Whenever Thelma Manley called me, I knew it would be a marathon conversation. If I was working with my computer, I turned it off. If I was watching television, I turned the volume low. If I was reading a book, I placed a marker where I reached and closed it.

For some time she had lived in Stony Hill. I never knew the house, but from the conversations I pictured what it was like. There were trees on the land and there were flowers around the house.

She would describe a rainbow with the excitement of a child, and she would talk about the butterflies or the birds which flitted about her home, in detail, and in picturesque language with her beautiful, cultured voice. And she spoke lovingly about her son Joseph, his wife Della and their children, and stepdaughters Rachel and Sarah.

Della, she said over and over again, is the greatest singer today and when asked what about Glynne, Michael's fifth wife, she always said she is good. The Manley women stick by each other!

At first sight

The first time I saw her was sometime in the 1950s. She was standing with Michael Manley at the official opening of the legislature at Headquarters House on Duke Street. He towered tall above her. She was petite and slim, and stunningly beautiful.

She was born in Port Antonio on New Year's Day, January 1, 1930, the daughter of Samuel Chung. She was subsequently adopted by the Veritys, a well-known family in Kingston. She attended Wolmer's Girls' School during the early 1940s, along with Shirley Maynair, Winnie Risden, Barbara Johnson, Alma Hylton and Betty and Punkie Rowe.

She began working as a ground hostess with KLM, the Dutch airline, at the Palisadoes Inter-national Airport. She also studied dancing with the late Hazel Johnson and was a member of the cast of some of the LTM pantomimes during the 1950s. It was then she met Manley.

'Drumblair' reflections

According to Rachel Manley in her 'Drumblair' reflections, "Thelma was beautiful and grown-up but young, and she laughed a lot, and she had Chinese eyes and exotic curly, black hair and smelled of gilded bottles of rare flowers, the perfumes of romance. She blew into the thoughtful, quiet world of Drumblair (the family home) like a gust of summer wind".

She married Manley in a private ceremony at the home of Manley's Aunt Muriel in Stony Hill, St. Andrew, on Boxing Day, December 26, 1954. The ceremony was performed by Father Hugh Sherlock, the Methodist minister who subsequently wrote the words of the Jamaican National Anthem. Their son, Joseph, was born on January 2, 1958.

She moved from Stony Hill to Devon Road a year or two ago. From time to time she travelled to England to join old friends, John and Liz Pringle, at plays in London's West End. Her most recent overseas travel was to California to visit another old friend. She never forgot friends. Friends, also, never forgot her.

Her recent pleasure was to join a group of actors and actresses, playwrights, singers, poets and other friends in the world of theatre on Saturday mornings for breakfast.

Goodbye, classic lady.