Pe­ter Ray Blood

My birth­day was on Mon­day but it was one of the sad­dest I've ever had in mem­o­ry. Be­side Sat­ur­day be­ing the 11th an­niver­sary of my moth­er's pass­ing, I al­so lost two very good friends-Ken Val­ley and Allyson Hen­nessy. Now that she's gone to the great be­yond I can dis­close some­thing Allyson made me swear I'd nev­er tell, threat­en­ing to end our friend­ship if I did. It was about one night long ago, quite late, as I was mak­ing my way out of Ex­press House on In­de­pen­dence Square, I saw a jit­ney parked out­side Colum­bus Square, its oc­cu­pant feed­ing the home­less. On clos­er in­spec­tion I re­alise that it was Allyson.

This act sums up who Allyson tru­ly was-one of the most giv­ing and gen­er­ous peo­ple I've ever known. I've seen Allyson dis­play her mag­na­nim­i­ty many times over for years. For in­stance, she on­ly em­ployed the salt of the earth, as well as se­cured em­ploy­ment for the most needy. She al­so be­friend­ed those less for­tu­nate than her, in­volv­ing them in every project she was in­volved with. In fact, Allyson and her sis­ter Ros­es still have staff in Veni who were hired 30 years ago.

Of princes and pau­pers

Allyson strad­dled both sides of the di­vide, be­friend­ing the haves and the have-nots alike. I re­mem­ber a cou­ple decades ago, while re­sid­ing in St James, with Allyson be­ing my neigh­bour on Luc­know Street at Veni Mange (long be­fore the cur­rent Ari­api­ta Av­enue lo­ca­tion was even a thought), she was like a moth­er to a much younger Bri­an Lara, Rus­sell Lat­apy and Dwight Yorke. Al­ways an out­spo­ken in­di­vid­ual, many times I've heard her firm­ly chas­tise these three for a poor crick­et shot or blun­der on the foot­ball field. On Fri­day evenings, much like it still does to­day, Veni used to be bustling with cus­tomers, not un­like Cheers Pub on TV, a place where every­one knew your name, each a friend and con­fi­dante to Allyson. I re­mem­ber folks like busi­ness­men Lennox Lake, Esau Jan, Ricky Schwartz, Fay Har­nan­ji, Mar­garet White, Bernadette Mc Gee, Reg­gie Ar­mour, at­tor­neys Kei­th So­bion, Er­ic Et­ti­enne Jnr, Wayne Par­il­lon, and the lov­able Lar­ry Allen be­ing there re­li­gious­ly.

Tri­ni to the bone

The oth­er thing about Allyson I loved was how much she loved Trinidad and To­ba­go cul­ture, a love she didn't ex­press in just words but by ac­tu­al­ly im­mers­ing her­self in every sphere of in­dige­nous ex­pres­sion. I know from now that I will miss be­ing with Allyson in lead­ing Wit­co Des­per­a­does to the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah stage next year, a rit­u­al she per­formed with her sis­ters and any­one she re­cruit­ed for many years. Allyson was prob­a­bly Des­per­a­does' most fa­nat­i­cal sup­port­er, fer­vent­ly sup­port­ing the leg­endary Laven­tille steel or­ches­tra as avid­ly as she sup­port­ed the Prime Min­is­ter's Best Vil­lage Tro­phy Com­pe­ti­tion. She loved both with fierce pas­sion. I will al­so miss hear­ing her voice host­ing the La Reine Rive Pageant. The ul­ti­mate par­ty an­i­mal, while the ju­ry's put on whether it was UWI or Veni that held the first Car­ni­val all-in­clu­sive fete, many will at­test that it was Allyson and her sis­ters who ini­ti­at­ed this now pop­u­lar Car­ni­val phe­nom­e­non.

It's an un­der­state­ment to de­scribe Allyson as "a peo­ple's per­son." That phrase may have even been in­spired by her bub­bly per­son­al­i­ty and warm smile. Allyson loved life as much as she loved peo­ple and was at home with any­one, in any sur­round­ing. For in­stance, she seemed com­fort­able in the midst of some of the most no­to­ri­ous bad­johns up Laven­tille Hill as she seemed at ease con­duct­ing her now fa­mous tele­vi­sion in­ter­view with for­mer prime min­is­ter, the late Dr Er­ic Williams. As a tele­vi­sion per­son­al­i­ty, Allyson knew her stuff. In fact, I'd bold­ly state that Allyson owned Com­mu­ni­ty Date­line, the morn­ing talk show she host­ed for over 30 years on Trinidad and To­ba­go Tele­vi­sion (TTT). With no dis­re­spect meant for sub­se­quent CD hosts, none could fill Allyson's shoes. With John Vic­tor, she con­tin­ued her talk show role on NCC TV4. Allyson's fu­ner­al is sched­uled for to­day at 10.30 am, at St Fin­bar's RC Church in Diego Mar­tin. Among those ex­pect­ed to per­form mu­si­cal trib­utes to her are Des­per­a­does and Mar­i­onettes Chorale.

Farewell, Un­cle Ken

Like Allyson Hen­nessy, Ken Val­ley was a gen­er­ous hu­man be­ing. Some­one I knew as a child when he worked with my fa­ther in the Min­istry of Fi­nance, Un­cle Ken, not un­like Un­cle Jack, was some­thing of a phil­an­thropist, as­sist­ing all in one way or an­oth­er. He al­so was nev­er too busy to lend an ear to one of his con­stituents in Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral, pro­vid­ing many with em­ploy­ment and aca­d­e­m­ic op­por­tu­ni­ties. I would al­so like to ex­tend con­do­lences to the fam­i­lies of oth­er close ac­quain­tances who left us this past month, in­clud­ing The Vibe 105.1FM's Jim Suther­land; CNC3's Ja­mal Samad; TTT's Ken Thomas and Au­gus­tus Shan­non (Gus); news­pa­per em­ploy­ee Rod­ney Wor­rell; jazz artiste Dave Mar­cellin (son of Mano Mar­cellin); Robert Jones (son of the late in­sur­ance ex­ec­u­tive Neil Jones); and, vet­er­an mu­si­cian Ger­ald Ken­ny.

Friend to mu­si­cians dies

Pop­u­lar vet­er­an mu­si­cian Ger­ald Ken­ny suc­cumbed to brain can­cer on Wednes­day at his West­moor­ings res­i­dence. A friend to all artistes, Ken­ny bat­tled his ill­ness since last year and a ben­e­fit con­cert was held for him last month at the Trinidad Coun­try Club in Mar­aval. Though dis­traught, for­mer Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch Denyse Plum­mer said she was over­whelmed af­ter los­ing one of her three best friends. "I feel like if some­one just cut off my left hand. Ger­ald was a saint. He had no en­e­mies, and nev­er hurt a soul. Every­body who had a prob­lem could call and re­ly on Ger­ald. He would leave his job, come out of bed, to help a friend or fel­low artiste. "Ger­ald wasn't just an ac­com­pa­nist, but he was a friend to all.

"He played that key­board for me for over 20 years. Some of the oth­er artistes Ger­ald helped and ac­com­pa­nied were Em­mett (Hen­nessy), David Rud­der and his son Kafra, Nigel Fer­reira, Arthur Reid, Cathy El­la, Tri­cia Lee Kelshall, Michelle and Ar­lette Xavier, Kel­wyn Hutcheon, Mike Ross, Carl Hen­der­son (Beaver), Pe­ter Shim, Touch­down, Colonel & Com­pa­ny, and Vish­mu Bal­roops­ingh of Bal­roop Sound Sys­tem." One of the peo­ple Ken­ny was an ac­com­pa­nist for is the ever­green Kel­wyn Hutcheon, who said: "Ger­ald was a beau­ti­ful hu­man be­ing, some­one who was there for every­body. You could call him from a gig at two o'clock in the morn­ing and tell him you need­ed help.

He would cuss you and still come, whether it was close by or in Os­a­iak. "There was hard­ly any en­ter­tain­er of promi­nence that Ger­ald Ken­ny did not not work with in the past 30 years or so. He was a sta­ple in Car­ols by Can­dle­light in the Sa­van­nah." For­mer ra­dio per­son­al­i­ty Ger­ald Agos­ti­ni, al­so a friend of Ken­ny, said: "Ger­ald was a very spe­cial friend. He was a tal­ent­ed mu­si­cian with a spe­cial gift, in that any song you re­quest­ed he could play. He tru­ly en­joyed life and help­ing peo­ple gave him much con­tent­ment." Ken­ny's fu­ner­al is sched­uled for 8.30 am on Fri­day, at the Church of As­sump­tion, Long Cir­cu­lar Road, Mar­aval.