The taste of independence - Daphne Robinson has yearly drink from historic cup

With Jamaica celebrating its 60th anniversary of Independence this year, 74-year-old Daphne Robinson, of Kilmarnock, Westmoreland, will be welcoming it the same way she has done every year since 1962 - drinking from a commemorative cup.

Robinson, like many Jamaican students, received the memorabilia in honour of the nation's first Independence celebration. During a recent visit to her rural community, which sits very close to the border between Westmoreland and St Elizabeth, the septuagenarian showed off the treasured cup which has the words, 'Jamaica, Independence Day, 6th August 1962' written in red on one side, and the national coat of arms prominently displayed on the other side.

The senior citizen, a mother of seven children and grandmother of 21, admitted to being very territorial about the cup, only taking it from its display case and using it for every Independence Day.

"Every Independence Day I drink from the cup, and my children and grandchildren know the story of the cup. I tell them, 'Look here, I do not want anybody to touch it, because I want to show it to the last generation'," Robinson said with a laugh.

Perhaps because of the limited number of uses, the cup still appeared as pristine as the day it was first created, and as flawless as when Robinson first received it at age 14 while she was a student at Kilmarnock Primary School.

Despite now being blind due to diabetes complications, and requiring help from relatives to move around her house, Robinson's memory is still sharp. She told the news team how she and her peers first got their commemorative mugs, made from a ceramic material, before Jamaica's inaugural Independence celebration.

"I got the cup at school, a week before Independence. They told us we must keep the cups for the next week when it would be Independence and we could drink out of the cups and hold them up so people could see them," said Robinson, who went on to become principal of Kilmarnock Primary.

"I was happy to get this cup because we were up in the upper grade and those students in the lower grades got some little cups made out of tin. The older children got the glass ones," Robinson explained.

This year's Independence celebration will be held under the theme 'Reigniting a Nation for Greatness'. A ceremony was held earlier this month to officially launch the Jamaica 60 programme of activities.