Melis­sa Doughty

"He was the per­fect ex­am­ple of what a man should be on this earth."So said Sead­ly "Pen­guin" Joseph's son, Kris­son Joseph, as fi­nal re­spects were paid to the ca­lyp­son­ian at the St Charles' RC Church, East­ern Main Road, Tu­na­puna.

De­liv­er­ing the eu­lo­gy at a ser­vice which fea­tured sev­er­al mu­si­cal trib­utes, some high­light­ing Pen­guin's mu­sic, Kris­son said his fa­ther nev­er treat­ed any­one like it did not mat­ter. He al­so re­called his fa­ther's deep love for the Catholic Church.

"How dif­fi­cult is it to speak good of a good man?" he asked, say­ing his job was made easy be­cause his fa­ther was a good man.Kris­son de­fined Joseph as an ex­treme­ly gen­tle soul whose ap­proach to most things was well-mea­sured. He re­called his abil­i­ty to give his all when he loved some­thing, be it ca­lyp­so, his fam­i­ly or his stu­dents.

The theme of good was con­stant through­out the ser­vice, as fam­i­ly, friends, col­leagues, well-wish­ers, fel­low ca­lyp­so­ni­ans, for­mer gov­ern­ment min­is­ters and Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion ex­ec­u­tive gath­ered to say good­bye to a man de­scribed as "good."

Clive Grayson, the for­mer prin­ci­pal of Mt Hope Sec­ondary School where Joseph last taught, al­so paid trib­ute to him.He de­fined him as a "non-judg­men­tal" in­di­vid­ual. Grayson re­count­ed hear­ing Joseph's hearty laugh­ter echo­ing down the school's hall, him walk­ing pur­pose­ful­ly to his class­room and up­on en­try say­ing to the stu­dents: "Al­lyuh ain't take out al­lyuh books yet?"

Pen­guin laid to rest

He al­so re­mem­bered his "boy­ish en­thu­si­asm" in all things he did, whether it be the school's steel­band or its ca­lyp­so com­pe­ti­tion.Grayson said: "He was a good man who com­mu­ni­cat­ed love. He nev­er al­lowed his achieve­ments to over­ride his hu­mil­i­ty."

Close friend, Win­ston Hen­ry (Ex­plain­er) said since meet­ing him in 1971, he had nev­er heard him use ob­scene lan­guage.Joseph, he said, taught him hu­mil­i­ty and sang, with the con­gre­ga­tion's help, Joseph's When Basil Come. TU­CO's pres­i­dent Lu­ta­lo "Broth­er Re­sis­tance" Mas­sim­ba al­so de­liv­ered a trib­ute to him.

Fr Regi­nald Hezeki­ah called on the con­gre­ga­tion be to be pre­pared for "when Basil comes."Joseph's son al­so did an op­er­at­ic ver­sion of The Lord Is My Light And Sal­va­tion while Er­rol Ince did a trum­pet trib­ute of Oh My Pa­pa.

Al­so present yes­ter­day were for­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Mar­tin Joseph (his broth­er); NCC chair­man Al­li­son De­mas; for­mer Tu­na­puna MP Ed­die Hart; for­mer min­is­ter of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Cul­ture­and Gen­der Af­fairs Joan Yuille-Williams; Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans' As­so­ci­a­tion (TU­CO) pres­i­dent Lu­ta­lo Mas­sim­ba (Broth­er Re­sis­tance).

Joseph died on Sun­day at his Trinci­ty home af­ter ail­ing for some time.

He leaves to mourn his wife, Ros­alyn, daugh­ter, Keris­sa, and Kris­son. His body was cre­mat­ed at Bel­grove's cre­ma­to­ri­um, Tacarigua.