IT MAY HAVE been long in coming indeed, but at last John Connell QC can write “Sir” before his name.
Hours after being bestowed with a knighthood in the 2016 Independence Honours last week, the 80-year-old Knight of St Andrew mused: “Someone would say it was long in coming. You do your work in court and you get put out of the Court of Appeal; you do your work in the parish and you get put in the Senate and then they chase you out; there is a certain rough and tumble in it and you just wait your time.”
This latest accolade is a big feather in the cap of the boy who rose from humble beginnings to make an outstanding contribution to law and the protection of the environment.
He served as an Opposition Senator from 1976 to 1980 and as deputy permanent representative of Barbados to the United Nations. He was also Barbados’ Ambassador to Venezuela, Brazil and Colombia and was a Judge of the Court of Appeal of Barbados until his retirement eight years ago.
St John also served as a permanent judge on the Human Rights Court for Latin America and the Caribbean.
On the environment, he was the first director of the Parks and Beaches Commission which later became the NCC, and served as president of the Caribbean Conservation Association.
“I came from very poor family, my father was a carpenter, and my mother was a needleworker. I got where I am because they had the good sense to make sure I had a secondary education,” he said after he was previously made a companion of honour.
Wisely he made the most of the opportunity and when he joined other Barbadians in the 1950s going off to Britain to work with the London Transport, he set his eyes on bigger things.
He worked as a bus conductor with the London transport, in factories and in restaurants to finance his legal education until he was awarded a scholarship to Holborn College of Law.
It was as a radical 29-year-old lawyer that returned to Barbados with radical ideas influenced by his experiences in Britain.
“Unlike many lawyers in Barbados, I saw the English society from both sides. I saw how black people were treated in England in those days and I felt that I should come back and tell Barbadians about it,” he said.
“But I was somewhat disappointed. People in England warned me that Barbadians were not going to accept what I was saying. But I am satisfied with my conscience that I came back and told them what it was like.
“That is the black power chapter of my life for which I make no apologies,” Sir John said. He formed an alliance with like-minded thinkers – Leroy Harewood, Calvin Alleyne, and Glenroy Straughn – and as the People’s Progressive Movement they challenged social and political issues of the day.
His activism caught the eye of a senior member of the Democratic Labour Party who invited him to join that political party though decades years later Sir John makes it known there was disaffection between him and party leader Errol Barrow.
“A lot of people feel that I was appointed to the Senate by Errol Barrow. Errol Barrow would never appoint me to the Senate. He never liked John Connell,” he said.
Explaining how the Senate appointment came about, Sir John said: “After he (Barrow) lost the election in 1976, he went to Miami on a sabbatical and left “Sleepy” (the late Sir Frederick Smith) as the Leader of the Opposition and “Sleepy” appointed me to the Senate”.
The story of that dismisssal is legendary. As an Opposition Senator appointed by the Democratic Labour Party, Connell voted in support of a Barbados Labour Party Government Bill to increase constituencies from 24 to 28.
“When the Bill came to the Senate, I voted in support of it because they had made it clear to me that they had no intention to repeal it and they were doing what both political parties are constantly doing – fooling the people of Barbados and telling them they intend to do one thing, and when they get power they don’t do it,” Sir John said. Another DLP Senator Dennis Hunte also voted in favour of the Bill.
A few days later both Connell and Hunte were dismissed from the Senate by Barrow at a public political meeting.
“This is why Barrow dismissed me from the Senate. I was never his appointment,” Sir John said.
He went on: “there are people who offer themselves for a seat in Parliament and don’t have the testicular fortitude to go and do what they know they should do and, as a result, Barbados in my view is slipping, because you must have some courage to stand up for your views if you believe in them.”
The political intrigue of those days is behind him. When he sits on his patio to take in the breath-taking view across the St George Valley there are other thoughts that are foremost in his mind. Having undergone double by-pass surgery about 16 years ago, he has to be mindful of his pace of life.
These are the years that with his wife Mary Lady Connell, Sir John Connell is smelling the roses.
