Humble Suffix ‘Shire’

A friend who knows Jamaica very well, sent on a funny note, in which he referred to a place named “Hellshire.”  This caught my eye.  I could imagine lots of English prefixes to set before the humble suffix “shire” like “Hamp”, “Bedford” or “Shrop.”  But, “Hell”?  Was some landed gentleman being funny or spiteful to have named the hamlet “hell?”  The place in question appeared to be a beach on the outskirts of Kingston.  Nothing particularly ‘hell’-ish about that.

My buddy had sent on photos of Johnny Rotten there on the beach with the seminal Jamaican DJ U Roy, from what must have been around 1977.  This was an infamous trip of Mssr. Lydon’s immediately after the Sex Pistols broke up when he was apparently well-received as the man behind the scathing “God Save the Queen” which had been an unnamable number one, in the UK charts. 

I had a look on line and it turns out that the place is actually, properly known as Healthshire because it was a nice place to get away from town and enjoy the beach, but that the place became popularly known for the more infamous moniker with the “th” sound subdued, and this has stuck, ever since. 

I shared all this with my friend and in the conversation about Jamaica I asked him if he’d read anything by Marlon James.  I have read “The Book of the Night Women” and enjoyed, in particular the rough, plausible interplay between the Irishman there on the plantation and the slave woman, he was in love with.   He mentioned he was reading “A Short History of Seven Killings.”  I have it on my shelf.  He described it as fascinating and highly recommended.  “That’s it, I told him.  It’s coming with me on my trip.” 

Read a novel about the Caribbean while bouncing about in Central America. Some how a memory came to mind of making my way through the Uruguayan author Julio Cortázar’s “Hopscotch” in 1989, while recuperating from food poisoning in Jacmel, Haiti.  It could be read from beginning to end, by following the guidance to the next chapters provided at the end of ever chapter. Reading about Jamaica from across the Caribbean in Nicaragua,  seemed appropriately jarring.