I HAVE NO desire to meddle in the internal affairs of the Barbados Labour Party or the Democratic Labour Party, as I am a member of neither and in the past have voted for both.
What I do desire is a high quality of public life in our country characterised by honour, integrity and self-giving. What I see about me are people of every age group, notably the young people, thrashing around them in search of community figures who embody virtues we ourselves aspire to.
The population drift from the countryside to the city and suburban areas which denuded the countryside of its village primary schools, the increase in car ownership, and the arrival of the supermarket, which squeezed out the village shop, have robbed us of the village headteacher and shopkeeper living among the people they served. These people, who were often generous in their assistance to the less literate and less well-off members of the community, were naturally figures respected by adults and their children.
Even with the coming of islandwide Rediffusion there were few nationally known figures to take precedence over such flesh and blood community elders. But radio and television and would-be kingmakers in the media have conferred a disproportionate importance on politicians, and it may be questioned to what extent these show themselves capable of rising to this immense responsibility.
I have a very high regard for Dr Jerome Walcott, who served a term as my constituency Member of Parliament. Unlike some other members of Parliament to whom I had occasion to write, he always replied to my letters and did so with courtesy and understanding even if not always with agreement.
Having myself served for seven years as a non-executive member of the 12-person board of the Mayday University National Health Service Hospital in the UK, I believe him to have been a good Minister of Health, and his decision to have a Queen Elizabeth Hospital board, although not quite along the lines of those in the UK, was a courageous one and definitely in the correct direction. Whether as an elected or appointed member of Parliament, I believe that he can continue to make a thoughtful, level-headed and effective contribution to the life of our nation.
I am sorry to see him caught up in this Maria Agard affair, an unpleasant situation seemingly not of his own making. Like him, Maria Agard in Parliament speaks clearly and to the point, without the clichés which so often betray a paucity of language and vocabulary, and a lack of grasp of the subject. He would not want to be party to the curtailing of the promising future contributions of a junior colleague.
What I would now like to see from him is a public and unequivocal statement that under no circumstances would he accept nomination as a candidate for the Christ Church West constituency while the sitting member desires to continue the work she has begun in and for that constituency. In that one swift move he would display honour and self-giving and lance a boil on the face of his party which could threaten the well-being of the nation. It could be the start of something big in the way we regard politicians.
– Sir Wilfred Wood
