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Wednesday, July 16, 2025

Panyard tribute for ex-senator

by

Wesley Gibbings
291 days ago
20240928

Glow­ing trib­ute was paid to Laven­tille com­mu­ni­ty leader, ex-sen­a­tor, teacher and men­tor, Ham­let “Yaxsie” Joseph, when friends, fam­i­ly and for­mer col­leagues as­sem­bled at the High­landers Pan The­atre in Laven­tille yes­ter­day.

Joseph died on Sep­tem­ber 6 at the age of 88.

He was known na­tion­al­ly for his role as a mem­ber of the Tapia House Group that en­tered the Sen­ate in 1974 fol­low­ing the de­fec­tion of Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) MP, the late Roy Richard­son, and his ap­point­ment of an op­po­si­tion bench un­der Tapia leader Lloyd Best.

Mas­ter of cer­e­monies for the event, Tapia co-founder Lloyd Tay­lor de­scribed Joseph as a “change agent” who went about his busi­ness with grace and charm. Rem­i­nis­cences al­so came from the last-sur­viv­ing Tapia sen­a­tor, Ivan Laugh­lin, who, among oth­er things, re­lat­ed the group’s ne­go­ti­a­tion of a re­vised dress code for the cham­ber.

Laugh­lin re­lat­ed that de­spite strong reser­va­tions by then-Sen­ate Pres­i­dent, Wahid Ali, it was de­cid­ed to al­low the group’s trade­mark shirt jac suits in the cham­ber. How­ev­er, he stopped short on the ques­tion of san­dals with­out socks. This drew chuck­les on an oth­er­wise som­bre oc­ca­sion.

Close friend and neigh­bour Claude Shields re­mind­ed the gath­er­ing of Joseph’s love for the steel­pan and his role as a skilled neigh­bour­hood bar­ber. He said Joseph al­so played a key “ed­u­ca­tion­al role” among the young peo­ple of his com­mu­ni­ty.

Sim­i­lar ac­co­lades came from High­landers man­ag­er, Robert Her­nan­dez, who cred­it­ed Joseph with suc­cess­ful­ly lead­ing ef­forts to ac­quire the lease for the prop­er­ty on which the steel­band head­quar­ters cur­rent­ly stand. He al­so de­scribed the late ac­tivist as “a dream­er” but, one who al­ways had a plan to re­alise his dreams.

Opio Morani, who de­liv­ered the eu­lo­gy, de­scribed Joseph as “a man of ideas” who was ca­pa­ble of main­tain­ing sto­ic calm even at tur­bu­lent times. Morani was him­self a Tapia ac­tivist and close as­so­ciate of Joseph’s.

Trib­utes al­so came from Joseph’s son, Mar­lon Bridge­man and oth­er friends, neigh­bours, and as­so­ciates.

Joseph was the son of Venezuela-born Matil­da and Joseph Fran­cis and the hus­band of the late Jenifer Joseph. He leaves to mourn his broth­er Evans, and his chil­dren Achebe, Mar­lon, and Car­in­ta.


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