Joel Julien

"I wish he was here to col­lect it him­self."

So lament­ed Shar­lan Bai­ley, the son of Ca­lyp­so Icon Win­ston "The Shad­ow" Bai­ley af­ter he col­lect­ed the hon­orary doc­tor­ate that the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies be­stowed on his fa­ther yes­ter­day.

Bai­ley passed away on Tues­day, mere days be­fore UWI was sched­uled to con­fer the hon­orary doc­tor­ate on him.

"It is a sad mo­ment for me be­cause I have been go­ing through this jour­ney since they in­formed us that he was go­ing to get it and he got to a point where he was re­al­ly ex­cit­ed about it and al­though he is a fel­la who is anx­ious for noth­ing, there was a point where he recog­nised that it is go­ing to hap­pen, and he was proud," Shar­lan told the Sun­day Guardian.

"I wish he was here to col­lect it him­self, I re­al­ly did not want to have to col­lect it for him be­cause this is a hard time, I may put a smile on my face but this is a hard time be­cause this is some­thing he de­served and nev­er got to see. My on­ly re­as­sur­ance is now he leaves this earth as Dr Win­ston Bai­ley but as proud as I am of that achieve­ment, it is a sad mo­ment for me," he said.

Bai­ley will be laid to rest on Tues­day.

And while Bai­ley was known for his black out­fits, Shar­lan said his fa­ther re­quest­ed that every­one wear white to his fu­ner­al.

"That is the mind of Win­ston Bai­ley be­cause he was un­pre­dictable," Shar­lan said

While Bai­ley was not phys­i­cal­ly at the UWI grad­u­a­tion his pres­ence was def­i­nite­ly felt.

On the of­fi­cial pro­gramme, Bai­ley was still list­ed to per­form.

How­ev­er, Shar­lan filled that void.

Shar­lan used his fa­ther's gui­tar to per­form the clas­sic "One Love".

It was the song Bai­ley had in­tend­ed to per­form.

"There was noth­ing else I could do but per­form One Love to­day," Shar­lan said.

KV Charles al­so per­formed a few of Bai­ley's hits to the plea­sure of the crowd.

Grad­u­ates got to their feet and "din­go­layed".

Pro­fes­sor Chris­tine Car­ring­ton read out a trib­ute to Bai­ley.

"While oth­ers found suc­cess by adapt­ing to suit the chang­ing mu­si­cal en­vi­ron­ment, Shad­ow com­pelled us to adapt to him," Car­ring­ton stat­ed.

Present among the grad­u­ates yes­ter­day was Eliz­a­beth Mon­tano, moth­er of so­ca star Machel Mon­tano.

Mon­tano, 67, re­ceived her Mas­ter's de­gree in Cul­tur­al Stud­ies yes­ter­day.

“An­oth­er spe­cial mo­ment in my jour­ney. Many chal­lenges but per­se­ver­ance al­ways wins. Prais­es to the Lord and to all those who con­tributed to the re­al­iza­tion of this goal. Next the book and my mem­oirs!”

Mon­tano had been work­ing on her de­gree since 2008 and plans to pub­lish her the­sis as a book.

It is based on her son and is ti­tled “The Mak­ing of Monk Monte: Cre­ativ­i­ty and Com­mod­i­fi­ca­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go pop­u­lar cul­ture”.