PE­TER CHRISTO­PHER

pe­ter.christo­pher@guardian.co.tt

Trinidad’s undis­put­ed ole mas King of the World, George ‘Bun­ny” Di­ef­fen­thaller was buried yes­ter­day but not be­fore a cel­e­bra­tion of his life from fam­i­ly and friends.

At his fu­ner­al ser­vice yes­ter­day at the St Fin­bar’s Ro­man Catholic Church, that ole mas el­e­ment was cel­e­brat­ed as his cousins Surya, Steven and Shelly Ho­sein paid trib­ute by stand­ing with ole mas props and plac­ards at the en­trance of the church.

His chil­dren re­mem­bered his im­pact on them, par­tic­u­lar­ly his con­tri­bu­tion to their ca­reers.

“Dad­dy taught us to be fear­less. He sup­port­ed us in our ca­reers, in­stilled in us from young fol­low your pas­sion,” said his daugh­ter film pro­duc­er Danielle Di­ef­fen­thaller.

She ex­plained that her fa­ther recog­nised her broth­ers’ in­ter­est in mu­sic ear­ly and con­struct­ed a stage in an emp­ty lot be­hind their home to hone their per­form­ing skills.

She al­so re­called that her fa­ther al­so stopped Kees from be­ing thrown out of the band by broth­ers when they felt he would have been a hin­drance as he had not yet learned to read prop­er­ly in his ear­ly child­hood.

“They said he couldn’t per­form with a pa­per in hand and look cool, so Dad­dy would coach him with the lyrics on the side,” said Di­ef­fen­thaller prompt­ing the oth­er­wise teary Kees to break in­to brief laugh­ter be­hind her.

The So­ca star took to the stage and ded­i­cat­ed one of his ear­ly hits, Li­on to his fa­ther.

“Dad­dy we love you, we cel­e­brat­ing your life. Thank you for be­ing our Li­on, thank you for be­ing our full sup­port,” said Kes the band's lead singer while in­tro­duc­ing the song.

He told the con­gre­ga­tion that his fa­ther in­spired him to be a great man, odd­ly on a day when he was lost dur­ing Car­ni­val at the cor­ner of French and Ari­api­ta Av­enue.

“Some­body knew Bun­ny and car­ried me to him in the street. That is when I knew my fa­ther was a great man. I want to be a great man too,” said Kees.

While his con­nec­tion to Bel­mont and St Mary’s was al­so cel­e­brat­ed, Bun­ny Di­ef­fen­thaller was de­scribed as a true Trinida­di­an who cared deeply about his coun­try by his chil­dren.

Danielle Di­ef­fen­thaller de­scribed him as gen­er­ous to a fault and re­called that once at church, he tapped her when she ap­peared to not want to shake a man’s hand dur­ing the sign of peace.

She al­so re­called his re­luc­tance to ac­cept re­tire­ment, as he was ea­ger to con­tribute even­tu­al­ly find­ing a job at a rac­ing pool in his lat­er years.

Di­ef­fen­thaller’s fu­ner­al was of­fi­ci­at­ed by for­mer Arch­bish­op of Port-of-Spain Fa­ther Joseph Har­ris.

Di­ef­fen­thaller died on Tues­day at the West Shore Med­ical Cen­tre. He was 72.