Weston Gregory joined the Jamaica Constabulary in 1989 when he was 20. Weston is not your average policeman. He recently published a book of poetry “Thoughts And Emotions” and has another book of verse and a novel planned. How did he become a police and a poet?

“I lived in Olympic Gardens until my mother left my father and moved with us six children to Waltham Park Road. My mother’s name was Agatha Williamson. She opened a stall at Coronation Market where I used to help her out. At all times she used to tell me ‘Weston you have to go to school because education is the only way to get out of this squalor. I don’t want you to live like this, growing up in sufferation and not knowing where the next meal is coming from.’”

But then disaster struck.

“In 1980 a policeman was killed right in front of my mother’s stall. They just walked up and shot him in front of everyone and took away his gun. My mother started to receive threats because she knew the guys. And she had to up and leave everything. She had ten hand carts and a fully stocked shop in the market but she couldn’t take a thing because the threats were so frightening. If she hadn’t vacated they would have killed her.

That is when the hardships really began to hit us because she didn’t have a set job and really had nothing at all. We had to move from where we were living because we couldn’t pay the rent. That was real sufferation. Many a night we went to bed without food and I saw my mother cry many times. One day she got up and put a stall right to the lane front. Things went on from there and she opened a little shop.

Because the area was poor the shop was not so vibrant but she still made enough to send us to school. She never stopped emphasizing that. She told us that education is the key but without studiration you will go nowhere, that book learning is not enough and you have to be able analyze and read between the lines. And she would also tell us that the inner man has to be clean or anyone can lead him anywhere.

Everyday I have thanks to my mother for her strength, common sense and wisdom. She didn’t have any formal education – she had to leave school when she was twelve. But she was able to impart some of the most powerful teaching I have ever received. She is the strongest person I have ever known in my life. Maybe she got her strength from her Maroon blood. Because she certainly was a fighter.”

What was it like growing up in the ghetto?

“Most people’s aspirations were always positive. Their primary interest was to love and nurture their family and have a nice house and be happy and to achieve it in a legitimate way. Crime and violence is always a last resort of those who see absolutely no other option. And if we police talked to ghetto youth with respect and treated them like human beings like themselves a lot of the negativity and animosity would vanish.

I passed my exams and was successful to go to St. Andrew Technical. But my mother sent me to Jose Marti boarding school. She wanted me out of the area. She saw what the system was doing to other youngsters around us who were getting involved in drugs and guns and house breaking. I have a friend who I grew up with who just recently murdered my aunt because he wanted her out of the house she was living in. I could easily have gone the same way.

At Jose Marti I was attracted to dance and drama and also used to write skits. I got expelled once when they caught me and a friend sneaking into the girls dorms. However I could not accept this. My mother always kept telling us education is the key, education is the key. So I kept saying to myself what is going to become of me now? So I begged the principal to take me back until he said yes.

The only subject I took in CXC was English because my mother could only pay the exam fees for one subject. Because they used to break her shop every night and steal out goods. I guess they picked on her because she was a woman alone with five children and no big man to protect her. She was always said she wasn’t carrying any man in the house to abuse us.”

Why did he become a policeman?

“One day a friend told me he was going take the police test and asked me to follow him. I was dressed in just a pants and shirt and loafers and a police came and asked me if that was how I came to take the test – where you tie, where you belt, where you socks. I was about to tell him I wasn’t taking the test. But Cuddy nudged me and said take it man. So I said yes and bought the items, took the test and passed. I completed training and was posted in Manchester where I have worked for eleven years.

People don’t realize how rough it is being a police in Jamaica. I have been attacked several times and on more than one occasion have injured my attackers. But I had no choice – if I didn’t defend myself I could have been killed. But I try to stop things before they escalate. I believe in helping people and getting a full statement and doing a full investigation before arresting anybody.”

Why did he start writing poetry?

“My mother died in 1994. She had a bad heart and one day at church she fainted and passed away. I guess that was the way she would have wanted to go because God always came first in her life. But when I heard I was devastated. It was as if my life had been taken away from me. I felt all alone because she was my only connection to life. She was my guide, my mentor.

I was so close to my mother that when I had my first sexual experience I told her. All she said was Weston be careful and protect yourself and the girl. I judge all women off my mother. If I don’t see that strength in them they don’t interest me no matter how beautiful they are. Inner strength is what really counts in a person. I hope my daughters grow up as strong as their grandmother.

After her death I went through a phase when I didn’t care about anything and nothing really mattered to me. But during that time little snatches of thoughts came coming to me and I started writing them down and after that they began to flow constantly. Sometimes I would be working and something would hit me and I had stop what I was doing and write it down, because if I didn’t it would go away and never come back.

I started to write and put my poems aside. But people kept encouraging me to put them in a book. So I typed them up. The manager at the print shop where my nephew worked gave me a reasonable quote and I gave him the last money I had and said Trevor make magic and he did. The results were “Thoughts and Emotions” which I am very proud of. It is dedicated to my mother.” changkob@hotmail.com