” Juliet reminisced. “These were the best times for business and I know she needed the help so I would be out there selling goods, checking off the money and assisting customers with every little thing.”
“I’ve never been ashamed of my parents and what they did because I knew from early that this is what put food on our table.”
She added, “When any of my schoolmates would pass me in the market or ask me why I was there selling, I told them the same thing. There’s no way that my parents’ way of making a living could embarrass me because I knew the fruits of their labour.”
She took this kind of thinking into her adult years, always working hard to achieve what she wanted and not taking things for granted.
“I grew up and saw my parents working hard for everything they have, and for me, it’s no different. You just have to be smart about certain things.” With a twinkle in her eye and a smile lifting the corner of her mouth, she revealed, “It was this kind of thinking that made me turn my car into a taxi while I was working at a company. I found that when I drove the car to work it would just sit there until it was time to go home and I just thought that was a waste. So I turned it into something that could earn.”
After completing fifth form at St. Catherine High, Juliet moved on to complete her A Levels at Wolmer’s Girls’ School in Kingston. There she studied economics and accounting before applying to The University of the West Indies.
It was the end of high school when Juliet started dating Andrew Holness. “I met him while we were at St. Catherine High. But I just didn’t like him then. He was just so responsible and involved, and everyone was just into him. He was even the first person to keep a Valentine’s Day fund-raiser at the school. So I respected him for all of that, but I just wasn’t into him like everyone else.”
She continued, “When we were doing A ‘Levels though, I saw him one-day studying accounts with a girl from school. But from what I saw, he didn’t even know the syllabus, so I offered to help. That’s how everything started.”
On the suggestion and encouragement of her sister, Juliet decided to ask Andrew to attend the sixth form ball with her. To her surprise, he accepted.
“After that, we spent the whole summer with each other,” Juliet gushed. “We spoke on the phone every day and when it wasn’t that, we spent a lot of time hanging out with each other. Teenage love, you know.”
Her next statement startled me.
“That was the summer Andrew and I decided that we would get married in seven years’ time. But we had a slight problem: my mother didn’t quite like him as much. Instead, she liked a boy who went to our church, but he just wasn’t for me.”
“Mom eventually came around though.” When I asked what brought about her mom’s change of heart, she laughed.
“Without my knowledge, Andrew went and started doing baptism classes at my church. I only found out when we were in the church watching the baptism and I saw him standing up there!”
True to her word, Juliet and Andrew got married in 1997, seven years later as they had planned.
Building their family was next on the agenda, but, of course, careful planning also went into that decision.
“Andrew and I both agreed that we wouldn’t have children until we had a home of our own. So we set about to do just that. As two young people coming out of school, the hardest part of it was coming up with the deposit for our home. It would have been significantly harder individually, but together we managed to make it happen.”
The couple’s first son, Adam, was born in 2002. Overjoyed by Adam’s birth, the couple wasted no time growing their family and their second son, Matthew was born two years later.
At that time, the Holnesses had given up their starter home for a slightly bigger fixer-upper.
“We took our time and fixed what we could in that house, but our family was bigger now so we had to prioritise. “We had this leak in the roof in one part of the house, for example, but it had to wait. So when friends came over I would just introduce them to the leak, you know, as if it was part of the family.”
Smiling, Mrs. Holness shared, “Andrew used to joke and say that he wanted a whole football team. But that’s something that we both agreed wouldn’t work. You see, it’s not just about the financial resources. It’s about time. You must have time to spend with your children and raise them how you want them to grow.”
To continue reading, purchase Vol.8 #6, 2016 Issue.