Mount James is a tiny community sprawled over rocky hillsides and steep-sided valleys high in the hills of st Andrew above Kingston. Electricity and paved roads have come now to the district but it is still considered a rather remote, almost lost corner of rural st Andrew. Back in her day it would have been dreadfully lost. One wonders why and how her parents came there to set up a business, to farm the land and start a family. Here are links to maps you can explore for yourself: http://www.maplandia.com/jamaica/saint-andrew/mount-james/ and http://nona.net/features/map/placedetail.2311559/Mount%20James/ Beryl got a basic primary education and probably did well at (Mt James Primary?) school but like many other women of her generation, her education was halted and she would've come home to help in her parents business, home and farm, in short prepared for domestic life. Beryl certainly learned how to cook, she genuinely enjoyed it and was very good. Back then night fell swiftly and more blackly than most can imagine. There were no street lights, no activity, no traffic noises. Smelly, sooty kerosene lamps burning dimly reddish yellow were lit for the last chores of the day. Smoke from the dying embers of wood and charcoal used for cooking would drift in and out the window, mingling with the smells of home. Lying awake at night, her parents snoring just feet away Beryl must have longed for the bright lights of Kingston. She became more beautiful the more she grew, must have noticed it herself and the improved prospects it brought. Others noticed it too.