Laura Tanna, Gleaner Writer
Rear Admiral Hardley Lewin, Commissioner of Police, and his wife, Tessa Lewin, pose for the camera in December 2005. - contributed photos
Today we begin a three-part interview feature on recently appointed Commissioner of Police, Rear Admiral Hardley Lewin.
"'A public servant who once bought, stays bought! So, don't put yourself up for purchase in the first instance. It's a slippery slope that you never get out of.' I say this all the time," Commissioner Hardley McCarley Lewin told me during our interview on January 8, 2008, advice from a man who recently passed a polygraph test about his own finances.
Jamaicans agree that crime is a serious deterrent to both economic growth and a better quality of life. When our new Commissioner of Police was selected from outside the police force, not only was history made, but the Government signalled an attack on criminality and corruption, wherever it might be found.
Admiral Lewin comes to the post after 36 years in the Jamaica Defence Force, serving in the Coast Guard, where he rose to its highest rank of Rear Admiral, then the last five years as Jamaica's military head honcho, Chief of Staff of the JDF.
We know he has a stunningly beautiful wife, and two children, but what kind of man is he? I found him a fascinating paradox of astonishing frankness and astute diplomacy, a serious man with a love of living, someone of proven integrity, yet quick to point out Jamaica is a land of rumour mongering and, before jumping to conclusions, one has to follow proper procedures, always being fair to others.
Chinese background
Born April 17, 1954 in Buckfield, Ocho Rios, when Ocho Rios was still a sleepy fishing village, Commissioner Lewin surprises me with:
"My grandfather came from China, Mr. Leung, but my father took his mother's name. She was a Lewin from Clarendon. That's why I'm a Lewin, and not a Leung, but all my uncles are actually Leungs."
Then surprises me further: "I only met my father when I was 38 years old, because before I was born, he went to the UK in the great migration - anything I knew of him was anecdotal. I knew he was, as they would refer to me, quarter-Chinese, half-Chinese, that kind of thing when I was growing up, the usual - China nyam dog boy -or something like that. Kind of fun things." He rejects any notion of being discriminated against. "Absolutely not. The way of the Jamaican society is to call the Chinaman Mr. Chin, regardless of what his name is. The Indian, 'Coolie man', and nobody takes offence to it."
Does he identify with other Jamaicans who don't know one parent, Commissioner Lewin answers, "Oh yes. Anytime I meet anybody and they tell me anything close to that, I put them at ease by saying, 'Look, I was only 38 when I met mine.' Puts them entirely at ease. 'Don't feel embarrassed by it. I know what it is about.' Frankly, I think it might be better that way than know him, see him and he doesn't support you, emotionally or otherwise, so as far as I'm concerned, he never existed."
They met only by chance after his father returned to Jamaica and frequented a bar at Harbour View Plaza, partially owned by one of Lewin's reserve officers. Lewin's biological father recognised someone on board a boat in from Ocho Rios, and describing his son, asked if anyone knew him. Lewin tells the story:
"'Yes! He's over there in Port Royal, head of the Coast Guard.' My father got talking to my friend who part-owned the bar. My friend said, 'Look, H, I met your father.' I kind of pooh-poohed it and said, 'Well, describe him.' From the time he said he was half-Chinese, I said, 'That sounds like all I've been told.' So, one Saturday morning, I saw a fellow from Port Royal and the gentleman. They walked up to the car and he sheepishly said, 'I'm Kenneth George Lewin.'
"All I said was, 'What happened to you man?' I asked, 'Where are you?' and said, 'I'm rushing to go on this yacht race, so I'll come by and see you.' And so I did."
Though Lewin is the first child for his mother, and grew up with a sister 18 months younger and a brother eight years younger, Lewin relates, "Having met my father, I discover now that I have a sister in Florida, two sisters in the UK that nobody knows where to find them - having gone to the UK, he fathered two girls with an English white woman, somewhere in the Manchester area - then I have a sister and two brothers with his wife, a Jamaican woman he married in the UK, in Manchester. I met them. I know all of those that I've called. Speaking to an uncle about a year ago, he raised the possibility of a sister in St. Elizabeth. So, the journey of discovery is not yet complete."
As for his mother's ancestors, the Commissioner replies, "I don't know. It's part of the whole history that somehow I never delved into. That is why I could have gone on for so many years without concerning myself about my father and where or who he was. He just wasn't there. The interesting thing is, that I think he got the same treatment from his father, because when I discuss it with my uncles, his brothers, Mr. Leung from China seemed to have had quite a fling with the local ladies and, as a consequence, fathered many children in different parts. It's only when they were about 17 that some of them realised, 'But look, we're related!' So, my father took on some of those qualities.
"What I do know about my grandfather is that he was buried in the Chinese cemetery, and the last two years of his life he was in a Chinese home on North Street. When I visited China in 2005, I was trying to find the Chinese name of my grandfather, because the embassy here would have taken me back to that village where he came from where I would have met those relatives, but, I just couldn't find the Chinese name. It's research I'm still doing."
Strong upbringing
man in uniform
Lewin states with refreshing honesty, "My parents were never married, but I can't say I suffered from the lack of a father in my formative years, because I had a great step-father, Alderman Cover, who was a FANTASTIC man and father. Other than himself, there were many adults whom I grew up with. One of them was Ludwick Leach, who worked for Ernie Smatt. Ludwick Leach introduced me to seagoing at age eight, and I call him my 'sea daddy'. He had a relationship with an aunt, that's how I met him. Forty-five years ago, when Ernie Smatt had Water Sports Enterprises Ltd., I just went along for the ride. Boats would take tourists out deep-sea fishing. I would accompany them on weekends, started to learn the craft until a few years later, I actually started to get paid for the time I put in during school holidays and weekends."
Lewin's love of the sea also arose through the influence of his step-father, who worked on cruise ships. He remembers that Mr. Cover was a jack-of-all trades. On a cruise ship: "He was the chief ward room steward, also part of the entertainment team, sung calypsos, and was the ship's barber, but was a carpenter by trade, and a farmer. He's just about anything to deal with construction, entertainment - just one of those unique Jamaicans.
"My mother is an Allen from a large family in Buckfield, another jack-of-many-trades, a dressmaker and, at one stage, she was doing floor shows in the old traditional hotels. Several uncles and aunts were in the entertainment business, with one of the famous names out of Ocho Rios, Virginia. Afterwards, there was Rosita and the Rosita Dancers. Shows would be a whole Jamaican market scene. I have uncles doing the fire dance, and people doing limbo. Not any of the nowadays flesh and sex that sells. Tourists, in those days, were wealthy people, not poor people like myself who save up to go on vacation and go to an all-inclusive. In those days, a $20 tip for one thing was nothing. You're talking about Silver Seas Hotel, the old Arawak Hotel, Hibiscus Lodge, Jamaica Inn, Plantation Inn, Shaw Park -These were the top-class hotels for the wealthy."
Military calling
Why didn't he go into entertainment or sports tourism himself? "No, not my thing." Clearly, Lewin is comfortable with those in this lifestyle, yet combines that enjoyment of life with a great deal of common sense and integrity, having chosen a more rigorous career of public service in the military. To what does he attribute this? He hesitates only slightly, before replying:
"My conscience would kill me. Interestingly, a couple of the fellows I grew up with at primary school in my area, when we would play games, 'police and t'ief' for instance, they always wanted to play the thief, and I was always playing the police. If it was cowboys and Indians, they always wanted to play the Indians, the bad guys, and I was always the cowboy. Well, they turned out to be criminals, and I turned out to be the one trying to put them away. We have played out, lived out our fantasies."
Where does this conscience come from? Lewin muses, "Is it acquired? Is it developed? Are you born with it? What is it? I am not absolutely sure. I say this all the time. This is something I've learned: 'A public servant who once bought, stays bought! So don't put yourself up for purchase in the first instance. It's a slippery slope that you never get out of.' But, don't believe that as a boy growing up, whatever tricks and things that boys get up to, that I probably wasn't involved. It would be lying to say that -and I won't tell you any of them!"
Next: His career in the military
Peter Brady and Hardley Lewin relaxing at sea in 1986.
