Michelle Loubon

Tow­er­ing over mourn­ers, tra­di­tion­al mas char­ac­ters, Moko Jumbies, gath­ered to cel­e­brate the life of the late in­ter­na­tion­al­ly ac­claimed pho­to­jour­nal­ist Rolph Ig­nati­ius Laughton Warn­er at Mar­vin Lee Sta­di­um, Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence, Ma­coya, on Oc­to­ber 29. Un­der cerulean skies, an avalanche of mourn­ers in­clud­ing, com­mon man, stu­dents from Warn­er's al­ma mater Queen's Roy­al Col­lege, and a slew of peo­ple from the artis­tic, en­ter­tain­ment, busi­ness and cul­tur­al fra­ter­ni­ties gath­ered to pay their last re­spects. Chief among the hun­dreds of mourn­ers were his sib­lings Eu­stace "Sprock­ett" and Loa­ma Warn­er and his chil­dren -Tremaine, Rolph II and Roa­main. They were joined by Min­is­ter of Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Win­ston Pe­ters.

Pe­ters was laud­ed for recog­nis­ing Warn­er's myr­i­ad tal­ents and re­ward­ing him with a job as ad­vis­er in the Min­istry. He was al­so renowned as a T&T Guardian free­lance pho­to­jour­nal­ist. Decked in his QRC foot­ball jer­sey, Guardian Me­dia Ltd's Fea­tures Ed­i­tor Pe­ter Blood al­so joined the scores of mourn­ers. Rolph's broth­er Eu­stace Warn­er said: "The last ten months were the hap­pi­est of his (Rolph) life." He felt the job was a fit­ting trib­ute for the "Warn­er with the least mon­ey who spent his life help­ing oth­ers." On a lighter note, he said he was wear­ing his beloved broth­er's shoe as it was his foot­ball boots Rolph was wear­ing when he met his demise at the Queen's Park Oval on Oc­to­ber 23 while play­ing in an foot­ball game. He raised his foot as ev­i­dence.

Fond re­flec­tions

An en­ter­tain­ing, thought­ful train of trib­utes un­fold­ed for Warn­er "who died a hap­py man." Tears, fond rem­i­nisc­ing, jokes, vi­gnettes and beau­ti­ful sto­ries of his mul­ti­ple roles as fa­ther, son, foot­ball en­thu­si­ast, pa­tri­ot and cul­tur­al icon were clev­er­ly wo­ven. Each speak­er steered clear of a eu­lo­gy. Dot­ing big sis­ter Loa­ma Warn­er boast­ed, "he was clos­est to me all his life." She re­mem­bered sneak­ing food to Rolph since their moth­er locked him out of the house for stick­ing mar­i­jua­na in his Afro. Still com­ing to terms with the empti­ness at his pass­ing, she said: "I am feel­ing a kind of hol­low­ness." Yet there were good times. On­look­ers would re­mark they couldn't be­lieve it was "a broth­er and sis­ter danc­ing so."

Now he had gone to God's acre, peo­ple were won­der­ing "What is go­ing to hap­pen to Loa­ma?" Pas­tor Theophilus Roberts not­ed Rolph had died a hap­py man, at the top of his game. He told that Warn­er could play the tru­ant lad-leav­ing home with his bag of school books and end­ing up play­ing ten cent Romey all day. One day he came up­on the "big queen" (Rolph's moth­er) scold­ing him for tak­ing her cur­tains to make a suit. Warn­er even gave him tips on "horn man­age­ment," laugh­ing­ly quipped Roberts.

In the end, T&T got the pol­ished ver­sion of Warn­er. Quot­ing Ec­cle­si­astes 7: "A good name is bet­ter to be cho­sen than oint­ment." Roberts even re­mem­bered Rolph telling him, "I die there must be no cry­ing. Peo­ple must have a good time." Min­is­ter Melis­sa Lewis, who flew all the way from Or­lan­do for the fu­ner­al, spoke about the ear­ly tri­als she shared with Rolph in the US as West In­di­ans strug­gling to find their space in North Amer­i­ca. When their lot im­proved they nev­er sev­ered ties with an­oth­er friend Joey Rivers. She re­vealed that Rolph had an avid love for read­ing and was an ex­cel­lent pho­to­jour­nal­ist.

Chil­dren's mem­o­ries

De­scrib­ing him as non-con­formist, Rolph's daugh­ter Tremaine said her fa­ther could teach you how "to hem a skirt, stew chick­en and trap a foot­ball." Sup­port­ed by her broth­ers Roa­main and Rolph, she not­ed that her fa­ther was a "strin­gent dis­ci­pli­nar­i­an." Gush­ing with pride, Rolph II, who had fol­lowed in his fa­ther's foot­steps in me­dia, said he felt proud to know his fa­ther was la­belled "an icon." He thanked him for ex­pos­ing him and his sib­lings to life ex­pe­ri­ences that made them the en­vy of their peers. "How many peo­ple can say they went home and met Ed­win Ay­oung (Crazy) in their liv­ing room?" asked the proud Rolph II.

"I went to Pi­paro to do a doc­u­men­tary on Garfield Black­man (the in­ven­tor of so­ca). I could not re­mem­ber the name of a ca­lyp­so by Spar­row, but Shorty told Rolph, "let the boy do his in­ter­view." Rolph II had ob­served his fa­ther strug­gling for the Caribbean and West In­di­ans; es­pe­cial­ly in the arts and mu­sic. He strug­gled to get so­ca, ca­lyp­so, chut­ney and var­i­ous gen­res of Caribbean ex­pres­sions "in the right places." He added: "The re­spect, love and the re­sponse shown to him to­day would have made him shine. It would have done him jus­tice."

Mu­si­cal trib­utes

Greet­ing mourn­ers at the sta­di­um was Sapo Steel­band from Care­nage. Shar­ing in the mu­si­cal trib­utes of the more than three-hour long pro­gramme were Christo­pher "Tam­bu" Her­bert, who sang Lift Up His Name and Len "Boogsie" Sharpe on pan. His peer Earl Brooks, with red feath­er in fe­do­ra, ex­tend­ed his con­do­lences. Mal­ick Folk Per­form­ers' Nat­tie Pierre played the har­mo­ni­um as a video pre­sen­ta­tion of Rolph's life and hap­py times flashed across the screens; his slim, well-groomed per­son and in­fec­tious smile stand­ing out. Rep­re­sent­ing the younger gen­er­a­tion of ca­lyp­so­ni­ans were reign­ing Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch Karene Ashe and just crowned Tu­co North Zone Monarch Du­ane O'Con­nor. For­mer Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch Singing San­dra al­so sang "Rolph's favourite ca­lyp­so" by her, In the Ghet­to.

As the pro­gramme wound to a close with mul­ti­ple Road March champ Su­perBlue singing Shin­ing Star, he was joined by 2011 Na­tion­al Chut­ney So­ca Monarch Rik­ki Jai. Among those who had come to com­mis­er­ate were Cal­i­for­nia-based ca­lyp­son­ian Ex­pos­er, Body­guard, Elsworth James, Trinidad Rio, Ab­bi Black­man, Akiel Ok­para. Col­in "CJ" Jack­man and Hugh Loy were among those who flew in from New York, USA. Though not in at­ten­dance, arranger ex­tra­or­di­naire Le­ston Paul and New York-based so­ca artiste Kei­th Suther­land (Ajala) ex­tend­ed their con­do­lences to the be­reaved fam­i­ly on the loss of their loved one.

About Rolph Warn­er

The death of Rolph Warn­er came on the heels of oth­er cul­tur­al icons like Pat Bish­op and Geral­dine Con­nor. Warn­er, who would have turned 58 on No­vem­ber 12, col­lapsed on Oc­to­ber 23 while com­pet­ing in the over 50 foot­ball In­ter Col re­union match host­ed by the Queen's Park Crick­et Club at the Queen's Park Oval. He was rushed to St Clair Med­ical Cen­tre. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, best ef­forts to re­vive him proved fu­tile. He even­tu­al­ly suc­cumbed to heart fail­ure.

Warn­er lived in Toron­to, Cana­da, and al­so resided on Sad­dle Road, in San Juan, was very in­stru­men­tal in pro­mot­ing Arts and Cul­ture in the North Amer­i­can di­as­po­ra. He shared a tri­ad of pas­sions, name­ly jour­nal­ism, foot­ball and arts and cul­ture. In his youth, he is fond­ly re­mem­bered for his zany goal­keep­ing skills while play­ing at his al­ma mater QRC in the ear­ly 70s. He was laid to rest at the San Juan Ceme­tery.