They gave back to society

WITHIN THE PAST THREE WEEKS, this island has lost two of the most illustrious people to have lived within these shores. The first to leave us was Professor Dr Richard Allsopp, and earlier this week, Mrs Kathleen Drayton died at age 73.

Neither was a native Barbadian, but they came to us from Guyana and both distinguished themselves by dint of hard work, application to duty, and a commitment to a cause which is worthy of emulation by those of us who are yet left to carry on the tasks entrusted to us.

Both Allsopp and Drayton had much in common. They were academics and intellectuals of the highest order, and they lived their lives in an atmosphere where they interacted with a large cross-section of Barbadian society, and in so doing made monumental contributions to the social development of this country and to the region.

Allsopp's major work, The Dictionary Of Caribbean English Usage, is a massive memorial to the commitment and industry of this intellectual giant. His determination to produce such a work can be gauged from the long span of time it took him to bring his researches to published fruition. The hard work, patient research and the deployment of brain power expended by the learned academic is, by itself, well worth the effort, if it inspires some in our society that even in a fast food environment, such as we have become, masterpieces take time to produce.

In today's world we need to remind ourselves of the eternal truth that Rome was not built in a day, and one only hopes that such a lesson will not be lost on the many young minds who sat at Allsopp's feet.

That, without more, would be a fitting tribute to a towering teacher whose life's work spread far beyond the ivory covered walls of academic life.

Kathleen Drayton was no less a tower of power and intellect infused and supported by a seemingly endless supply of energy. She, too, has influenced generations of students from across the region from her academic perch at the Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West Indies.

Her important and seminal work as a lecturer in the Department of Education at the campus, and her earlier work in the University of Guyana as a fearless advocate for women's rights and social justice has been noted elsewhere, and no less a person than noted author George Lamming has described her as one of the most formidable intellects of the West Indies. In the last 14 years she has been one of the driving forces behind the development of the Barbados Association of Retired Persons, whose membership now stands at 20 000, with the association becoming a powerful force within the society.

The significance of the lives of Allsopp and Drayton is that as teachers at the university and as members of the intellectual community in this island, they reached outside the walls of academe, and beyond the intellectual elite of their peers and applied their God-given talents to the greater benefit of the larger community.

Clearly they both regarded themselves as responsible to the wider society, even if their first obligation was to their academic duties on the campus. One recalls the late Wendell McClean as a pioneer of this practice in his appearances at rate hearings!

And that is as it should be, because universities, funded as they are by the public purse, must see themselves as owing a duty to the larger society beyond the walls of the classroom.

Unfortunately, some academics do not recognize such a duty, and confine themselves and their research to the halls of learning, but such public outreach is an honourable calling, as the lives and contributions of Dr Allsopp and Mrs. Drayton have shown.