Ode to Dr. Roger...

FROM PAGE 10 political protests against the PPP being cheated out of office.

I’d also learnt in Guyana about another brave PPP heroine, Jessie Burnham, who, with her brother, Forbes, had been among the resolute Afro-Guyanese in the leadership of the PPP.

Indeed, Jessie would pen a popular and stinging rebuke of her brother, Linden Forbes Sampson (LFS) Burnham, when he broke with the PPP in 1964 to cheat it out of office through a post-election alliance (or marriage of political convenience) between Burnham’s People’s National Congress (PNC) and the United Force (UF).

Jessie’s telling chronicle was entitled, ‘Beware My Brother Forbes!’

Another indication of the level of Afro- Guyanese support for the PPP back then was the fact that one-thirds of the 34 PPP activists arrested and detained in the 1964 battle for democracy were Black.

The likes of me would enjoy drifting down memory lane, in the positivity of selective amnesia, every time such a stalwart goes, from my attendance at the funeral of EMG (Earl Maxwell Gladstone) Wilson, where Dr. Jagan cried while delivering the tribute to this lifelong supporter and leading PPP activist and organiser in Beterverwagting (BV), on Guyana’s East Coast.

During my six years living and working in Guyana (1993-1999), before and after my memorable ‘multi-everything’ wedding at the Brickdam Cathedral

(August 2, 1996), I also had the good fortune of growing close to Shirley (Edwards) and her family in Lodge.

I also occasionally talked to the ever-silent and resilient Agriculture Minister Clinton Collymore, and parrying with Georgetown Mayor & City Council Chair, ‘Fireball’ Sahoye-Shury.

And then there were Brentnol Evans and Sam Hinds, both of Linden fame, the former to become Guyana’s Consul-General to New York and the latter to be Prime Minister in 1992 and President in 1996 after President Dr. Cheddi Jagan died.

And then there’s Eddi Rodney (Walter’s brother), whose vast accumulated knowledge of Guyana and world history still very easily flows from his memory to his fountain pen whenever he has to write for the PPP’s weekly newspaper, ‘The Mirror’.

Dr. Luncheon grew up in the PPP in the shadows of all these stalwarts, gone and still-around, whose earlier (pre-1980s) examples and sacrifices will also have influenced his decision to live and die serving the only Party he trusted all his life.

The ‘Doc’ is being spoken of today, just as he’ll always be remembered.

He was referred to (several years ago) as a wise man who wore his white beard “as a Badge of Honour” of his long life of “Service to Guyana and PPP, as a fearless Servant of the Public!”

For me, however, while Roger’s gone, he’ll never go away!