Errol Walton Barrow – Your 100 years birthday anniversary with an eternal legacy to crown them

By Stanley Collymore

We Bajans owe a substantial amount to you Errol Walton

“Dipper” Barrow; far more in that precise regard than

the average Barbadian in his or her own distinct

and individual way could ever totally repay.

For you weren’t only a truly distinguished, thoroughly

accomplished, and most undeniably in your life

time a very incomparable man, but were

most certainly too, and still are, to

every Bajan and, of course, all

other concurring Afro-Caribbeans a

dynamically inspirational icon

and, as well, an authentic

and a commendably,

truly unequalled

living legend!

Founder and the recognized Father of our democratic Barbados

Nation; World War Two veteran and Royal Air Force hero,

that subsequently became our first ever Prime Minister

who on the 30 November 1966 brought to a lasting

cessation 339 years of unceasing English and subsequently

British colonialist domination, when most excellently

and forevermore you broke and disassembled the

influence of the British Trident in relation to

our Eastern Caribbean, island nation. And

thereupon did diligently sow the seeds of our independence

that since then have prodigiously sprouted, taken firm

root, and vigorously grown into the productive

forest of well-educated, democratically

rooted, and the excellent nation

of intellectuals Barbados

has richly and most

impressively

become!

So in this our beloved Barbados: a nation globally and

well celebrated for its huge number of living and

active centenarians, while we its present day

citizens profoundly regret that on the 21

January 2020, the anniversary of your 100^th birthday,

you, Sir won’t be physically here amongst those

present to answer the roll call of our living

centenarians we’re yet mindfully aware

that in every other conceivable way

your energizing presence will be

extensively with us all on our

very appealing paradisiacal

island home of Barbados.

For notwithstanding the absence of your earthly

presence in 2020, your birthdate: whatever

the year is or the century might be, will
very appropriately, as is currently the

situation, be a state and cultural public holiday on our

island in fitting appreciation of you Errol Walton

“Dipper” Barrow our National Hero; and the

man who courageously, intelligently and

politically guided Barbados from being

an English and afterwards a British

colonial entity to irreversibly and

positively transforming it into

becoming an authentically

democratic, quite proud

of itself and its various

attainments, a peace

loving and a most

progressive Afro-

Caribbean nation.

© Stanley V. Collymore

23 December 2019.

Author’s Remarks:

In any authentic and convincing analysis of the character and personality of Errol Walton “Dipper” Barrow it is absolutely incumbent on all those who embark on such a laudable exercise to first and foremost recognize the established fact that like every other earthly human being “Dipper” was during his temporal existence, at any rate, mortal.

However, that reality is distinctly where the similarity between him and most other humans demonstrably ended.

For to put it mildly Errol Walton Barrow was a most extraordinary person whose monumental attributes: personally, socially, professionally and politically, although well-known and markedly universally appreciated are far too innumerable to properly recount in a tribute like this one.

So, instead, I’ll let the enduring legacy of this incredibly outstanding and a great iconic Barbadian speak for him.