Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Oil work­ers belt­ed out the in­spi­ra­tional bat­tle songs of the Oil­fields Work­ers' Trade Union (OW­TU) as they paid homage to their first gen­er­al sec­re­tary El­bert Red­vers Blades who died on Sun­day at the age of 110. On the spot where he first record­ed the min­utes of the first But­lerite meet­ing on Ju­ly 16, 1937, at For­est Re­serve can­teen, Blades' body was brought in for the fi­nal time.

More than two dozen oil work­ers, led by OW­TU's pres­i­dent gen­er­al An­cel Ro­get, viewed his body. Blades' nephew Patrick Tay­lor said: "The fam­i­ly han­dled his death ex­treme­ly well know­ing what he lived for and stood for. He was an in­spi­ra­tion to us. We ac­cept­ed Un­cle El­bert's teach­ings. A meal at his home would al­ways last more than two hours, be­cause he al­ways had so much to tell us. We want­ed to lis­ten to him. He lived for his fam­i­ly. He al­ways had good ad­vice for us."

Tay­lor said last Ju­ly, Blades was tak­en back to the For­est Re­serve can­teen where the But­ler meet­ing was re-en­act­ed. "He had a lot of mem­o­ries of this place. He stayed in the car and slept be­cause he was too tired and could not come out, but when he heard the union songs he start­ed to clap. He perked up one time be­cause he al­ways re­spect­ed what the OW­TU stood for," Tay­lor said.

He said Blades nev­er lost his sharp mem­o­ry. "He could go back in­to his­to­ry and re­mem­ber what hap­pened in the days of (Tubal Uri­ah) But­ler. He could re­mem­ber dates and times. He al­ways taught us fam­i­ly love and to­geth­er­ness. He want­ed uni­ty," Tay­lor said. He added that he nev­er saw Blades an­gry or sad.

Tay­lor said in the months lead­ing up to his death, Blades spent most of his time rest­ing and lost the abil­i­ty to walk. Ro­get said yes­ter­day that Blades re­ceived sev­er­al ac­co­lades from the union. "The work­ers en­joyed ben­e­fits be­cause of Blades. They are ben­e­fi­cia­ries of what the union would have done. He was in­volved in the for­ma­tion of the union and we recog­nised the con­tri­bu­tions he made.

In re­turn he show­ered bless­ings on us by re­call­ing the events of the Bul­ter move­ment with great de­tail," Ro­get said. Blades was buried yes­ter­day at the Ari­ma An­gli­can Ceme­tery, af­ter a ser­vice at the St Jude's An­gli­can Church.