In June 1962, an Eastern Caribbean Commission office was set up in London, and this was headed by Mr. Nicholas Taylor of St. Lucia while I was second in command. During the early days, Mr. Barrow had vowed that he and his fellow politiclal leaders from the Eastern Caribbean would “build a monument more lasting than bronze”. However after three and a half years of total frustration, he was forced to admit, from his perspective at any rate, that the time spent in trying to put together an Eastern Caribbean Federation had been wasted, and he was left with no choice but to take Barbados into Independence alone in 1966.
Barrow - the man One of my first impressions from those early days was that Mr. Barrow liked working with young people whom he considered to have ability and be well qualified. He felt that Civil Service Red Tape often prevented the right people from being placed in the right jobs for the service. I recall in particular, efforts to prevent the young Branford Taitt from being appointed Consul General in the Barbados New York Consulate because he was only 27 years old even though he was the most qualified candidate available. Mr. Barrow overruled the objection. In the years that followed, Mr. Barrow as Prime Minister of Barbados was to build a team around him drawn from a generation somewhat younger than his own, including people like Philip Greaves, Richard Haynes, Branford Taitt, Lloyd Erskine Sandiford, Asquith Phillips, Keith Simmons,
Maurice King, Wes Hall, George Moe and others now household names in Barbados. It is very difficult to capture the total Errol Barrow, the man, in an article of a few words. He was multidimensional in his skills and catholic in his interests. He was as comfortable in the sky flying a plane, as he was underwater scuba diving or sailing with the Barbados Cruising Club which he helped to found. He was a competent horseman and certainly the first Barbadian politician to canvass in elections on horseback. Of his immediate family, he is survived only by his son David, the CEO of the Airport Authority. His wife, Carolyn and daughter, Lesley, are both deceased. Like all of us, Errol Barrow had his faults, but they did not detract from a deserved reputation as an extraordinary person and an outstanding statesman. I should add that I was also encouraged to write a brief biography of Errol Walton Barrow by his sister, Dame Nita Barrow, who served as one of our Governors General. I hope that her expectations were met. This includes excerpts from my book: The Right Excellent Errol Walton Barrow, Father of Independence – an Intimate Portrait, The Little Eight Experiment and the March to Independence. The book is available at Pages Bookstore, the Cloister Bookstore, and Chattel House Bookstore at Sky Mall.
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