LIONEL SEYMOUR CRAIG was described yesterday as a man of passion who accepted “the consequences of his choices”.
This was how Mia Mottley, Leader of the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) summed up the personality of the 85-year-old, a former Cabinet minister who spent 53 years in the BLP.
Craig died on March 9 and during his official funeral at the St Patrick’s Cathedral, The City, yesterday both sides of the political spectrum were well represented.
The BLP contingent, led by Mottley, included her parliamentary group, while Prime Minister Freundel Stuart headed the Democratic Labour Party representatives including Cabinet members.
The service, running just under an hour and officiated by Father Clement Paul, also attracted members of the legal, sporting, journalism and entertainment fraternities.
The line-up included Dame Billie Miller, Justice of Appeal Sherman Moore, Sir Fred Gollop, Sir David Simmons; former cricketers Sir Garry Sobers and Sir Wesley Hall; journalists Harold Hoyte and David Ellis and entertainers Serenader and Winston Cassius Clay Yearwood.
There were tributes in song by Carlyn Leacock, Mark Lord and the Royal Barbados Police Force Band.
Mottley, in her tribute, said that Craig “was a champion and a giant of a man in all respects”.
She said Craig told her a year ago that “he had been given an option for an operation which would extend his life, but might make him weaker in living his life and he shared that that was not what he wanted because he was content with the life that he had lived”.
Mottley said Craig lived a full life.
“He did not want an eulogy and I will not betray his wishes this morning, but his family felt that for us to say goodbye to him without a sense of what he meant to us was to betray our own selves and our relationships with this man who had a lion heart and who was a champion and a giant of a man in all respects. The truth is . . . Lionel Craig was a man of the people and in every sense he reflected that.”
She said that he pursued “a mission that would allow him to represent the interest of the people, not just the people of St James but the people of Barbados. In everything he gave his heart, there was passion … he understood the consequences of choices and he accepted them willingly”. (JS)
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