RHON­DOR DOWLAT

Se­nior Re­porter

rhon­dor.dowlat@guardian.co.tt

Jum­bo, the flam­boy­ant ven­dor who was fa­mous for the way he tossed pack­ets of nuts to cus­tomers at sport­ing events, died on Wednes­day night just one month shy of his 66th birth­day.

Kei­th Mar­tin, who was pop­u­lar­ly known as “Jum­bo, the nuts man,” was a reg­u­lar fix­ture at the Queen’s Park Oval, Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um and oth­er venues for sports and ma­jor na­tion­al events.

He start­ed off sell­ing his salt­ed and fresh nuts at the Queen’s Park Oval in 1971 and be­came well known for his di­rect and long-dis­tance pelt­ing of nuts to cus­tomers.

Last Ju­ly, Jum­bo was promi­nent among those ho­n­our­ing leg­endary In­di­an bats­man Sunil Gavaskar at the Queen’s Park Crick­et Club.

In 2019, there was a pub­lic out­cry when he was barred from sell­ing nuts at the Oval dur­ing the Caribbean Pre­mier League (CPL) T20 crick­et tour­na­ment. The de­ci­sion was even­tu­al­ly re­versed.

Yes­ter­day, the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion paid trib­ute to Jum­bo who they said was “an ever-present sup­port­er and fig­ure at our match­es, in­clud­ing the most re­cent Na­tions League Quar­ter Fi­nal win over the US in No­vem­ber.”

Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal de­scribed him as a na­tion­al per­son­al­i­ty who por­trayed the essence of life in T&T.

“Along with be­ing a suc­cess­ful mi­cro-en­tre­pre­neur, Jum­bo was in­ge­nious with his warm, wel­com­ing char­ac­ter and his en­dear­ing love for his fel­low man.

He cap­tured the spir­it of our so­ci­ety. I am sad­dened by his pass­ing. May he rest in peace,” Mooni­lal said.