Kay-Marie Fletch­er

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

A packed au­di­to­ri­um and count­less trib­utes made by for­mer col­leagues, stu­dents and loved ones sig­nalled the lega­cy his­to­ri­an and writer, Pro­fes­sor Emer­i­tus Brins­ley Sama­roo had and will con­tin­ue to have in the lives of Trin­bag­o­ni­ans.

Dur­ing his memo­r­i­al ser­vice, held at Daa­ga Hall Au­di­to­ri­um, Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI), St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus, on Fri­day, an ap­peal was made for a mu­se­um to be com­plet­ed in his ho­n­our.

An ap­peal that earned a round of ap­plause from every­one present.

Dur­ing the ser­vice, Prof Ken­neth Ram­c­hand, who was hailed as Sama­roo’s dear friend, called on the Gov­ern­ment to fin­ish what Sama­roo start­ed.

Ram­c­hand said a sug­ar mu­se­um was Sama­roo’s great­est dream af­ter the clo­sure of the Ca­roni (1975) Lim­it­ed.

How­ev­er, af­ter much work was al­ready done to cre­ate this mu­se­um, it be­came a dream shat­tered, as Sama­roo was re­moved from the project.

Ram­c­hand said, “We should ho­n­our his life, his love and his work by re­turn­ing to his mod­el project. I am tak­ing this op­por­tu­ni­ty to ap­peal again to the Gov­ern­ment of all the peo­ples of T&T to make a pri­or­i­ty of fin­ish­ing what he start­ed by mov­ing to es­tab­lish the Brins­ley Sama­roo Na­tion­al Sug­ar Mu­se­um.”

Al­so pay­ing trib­ute yes­ter­day, an­oth­er close friend since at­tend­ing Na­pari­ma Col­lege, politi­cian Win­ston Dook­er­an said, “Words and facts can­not do jus­tice to the work and life of Dr Brins­ley Sama­roo. With him has gone an en­cy­clo­pe­dia of in­for­ma­tion that will nev­er be repli­cat­ed. A pas­sion for peo­ple that is now silent and an im­pact on so­ci­ety that can­not be erased. To­day we say farewell.

To­mor­row his life will live on in our mem­o­ries and so­ci­ety and stu­dents will reap the fruits of his work for all times.”

Join­ing both Ram­c­hand and Dook­er­an, sev­er­al oth­er peo­ple re­ferred to Sama­roo as a bril­liant schol­ar, hu­man­i­tar­i­an and a man of in­tegri­ty. And he was ho­n­oured for his schol­ar­ly col­lec­tions of re­search, writ­ing and ac­tivism.

His col­league Prof Brid­get Br­ere­ton al­so re­vealed that be­fore his death Sama­roo had com­plet­ed some un­re­leased works of writ­ing.

Ac­cord­ing to the UWI Pro-Vice chan­cel­lor and cam­pus prin­ci­pal Rose-Marie Belle An­toine, Sama­roo be­longed to a group of UWI aca­d­e­mics and ac­tivists who formed a com­mu­ni­ty of in­tel­lec­tu­als in the 1970s and 1980s at UWI that can nev­er be du­pli­cat­ed.

The UWI al­so an­nounced it will soon be ho­n­our­ing Sama­roo and oth­er great aca­d­e­mics in their spaces.

Sama­roo died on Sun­day at age 83, leav­ing be­hind his wife, Joan, and daugh­ter, Kavi­ta.

Al­so in at­ten­dance yes­ter­day were Rev Daniel Teelucks­ingh, at­tor­ney Is­rael Khan, for­mer cam­pus prin­ci­pal Clement Sankat and politi­cians.