As posted on facebook by a good friend Stephanie Kerins

February 3rd, 2010

So much More than Genius…

Yesterday saw the passing of someone who few would argue was the Caribbean’s greatest cultural icon, Professor Rex Nettleford. Now, there will be an outpouring of comment on his outstanding intellectual stature, the incredible life he led, the changes he wrought throughout the region, and through UNESCO, the world, his many, many awards and honours as well as the huge responsibility he bore for defining our Caribbean traditions and insisting that they had as much validity and depth as any imported culture…more really because they were uniquely ours, and spoke to our multi-textured being.

All of this and more is true, but today I would like to write a personal memory of my Uncle Rex, whose greatness so many knew at a much more human level. My first memory of Uncle Rex was of him having been commandeered to collect me from a dance class. He sat me in the front seat of his battered maroon car (he was a terrible driver) and very seriously asked what I intended to be when I grew up. With equal gravity I gave my 5 year old opinion that I thought, perhaps, a chemist…where this came from I will never know, as subsequently it was clear all my talents lay in the arts. Nevertheless, he listened, commented and made me feel important. Rex made everyone feel important. He would himself have described this as the “smaddification” (making the least of us feel like somebody) of us all. With Rex it was not a conscious act; in his eyes everyone had validity, everyone’s story was worth telling and his own nimble mind was always determined to ferret out the best in all and sundry.

He was a teacher to the core, determined that each mind could be and should be developed and nurtured. Never, ever did he denigrate or belittle, unless he suspected fraud and fallacy, and most despised of all, “bumptiousness”. I remember hearing give him an erudite lecture right here in the BVI about the hallmarks of Nation Building. Question time arose and an elderly farmer from the back row was called upon. He rose to his feet and bemoaned the scarcity of tractors in Virgin Gorda. There were general titters of laughter from the audience and those on the podium looked embarrassed. Rex allowed the gentleman to finish and then agreed wholeheartedly with him, that ideas of policy and culture must indeed go hand in hand with the more concrete aspects of building up one’s agrarian economy. The titters in the audience stopped, the farmer seemed to grow two inches in height, and the pseudo-intellectuals all looked ashamed. If Rex Nettleford was willing to empathize with the old gentleman, then really, who were they to do otherwise. Prof treated everyone with grace and respect, and they rose to the occasion.

Stories are legion about his kindness. He knew the name of every office helper and guard at the university and valued their contribution, however small. He had time for everyone and would drop everything if he felt a personal intervention would guide and uplift. My own mother, his dear friend for 50 years, tells the story of him popping his head out of his office (he was Vice Chancellor of UWI at the time) to ask someone to get him an old-time exercise book with all Jamaica’s national facts on the back. Everyone looked askance, but unwilling to question greatness, Mummy scurried away and manage to find one. When she handed it to him he thanked her profusely (his mother had brought up a ‘mannersable’ boy) and admitted that he had received a carefully written letter from a little boy in a rural village, who needed to know at what point the Black River became navigable. Rex was in the process of handwriting him a reply, but had wanted to check the accuracy of his facts.

Or there is the story of a student who was about to fail out of a programme at UWI because of her inability to pass a requirement in a subject unrelated to her major. She was on her last attempt and had missed the pass mark by 2 points; and her Professor was going to fail her. Rarely have I seen Rex that angry. He simple could not understand why the teacher was willing to ruin the young ladies life for the sake of 2 marks. He intervened, the student passed and is now a first rate doctor in rural Jamaica.

Or the fact that he insisted that Lady Grace Sherlock retain the benefits to which she had been entitled as the wife of his great mentor Sir Philip Sherlock, after his death. He was not about to discompose this venerable and gracious lady, in her time of grief.

Herein is the teachable moment of the Wonder who was Rex. He carried a vast amount of information in his head, but in highlighting the importance Jamaica at the macro level, he did not loose sight of the people who made up the nation, at the micro level. Pursuing international fundraising for some much needed project at the University, did not preclude him trying to find affordable housing for young students with no money.

He has been called the quintessential Caribbean man and he remained so to the end. He loved his Jamaican food, and his beloved Miss Ruby (his helper fro 50 years) served up the best akee and saltfish and rundown, to the great and the good who came through his door… and they loved it, embraced it and washed it all down with coconut water and lemonade.

My own children adored him. They vaguely knew he was important, but to them he was the genial uncle of the wonderful booming laugh, and the twinkling eyes who swung them up into the air, long after such an action was advisable for a 60 year back. Whenever he was visiting he came to dinner, and we laid in a large supply of Grape Soda, his drink of choice, and cooked up spicy Jamaican roast beef and rice and peas, and fried plantain.

Uncle Rex enjoyed young people and lately, he and my son have enjoyed a long distance friendship, where he reveled in Adam’s academic success, and raved about the DVD he produced on the history of Jamaican music. Only a few days ago on January 20th, he sent me a wonderful Email commenting on a difficult philosophy essay which Adam had written and I quote:

My dear Ma'am"

Tell my nephew that his brilliant essay is worth an A plus. That is what his uncle would give him if he were a student here. I shall have to borrow some of his marvellously crafted sentences. He has clarified in my own mind why our literary artists are so critical in our development.

Blessings and happy 2010 to everyone.

As ever

Uncle Rex

Perhaps, tonight we will have a ceremonial drinking of the last of the grape sodas…

For this man
The first among us
Shall not come back
From our common dust
Across the Wingspan of the Sun
His time is up
And the wind is full of his silence.

RIP dearest of all uncles...