Camille McEach­nie

Neil Wil­son, who for many years served as a Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) rep­re­sen­ta­tive in the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA), was laid to rest yes­ter­day fol­low­ing a fu­ner­al ser­vice at the St An­drews An­gli­can Church in Ba­co­let, Scar­bor­ough. Wil­son, 86, died on June 22.

To­ba­go-born An­gli­can Bish­op Claude Berkley, who of­fi­ci­at­ed at the ser­vice, said Wil­son’s life epit­o­mised the virtues of a good Chris­t­ian and To­bag­on­ian.

He said based on the eu­lo­gies at the ser­vice, Wil­son ex­hib­it­ed the “To­bag­on­ian trait” of en­cour­ag­ing young­sters to en­sure they saw the “big­ger pic­ture.”

Among those pay­ing trib­ute was Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, who said Wil­son made sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to To­ba­go, hav­ing served on var­i­ous boards in the pri­vate and pub­lic sec­tors. He was al­so chair­man of the PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil for many years and was well re­spect­ed with­in the com­mu­ni­ty.

“Wil­son be­came for me, and all those of my era up to the last, an icon of re­spect. He might not have been a house­hold name in To­ba­go but he was suf­fi­cient­ly wide­ly known to be re­gard­ed as a con­sum­mate To­bag­on­ian for all To­bag­o­ni­ans,” Dr Row­ley said.

“Wil­son was a se­ri­ous man with a great dream. To­ba­go changed con­sid­er­ably over a pe­ri­od large­ly led by peo­ple like Neil Wil­son.”

He said Wil­son had helped the PNM over the years and in the 1980s when the par­ty had “the prospect of win­ning one of 12 seats” he nev­er lost en­thu­si­asm.

For­mer THA Chief Sec­re­tary Orville Lon­don, in a video mes­sage from Lon­don, Eng­land, where he is cur­rent­ly serv­ing as this coun­try’s High Com­mis­sion­er, said Wil­son played a “big broth­er” role to To­ba­go, com­pa­nies, in­di­vid­u­als and the PNM.

He said Wil­son had “sin­gle­hand­ed­ly fi­nanced the PNM’s elec­tion ef­forts dur­ing the pe­ri­od when be­ing a PNM sup­port­er was re­al­ly not fash­ion­able” and the for­mer busi­ness­man’s tenure in the THA made a dif­fer­ence.

“Dur­ing his tenure, he suc­ceed­ed in trans­form­ing the tourism sec­tor in To­ba­go to such an ex­tent that a num­ber of Caribbean coun­tries ap­proached him,” Lon­don said.

Wil­son al­so served in sev­er­al non-po­lit­i­cal ca­pac­i­ties, in­clud­ing pres­i­dent of the To­ba­go Jaycees and pres­i­dent of the St Clair Coach­ing school. He al­so re­ceived sev­er­al na­tion­al awards, in­clud­ing a BWIA award for In­valu­able Con­tri­bu­tion to the Trav­el In­dus­try in T&T in 1981, THA Mer­it (Gold) 2017, and the Cha­co­nia Medal (Sil­ver) 2017.