IT WAS THE LAST song that was playing when Professor George Nicholson lost his battle with colon cancer on July 17.
Scott Joplin’s Entertainer was also the song that ended a service of thanksgiving for Nicholson’s life on Wednesday, at Coral Ridge’s chapel, after mourners had heard jazz great Louis Armstrong’s distinctive vocals on What a Wonderful World.
Poems, one of which was penned by Nicholson himself, were read; the congregation joined in a traditional Scottish song and they heard glowing tributes from friends, including Minister of Labour Senator Esther Byer Suckoo, the best friend of one of Nicholson’s daughters.
Nicholson, a nephrologist, has been credited with saving the lives of many people who suffered renal failure.
Many of his former patients joined members of the medical fraternity, including Sir Errol “Mickey” Walrond and Sir Henry Fraser; their colleagues fromTrinidad and Guyana; Minister of Health John Boyce; and Rotarians from the island’s three clubs.
They heard of the formidable intellect of the man who had the ability to reduce “grown men and women to a quivering mass just by looking over his spectacles”, but who loved Bob Marley, cooking up a curry and giving back to the community through his work with Rotary South.
Nicholls, who was cremated at an earlier date, was credited with being the “driving force” behind the Kidney Foundation of Barbados, said Sir Errol, who told stories of patients who went on to live long, productive lives as a result of Nicholson’s surgery and care. (HLE)