“It is a fact that it takes experience before one can realise what is a catastrophe and what is not,” Richard Hughes ironically explains.

But adults require sophisticated calculations to be made from precedents and foresight in order to discover their precarious reality. For these children the one reality is their eternal present - the past becomes easily forgotten and the future is always fantastical. The only tragedy is the death of a tabby cat. The awful storm which destroys their parents’ house creates a paradise for the children - a perfect playground. They inhabit parallel worlds that are indeed hidden from one another, worlds with different timescales, odd priorities and contradictory values. These changes, and many others, are used to illustrate the unbridgeable divide between children and adults. The expression of their faces became more candid, and yet more mask-like: hiding less, there was also less to hide.” The tone of their voices changed, and they began to talk much slower, to move more slowly and elaborately. To the children, the whole nature of the adults “seemed to be breaking up, like ice melting.

Then there is a most dramatic change that overtakes everyone at the bazaar on St Lucia after a few gallons of an enticing alcoholic drink called “Hangman’s Blood” has been passed around. Later we witness the accidental, split-second change from life to death on board the Clorinda, and also, when the ship lands, the apparently magical change of women into men. In the first chapter we are introduced to the social and cultural changes that took place in Jamaica during the 19th century.

A high wind in jamaica