Emmanuel Taylor poses with family members. - Contributed

When THE STAR Life & Times journeyed to Red Ground District in Old Harbour, St Catherine, recently, we met a small-framed man, no more than five feet tall with a very powerful voice.

Just by looking at him you could never have guessed that he is 100-year-old as he is still full of life and has a great sense of humour.

On Saturday, February 26, Emmanuel Taylor celebrated his birthday in fine style with family and friends at the Terra Nova Hotel in Kingston.

With tears in his eyes, the centenarian recalled the events of his life when he sat down to speak with THE STAR Life &Times.

Taylor, the father of five children, grew up in St Andrew at a place called Cambridge. He is one of four children born to Edward Taylor and Angie Ray.

While he received no formal education, he was a businessman starting out as a milk vendor who later opening his own restaurant, Taylor's Milk Shop, on North Street, downtown Kingston. "My daddy never sent me to school; because him was educated him say me coulda stay home and learn," he said.

married

Unable to remember the exact date he got married, Taylor said he remembers meeting his now deceased wife at church sometime in the 1940s. He also said he decided to marry her because "yuh can't live with a woman and sleep with her unless yuh married." He acknowledged that his father was a preacher so the teachings he received stayed with him for a lifetime.

Taylor noted that he also admired his wife because "she was a very clean lady ... mi very particular about the food I eat from I was a likkle boy, and me stand up and watch how she operate and me like her for that."

A Christian for many years, Taylor is a member of the First Missionary Church.

His daughter, Barbara Green, with whom he lives, said her fondest memory of her father would always be a comment he made to a woman about 55 years ago. She said that right after her mother's death, the elder's wife in the community was empathising with her father and asked how he was going to manage with the children. She said she remembers her father telling the woman that "a five children mi wife dead lef and a five mi keeping, me nuh have no extra."

He told THE STAR Life & Times that it feels good being a centenarian; however, "Age nuh mean nothing to mi because God nuh mek nobody fi live forever. God does what pleases him, so whatever God do now mi cyan fight it."

Even though he has reached a milestone in his life, he says he doesn't believe that his journey on earth is completed. "Me cyan say dat. Mi haffi leave dat to the Holy Spirit," he said.

Taylor, who is a regular visitor to the United States as four of his children reside there, noted that he wishes for a better Jamaica. "Mi woulda like fi see Jamaica become like America or one a dem country deh. If is even the laws and the rules, because what yuh can do in Jamaica yuh cyan cross the ocean and go do it, cause it will get yuh into trouble," he said.