Funeral Director Ian Griffith has expressed interest in being the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) candidate for St Lucy.
Griffith, whose navel string is firmly buried at Half Moon Fort, St Lucy, where the family business Earl’s Funeral Home is also located, said his life was changed with the death of his good friend Alvin Toppin, the former candidate.
“Alvin and I would have shared many moments together at the beginning of his political career, and at his passing, it was something that I felt . . . was unfair, so to speak, and not to realise that this would have been a turning point in my life,” he told the congregation at St Lucy’s Parish Church recently during a special memorial service for some who had passed away.
“I decided to take up the mantle that Alvin – I would say – didn’t get to really manifest himself in, and that is taking up the mantle to be the DLP candidate for St Lucy. And this is now a turning point in my life.”
Griffith said his life has been one of service to the people, following in the footsteps of his late father Earl, who established the funeral home in the 1970s, and his mother who was a seamstress.
When contacted recently, he declined to elaborate.
“I’m not going to comment on it until the party announces it . . . . The protocol is that the party would announce it at the time of their choosing. Once the process has been completed, the party would announce it at the time of their choosing; that would be the respectful thing to do.”
Toppin, 52, passed away in July about six months after securing the nomination.
