Sascha Wil­son

For­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning prayed and laughed with his con­stituents on Skype on his 41st an­niver­sary as an MP on Thurs­day. San Fer­nan­do East con­stituen­cy pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer, An­tho­ny Clarke, said their MP ap­peared to be do­ing very well and said he would be back home soon to con­tin­ue serv­ing his con­stituents.

Man­ning spoke with his staff and oth­er con­stituents via Skype hours be­fore a thanks­giv­ing ser­vice was held at his con­stituen­cy of­fice on Cof­fee Street, San Fer­nan­do. Clarke said the con­ver­sa­tion with Man­ning, who is re­ceiv­ing treat­ment in the Unit­ed States af­ter suf­fer­ing stroke in Jan­u­ary, last­ed be­tween 15 and 20 min­utes.

Clarke said, "He laughed like the old Mr Man­ning did. He recog­nised every­body and spoke to every­body in­di­vid­u­al­ly and as a group. He thanked every­body for what is go­ing on here, the cel­e­bra­tions out­side of his ab­sence. He said he should be home short­ly."

Asked if he was hop­ing that Man­ning would con­tin­ue as their MP when he re­turned, he said, "Mr Man­ning ba­si­cal­ly said he would be go­ing to con­tin­ue serv­ing the peo­ple of San Fer­nan­do." Clarke said the cel­e­bra­tion was an an­nu­al event and they had no in­ten­tion of can­celling it be­cause Man­ning was not in the coun­try.

"He is a per­son that we cher­ish. He has done a lot for the peo­ple of San Fer­nan­do East par­tic­u­lar­ly, and for the coun­try as a whole. "A lot of peo­ple could de­ny, or con­tin­ue to say bad things about Mr Man­ning, but his lega­cy will speak for it­self." Apos­tle Marce­line Wy­att, of the Zion Taber­na­cle Full Gospel Min­istries, who led the ser­vice, said a num­ber of those present were able to speak with him via Skype.

She asked those gath­ered not to stop pray­ing for Man­ning just be­cause they had spo­ken to him and felt he was com­ing along. "We need to pray more than you know it. He needs more prayer now more than ever," she said. They prayed for his speedy re­cov­ery and sev­er­al songs were per­formed by some of his favourite singers.

Kar­lene Granger, of­fice as­sis­tant sec­re­tary, said Op­po­si­tion leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley was in­vit­ed but was out of the coun­try. Among those present were Man­ning's for­mer cam­paign man­ag­er Joan Yuille-Williams and Yoanne Allen, the con­stituen­cy's la­dy vice chair­man and chair­man of the con­stituen­cy's Women's League.