Errol Walton Barrow – 100 years birthday anniversary with an eternal legacy to crown them

 
By Stanley Collymore

We Bajans owe a substantial amount to you Errol Walton
“Dipper” Barrow; far more in that precise regard than
the average Barbadian in his or her own distinct
and individual way could ever totally repay.
For you weren’t only a truly distinguished, thoroughly
accomplished, and most undeniably in your life
time a very incomparable man, but were
most certainly too, and still are, to
every Bajan and, of course, all
other concurring Afro-Caribbeans a
dynamically inspirational icon
and, as well, an authentic
and a commendably,
truly unequalled
living legend!

Founder and the recognized Father of our democratic Barbados
Nation; World War Two veteran and Royal Air Force hero,
that subsequently became our first ever Prime Minister
who on the 30 November 1966 brought to a lasting
cessation 339 years of unceasing English and subsequently
British colonialist domination, when most excellently
and forevermore you broke and disassembled the
influence of the British Trident in relation to
our Eastern Caribbean, island nation. And
thereupon did diligently sow the seeds of our independence
that since then have prodigiously sprouted, taken firm
root, and vigorously grown into the productive
forest of well-educated, democratically
rooted, and the excellent nation
of intellectuals Barbados
has richly and most
impressively
become!

So in this our beloved Barbados: a nation globally and
well celebrated for its huge number of living and
active centenarians, while we its present day
citizens profoundly regret that on the 21
January 2020, the anniversary of your 100th birthday,
you, Sir won’t be physically here amongst those
present to answer the roll call of our living
centenarians, we’re yet mindfully aware
that in every other conceivable way
your energizing presence will be
extensively with us all on our
very appealing paradisiacal
island home of Barbados.

For notwithstanding the absence of your earthly
presence in 2020, your birthdate: whatever
the year or the century might be, will
most fittingly, as is currently the
situation, be a state and cultural public holiday on our
island in fitting appreciation of you Errol Walton
“Dipper” Barrow our National Hero; and the
man who courageously, intelligently and
politically guided Barbados from being
an English and afterwards a British
colonial entity to irreversibly and
positively transforming it into
becoming an authentically
democratic, quite proud
of itself and its various
attainments, a peace
loving and a most
progressive Afro-
Caribbean nation.

© Stanley V. Collymore
23 December 2019.


Author’s Remarks:
In any authentic and convincing analysis of the character and personality of Errol Walton “Dipper” Barrow it is absolutely incumbent on all those who embark on such a laudable exercise to first and foremost recognize the established fact that like every other earthly human being “Dipper” was during his temporal existence, at any rate, mortal.

However, that reality is distinctly where the similarity between him and most other humans demonstrably ended.

For to put it mildly Errol Walton Barrow was a most extraordinary person whose monumental attributes: personally, socially, professionally and politically, although well-known and markedly universally appreciated are far too innumerable to properly recount in a tribute like this one.

So, instead, I’ll let the enduring legacy of this incredibly outstanding and a great iconic Barbadian speak for him.