Many Barbadians are still reeling from the death of Damien Taylor, who was involved in a three-vehicle smash-up last Friday.
The motorcycles ridden by Taylor and his friend David Haynes were involved in an accident with a van driven by Sterling Workman between the Norman Niles and Clyde Walcott Roundabouts on the ABC Highway around 4:05 p.m.
Yesterday, when a Sunday Sun team visited Taylor’s Durants, Christ Church home, relatives were still too distraught to speak, but members of the entertainment community paid tribute to the 35-year old musician and law student.
Taylor was a member of Ruk-A-Tuk-Inc. for several years. Group creator Wayne Poonka Willock said he had known Taylor for more than half of his life and was deeply saddened by his sudden passing.
“It’s very hard for all of us, seeing as we had only played the night before at Bougainvillea. Everybody was in good spirits and he was even filming our performance, some of which is up on our Facebook page,” Willock said in a telephone interview.
The retired educator said he was very proud of Taylor’s social and professional ascension. Earlier this year, the Combermerian represented Barbados at the World Taekwondo Championship and was in the process of furthering his career at the Hugh Wooding Law School in Trinidad. He was schduled to return on January 2.
“I was looking forward to seeing him coming back from Trinidad a full-fledged attorney, and feel proud to know that I had an attorney as a flute player,” Willock said.
Longtime friend Terry Mexican Arthur described Taylor as one of the best flute players in the country. He said he was organising a procession on January 6 as a tribute, leaving Taylor’s home and ending in Bridgetown.
Head of the Physical Education Department at Combermere School, Michael Small, said Taylor always enquired about the school and seemed to have an “inescapable duty” to give back.
“I remember him for his loyalty to the school, his warmth, impeccable manners, his genuine love for the school . . . . He always wanted to help,” said Small, adding he was proud to call Taylor a friend.
Tributes also poured in on social media from Chelsea Boyzz, the organisers of Puff Of Colour, on their official Instagram page, while radio announcer Carol Roberts and entertainer Adonijah, who called him “a talented trumpeter and a good and respectful young man,” were among those posting on Facebook.
Roberts said she and Taylor formed an “unlikely friendship” when she lived in the Christ Church neighbourbood. She was in her 30s and he was still a child at primary school, but was “unfailingly polite and smart as a whip.”
“He excelled in music, and when I conceptualised a project to establish tuk bands in some secondary schools, Combermere was one of the selected schools and he eagerly signed up for the band. Soon he was playing all over the place, mastering horn instruments along the way,” she said in the status. (TG)