My mother, Olive Barrett, who has died aged 94, lived two lives. Her first, until her late 20s, was in rural Jamaica, and her second was in the UK, where she settled in Coventry and became a machinist for the General Electric Company.
She was born to Aubrey, a chauffeur who fought in the first world war, and his wife, Rhoda (nee Cunningham), a homemaker, in the village of Turners in the hills of Clarendon parish, Jamaica. She spoke with fondness of her early life there, which was based around the growing and harvesting of produce, looking after animals and playing games with her twin sister, Lena, her older sister, Pearl, and her brothers, Sonny, Sam and Aubrey.
