THE CROWD shifted as if something was about to happen. They had been fooled earlier by a number of sleek cars that sped past as if they were part of the cortege carrying the body of the late Prime Minister David Thompson to its final resting place in St John.
As the police sweeper and the four outriders in ceremonial dress roared into view on their glistening white motorcycles, however, folk from the parish of St George who had lined the districts of The Valley and Glebe knew that David’s “funeral” was nearing.
“Goodbye, David, goodbye,” chorused a number of women as the procession turned left at the playing field, before it moved up Gun Hill around 12:45 p.m.
“He was a good man”; “It was a bit saddy, saddy. I caught cold bumps”;
“He was one of the people,” were some of the immediate responses of the people.
“I had to get in everything,” Marguerita Felix said before the arrival of the procession. She had been at Kensington Oval and had just returned to The Valley.
“The service was very touching. It left you speechless. Based on the eulogies, he was a real leader. And I felt proud to be a Bajan. The level of organisation was very professional,” said Felix.
“I have to control myself – tears wouldn’t stop flowing. David was a father and friend.
“He is not dead. He is alive somewhere else, watching over us and wants us Barbadians to keep the dream alive because he wants us to live as a family.
“To me he is a sacrificial lamb,” said Lorraine Cumberbatch.
She said he left a legacy for the rest of Barbados.
Richard Cox, public relations officer of the Barbados Road Safety Association, was also in full praise of the late Prime Minister.
“That’s a genuine man that has gone.”
