from Jamaica...Centenarian forced out of the constabulary by 'obeah'

BY DONNA HUSSEY-WHYTE Sunday Observer reporter husseyd@jamaicaobserver.com

Sunday, July 07, 2013

HE is 105 years old, yet Cyril Goffe walked through his front door eager to share his life's story with the Jamaica Observer, all senses intact.

A former policeman, Goffe said that what existed over 100 years ago was heavenly, compared to what he is hearing of today.

"What I am hearing of today and what I have passed through, I should say my days were heavenly," the centenarian told the Sunday Observer last week from his Kingston 19 home.

"As far as I can remember, the happenings were nothing serious. Mark you, the place was not rich in cash, but it was rich in unity and love," he said.

Born in Rock River, Clarendon, on April 5, 1908, Goffe was the only boy of six children for his parents.

He admitted his unhappiness in being the only boy growing up with five girls.

"I didn't feel so well," he said. "The area was full of other boys, and when I would care to go and play with them, that was the time I would be called to do something that one of the girls could do," he recalled.

He said that he grew up doing house chores just like the girls. He would use coconut brush and wax, get down on the floor and shine it until it was sparkling.

"That got me vexed and irritable!" he said. "Because I believe most of it was girls' work. The only thing I didn't do, I can remember, was wash clothes. But everything else I had to do."

Goffe said that he grew up hearing that he would not have a brother, but pleaded with God, as a child, for one.

"When I did not get as much time with the boys and had to do the chores with the girls I felt indignant. And I said, 'God, why you never give me a brother?"

He recalled having a dream at age 11 in which he came face to face with God who told him he did not have a brother because that brother would bring disgrace to him and his family.

"From that day I never wished for a brother anymore," he said.

Goffe said that he was more or less spoilt by his parents as he recalled getting only two memorable spankings as a child, one at school and one from his dad.

He said that the one at school was as a result of vindictiveness, because the teacher and his dad had a disagreement.

"My father was not in school, but I was. So he (teacher) took it out on me," Goffe stated. "He asked me a question in Geography lesson, and I said 'I did not hear you, teacher'. And he used the horse whip with the double stirrup leather and he doubled it and stood up on one of the desks, and don't ask if he didn't wax mi!" the centenarian recalled. "My back was swollen. When I went home and I showed my mother, she just said, 'Never mind, mi son, never mind', and that was that. He had vengeance in his heart for my father, but he couldn't catch my father so he took it out on me," he said.

Even at 105, Goffe still recalls the name of the teacher who whipped him so long ago. This was at Rock River Elementary.

At age 20, Goffe did carpentry, but gave it up after working for months without being paid.

Goffe left Clarendon and came to Kingston in 1933 at the age of 25. He got himself a job at the Myrtle Bank Hotel on Harbour Street in downtown Kingston as assistant baggage master (bellhop).

He got married in 1947 to Meva Sylvania Smith.

He joined the police force in 1939, the same year that the Second World War started.

"For I said I was not going to any war," Goffe stated. "Because they wouldn't take me out of the force to go join war."

When he was a recruit, he said, the vendors would sell on the streets, but the store merchants were against this. It was his duty to get them off the streets.

"They wanted me to go and arrest them," Goffe said. "I dressed up into an old khaki suit and old felt hat and looked like a little old man, and when the people dem come to sell them something I said, 'Listen, run, I am a policeman, when you see me come, you run!'. "I didn't want to arrest them. For what? The people were making an honest bread, why should I go out there and arrest them? And then again they would have to go out and pay what they didn't have."

He said that after a while they got special constables to do what he had been assigned to do, and they treated the vendors like dogs.

Another thing that had him thinking as a police officer was the playing of the then Chinese game Pick-a-Pow. This he infiltrated as an undercover agent and aided in bringing the gambling to an end.

Goffe was stationed at Gibraltar Camp, which he explained was located at the now UWI Mona campus.

He met his wife on the eastern side of the camp after being sent there to keep away intruders.

The meeting with his wife came after passing through three relationships with other women who were bent on marrying him. He recalled that at age 15 he had sat in the bushes while tending to animals and asked God to one day send him a good wife. None of the three fitted the bill, then he met Meva, standing beside a lady selling fruits to the police officers. She was a teacher.

After a brief conversation, which he recalled word for word, they parted ways and never kept in touch. A year later they met once more.

They were married for 46 years upon her death in 1996. Their union produced three girls and one boy.

Asked how long he spent in the force, Goffe quickly stated that he didn't leave; he was forced out due to obeah.

He said that he was oftentimes commended and promoted by his superiors, thus gaining the jealousy of his peers.

After leaving the depot where they trained, Goffe was stationed at Gibraltar Camp for two years before being transferred to the Half-Way-Tree station. This was where things began to fall apart.

"Believe it or not, Satan step in. At Half-Way-Tree I was thought to be an excellent policeman and as such they didn't want my transfer. Had they the power, I would still be at Half-Way-Tree. But the transfer order came and I was transferred to Chapelton in Clarendon," he added.

At Chapelton he continued to excel and he made changes that did not go down well with those working at the station.

As a result, he said, persons there began to create problems for him. This included letting prisoners go so that he would be blamed.

He explained, too, that one day a co-worker asked to borrow a shilling. Three days later it was returned.

"That was the beginning of sorrow," Goffe said.

That night when he got home something invisible hit him forcibly in the side, causing blood to flow from his mouth. Since that night he has not recovered from unknown illness after illness. He said he visited several doctors, but they found nothing wrong.

Frustrated after a long bout of illness, family members said that they were going to 'look'.

"I gave myself up and they took me to four such people (mada women) and they all said the same thing. The fifth such person said she couldn't help me but she would tell me. They all told me it was the two people at my workplace and it was because I was doing so well," he said. "So five such people — I did not take them as liars."

He could no longer work.

Goffe said that even today he still has pain in his right side as he has never really recovered from the blow.

When asked what he believes has caused him to live for 105 years, Goffe simply pointed upwards.

"He is the one that causes me to be here now. No doctor."

His daughter Jennifer, who now cares for him, saw him as a strict person when she was growing up.

"We couldn't have friends over," she recalled. "You couldn't call the name boyfriend. Whatever my mother said was law and my father backed her. They worked well together. He was very supportive of her," she added.

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