AS TOLD TO BC PIRES

A version of this feature appeared in August 2010. It is reprinted as a mark of respect for Tracy Hutchinson-Wallace, who died recently.

My name is Tracy Hutchinson-Wallace and I am president of the board of directors of a foreign language society.

I was born in Trinidad and grew up in Santa Cruz. My father is Trinidadian, my mother is Jamaican. She still has her accent, particularly when she’s angry.

They were a campus couple back in the 60s, when it was the University College of the West Indies. My father went to Jamaica and brought back a degree and a wife.

I’ve never had that eldest-child issue about being the person blazing the trails and feeling pressure to do brilliantly.

Not that I’m happy with mediocrity, but I don’t have that driving ambition you see in most eldest children. I’m happy with whatever successes I have.

I have two younger brothers. For me, that’s good, because I never really got along with women. Brothers fit right into my personality.

Myself and my first brother went to a very small primary school called St Gabriel’s. My parents were in the group that started the school.

I passed Common Entrance for St Joseph’s Convent, where my mother taught.

My brother Courtney had always had issues with being Tracy’s little brother so Mummy moved him to Newtown Boys’, where my youngest brother, Ryan, was starting. Courtney had a chance to be the person blazing the trail.

Mom was an eldest child, but there was 11 or 12 years between her and the other kids. So she always had to set the good example. She never used Jamaican swear words.

I did biochemistry at university.

But then I literally fell into media. That was back in the good old days when you didn’t have to know much to work in media.

My husband’s father is Jamaican, his mother is Trini, so he’s the opposite of what I am.

I took a very long time to start a family. My son Zachary is two and a half.

I’m one of those dysfunctional Catholics. Married in the church, everything, but we haven’t christened Zachary.

I’m not happy with my relationship with God and the church now and would rather he come to his own choice. I don’t want him to be indoctrinated.

Most of my life, during that Catholic indoctrination time, I didn’t believe most of what I was being taught.

The concept of birth control? All those middle-class Catholics who only have two children? Yeah, right! Things like that bothered me.

But I had to go through with it. I’ve tried since then to come to some sort of understanding and acceptance. But it hasn’t happened.

I believe firmly there is a God and take comfort in thinking somebody up there is looking out for us. Because the people down here certainly aren’t doing a good job.

I don’t like dancehall.

I have eclectic tastes in music. I like older soca. More melodic themes. I haven’t found anything to like in the last three years.

Up to 2007, I could have found at least one song I liked every year.

Palance was the worst song we’ve had in a very long time.

My favourite singers