IT WAS AN interesting question.
And it was quite rightly raised at the funeral for Austin Ardinel Chesterfield “Tom” Clarke at Toronto’s historic St James Cathedral.
“What does one say about a man like Austin?” asked Dr Rinaldo Walcott, a University of Toronto scholar, in a eulogy heard by hundreds of close relatives, public officials, literary giants, friends and admirers in and out of Canada. They occupied almost every pew to pay their respect to “Tom”, who was hailed in obituaries in North America in the days after his death in a Toronto hospital at the age of 81.
A poignant answer came from the Very Reverend Douglas Stoute, a retired dean of the cathedral whose history dates back to the 1850s.
Stoute, the son of a former Barbados police commissioner, spoke eloquently of the writer.
Stoute said Clarke was a christian who used his gifts to capture the nuances, conflicts, racial divisions, religious practices and sporting and cultural features of Barbados to spread the word about his birthplace that’s celebrating the 50th anniversary of its independence.
“Austin respected religion” and the part it played in his and Barbados’ life and the respect “runs through Austin’s work,” Stoute said in his homily during the well planned hour-long funeral.
Whether it was in his landmark memoir, Growing Up Stupid Under The Union Jack; the prestigious Giller and Commonwealth Prize-winning book, The Polished Hoe that earned the novelist an audience with Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace; the first of his 12 novels, Survivors Of The Crossing published in 1965; Pigtails And Breadfruit, a book about Barbados cuisine, or Membering, his final work that was published several months before his death, Clarke was a keen observer of life, insisted Stoute.
“He supported, defended and explained,” said the cleric.
He said Clarke reflected on the days in Barbados where racial considerations were key to decisions in Government, sports and social life, so much so that if you were white “you played cricket for Wanderers;” if you were an educated black man with aspirations of moving up the economic and social leader, Spartan was your team; or if you were talented, relatively poor and black, Empire was the side for you.
Walcott, a tenant of Clarke’s in Toronto, agreed, but painted an expanded different picture of his close friend.
“Clarkie,” the writer, mentor, father, lover of all things fine and an aficionado of flagrant gins – turned into cold, dry martini with a twist or olive, was an intellectual first and foremost, deeply influenced by the French Caribbean anti-colonial thinker and psychiatrist Franz Fanon. He was also singular, a label often given to public figures, over-used, but Tom deserves the appellation, Walcott said.
While literary critics used major North American newspapers to extol Clarke’s contributions to Canada and Barbados before the funeral, Cecil Foster, a political science professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo, praised Clarke after the service for his generosity, especially the support he unsparingly gave to aspiring writers.
“A brilliant writer, it was amazing to see him spend so much time with people who had dreams of literary success,” said Foster, an outstanding novelist and a pall-bearer. “I believe Austin was looking down during the service with a smile, saying ‘well done. That’s how I wanted it’.”
Apart from biblical readings, one of which was led by the Canon Stephen Fields, a Bajan Anglican in Canada, and the remembrance by Stoute, there were wide-ranging musical themes, such as O God, Our Help In Ages Past and I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes Unto The Hills, hymns Clarke sang as a chorister at St Mathias Anglican Church and St Michael’s Cathedral during his boyhood, there were Bob Marley’s Redemption Song and No Woman, No Cry.
Austin Yearwood, a beneficiary of Clarke’s literary advice and the author of Down Danesbury Gap, praised the way the funeral was conducted but wished the Barbados Government had publicly expressed its appreciation of his work.
“It was really regrettable that not a word came from the Government of Barbados,” complained Yearwood.
Haynesley Benn, Barbados Consul General in Toronto, who attended the funeral, said he had visited Clarke in the hospital before his death and was ready to speak on behalf of the Government and people of Barbados but was never invited to do so.
“I was not asked to speak,” he added.
Tony Best is the NATION’s North American Correspondent. Email: Bestra@aol.com