Harvey ... I don't sleep most nights, all I do is shed tears because I have got nothing, not even a penny in my name to bury me if I die. - Norman Grindley/Chief Photographer

Aldyn Harvey kept up a brave fight against her tears but lost the battle.

After more than one hour of relating an ordeal of bad judgement which stripped her of life savings and the promise of a peaceful retirement in St Elizabeth, an obviously hurting Harvey began to cry.

"If I die, I have not got a penny to put my body down in the grave after all these years," a disconsolate Harvey told The Gleaner.

The 70-year-old returning resident has spent approximately $25 million of her life savings and pension to retire in sunny Jamaica after 48 years of doing odd jobs in England.

Uphill fight

But as she told her story, the uphill fight of a serene and peaceful reality appears ominous. Tears escape and stream from behind her sunglasses down her wrinkled face. At the same time, her hands, one of which bore a wristwatch kept in place by a safety pin, tremble as the magnitude of her dilemma smacks against her last nerve.

"I am devastated. I can't believe someone would do this to me," Harvey said.

The seed of her misery was sown in 2003 when a St Elizabeth clergyman offered to help her acquire property for her retirement.

She agreed to pay $9 million for the four-bedroom house and land and entered into a gentleman's agreement to have repairs and other modifications done to the house.

Harvey told The Gleaner that she spent nearly $25 million for the modifications, which were not done. The man from whom Harvey purchased the property and with whom she had entered into the gentleman's agreement was arrested and slapped with three criminal charges. He was accused of larceny by mistake, obtaining money by false pretence and fraudulent conversions. However, he walked free after the Crown failed to establish a case against him.

President of the Association for the Resettlement of Returning Residents, Percival La Touche, has confirmed the sums lost.

Next move

The ageing Harvey has no idea what her next move will be and says she has been reduced to near mendicancy.

"I owe the bank over £20,000 and have to be paying out of the pension I get from Government," the senior citizen said.

Her voice cracking, Harvey shares the history of her life, detailing her struggles in cold England for nearly five decades, to the point when her spirit was broken after she returned to the island she called home.

"While working in Kingston, I met a lady who was sorry for me and she gave me a letter to go to England," Harvey said.

"I went with the letter and when I got to the airport, there was nobody there to receive me. I took a taxi and I went and knocked on the lady's daughter's door. She never knew that I was coming.

"She was shocked when she saw me at her door but she gave me a couple of nights' rest before I was left on my own to struggle," she explained.

After emigrating to England at age 22, Harvey said she worked odd jobs and endured some of the hardest conditions to remain alive. Her last job was as a caregiver in a government-run health facility.

Harvey said God called her to missionary work and when she retired in 1998, Jamaica became her preaching field.

"I carried food, clothes, I gave money and I preached the gospel. Sometimes I am out here for four times on the mission field because I felt it in my heart for Jamaicans, the poorer class who could not help themselves, and did what I could for them.

daraine.luton@gleanerjm.com