Take My Word for It

Ralph Thompson's memoir is a fascinating record of a long and full life lived jointly in the worlds of art, literature and business. From a pre-war childhood in colonial Jamaica, Take My Word For It is full of rich insights into both the personal and Jamaica emerging into difficult modernity. Take My Word For It offers rich insights into the long and full life of one of one of Jamaica's finest poets who has also been at the heart of the island's economic and commercial development. There are moving and sometimes comic chapters of a pre-war boyhood in colonial Jamaica in a far from prosperous white and Catholic Jamaican family, the years spent at the Jesuit college of Fordham in the USA, and postwar service in the United States Airforce, serving in Japan. Thereafter Ralph Thompson tells the story of a life at the heart of Jamaica's development of tourism, capitalist modernity and the leadership of Seprod, one of the island's largest companies. There are fascinating glimpses of involvement with Jamaica's sharply divided political life -- between Michael Manley and Edward Seaga. But along with the businessman who can convey something of the excitement of commercial strategy and take-over bids, there is also the artist and poet who has explored the inner life, not least the position of a white man in a Jamaica whose decolonisation has been in part about discovering its black identity. Ralph Thompson has long had a passionate concern with the quality of the education on offer to all Jamaicans, and he writes with feeling about his contribution to the debate around educational issues and practical attempts to make improvements. There is also the loyal supporter of Derek Walcott's Trinidad Theatre Workshop who did much to bring that theatre to wider Caribbean and American notice, who writes about his friendship with Walcott with warmth and insight. Amply illustrated with photographs, images of Thompson's paintings and extracts from his poetry, Take My Word For It is a beautifully and frankly written record of a significant Jamaican life.

Ralph Thompson was born in America in 1928. His family on his mother’s side goes back three generations in Jamaica, a mixture of crypto Jewish (Isaacs) and Irish stock (Fielding). It was staunchly Catholic and claimed to be white. His mother’s marriage lasted only three years and she returned to Jamaica and brought up her two children aided and abetted by a household of intellectually brilliant but poor and highly eccentric aunts and uncles. Ralph Thompson's education was heavily influenced by the Jesuits through high school in Jamaica and university in America. After earning his Doctor of Law degree at Fordham University in New York, he served for two years as an officer in the US Air Force in Japan, after which he returned to Jamaica and started his career as businessman, painter and poet. The father of four children, he lives with his wife in Kingston. He has given public service under both political administrations in Jamaica and was awarded the C.D. (Commander of Distinction) in the Jamaican National Honours of 1988. He is a regular broadcaster and panelist on Jamaican radio and contributor of articles to Jamaica’s press. Throughout his business career, working as Director of Seprod, Jamaica’s largest private company, first painting (he held a major one-man exhibition in Kingston in 1976) and then poetry have been ordering passions in his life. During a five year sojourn in Florida he did graduate work in English at the University of South Florida and arranged readings there by Derek Walcott, John Figueroa and John Hearne. His poetry appeared in such journals as The Gleaner, Jamaica Journal, Kyk-over-Al, Carib, The Caribbean Writer and London Magazine, before his first collection, The Denting of a Wave was published by Peepal Tree in 1993. This collection contains a long poem, ?The Other Island’ which explores his wartime Japanese experience. His second collection, Moving On (Peepal Tree, 1998) includes a witty eighteen part autobiographical poem, ?Goodbye Aristotle, So Long America’ that deals with the experiences of a white West Indian abroad. View from Mount Diablo, Thompson's book-length narrative poem, won the 2001 Jamaican National Literary Award and will be published by Peepal Tree in early 2003.