KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

To­day, Soogrim Cool­man would have been dressed in bat­tle colours, await­ing the chants from the thou­sands-strong trade union army to march to their bat­tle­front at Char­lie King Junc­tion in Fyz­abad.

With lock­down re­stric­tions, how­ev­er, the hun­dreds of lives he touched in the trade union move­ment and the Fyz­abad com­mu­ni­ty could not bid him farewell at his fu­ner­al last Sun­day.

Cool­man, the founder of the an­nu­al Labour Day Ral­ly, took his fi­nal breath on June 9 at age 91. He was a for­mer lo­cal gov­ern­ment coun­cil­lor and ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber of the Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU). The last But­lerite, Cool­man al­ways shared the sto­ries of his time spent with the fa­ther of the trade union move­ment, Tubal Uri­ah “Buzz” But­ler.

In a June 2020 in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, Cool­man said his wit­ness­ing of the 1937 labour ri­ots and in­ter­ac­tions with But­ler in­spired him to a life of ac­tivism.

Yes­ter­day, it was his daugh­ter Vi­mala who spoke fond­ly of his life.

“Dad­dy still talked about the good old days. For dad­dy, the good old days were the days with Mr (Dood­nath) Ma­haraj, the late George Weekes, But­ler and Mc Leod.

“That life meant a great deal to dad­dy be­cause he formed bonds of friend­ships with the en­tire fam­i­lies,” Vi­mala said.

As his fam­i­ly rem­i­nisced about his life as a ser­vant of the peo­ple, his son Hardesh said it was some­times dif­fi­cult hav­ing to share his fa­ther with the coun­try.

Sit­ting at the desk where his fa­ther spent his fi­nal years, Hardesh said even on spe­cial oc­ca­sions, Cool­man would still leave to help those in need.

While it was hard, he said it taught him about ser­vice to peo­ple.

He re­called be­ing in Stan­dard Four at the Fyz­abad Pres­by­ter­ian School when he first heard his fa­ther tell the sto­ry of Char­lie King’s death, which dif­fers from oth­er his­tor­i­cal ac­counts.

Af­ter all, Cool­man was sit­ting on a pota­to sack as a child when Cpl Char­lie King and oth­er of­fi­cers ar­rived to ar­rest But­ler dur­ing a meet­ing in Fyz­abad in 1937.

Vi­mala said his death was a blow to them. Al­though Cool­man was 91, he was still in­volved in trade union­ism and com­mu­ni­ty work.

How­ev­er, his health quick­ly de­te­ri­o­rat­ed over the last few months. Last year, Cool­man was pained that Labour Day cel­e­bra­tions could not take place.

Even this year, he looked for­ward to re­join­ing his com­rades in the strug­gle for work­ers’ rights.

Vi­mala re­called her child­hood days when Cool­man told her the sto­ry of feed­ing But­ler his last spoon of wa­ter be­fore the chief ser­vant passed away. She said Cool­man’s in­ter­ac­tion with But­ler helped de­fine the man he want­ed to be. 

“Oh yes! We knew But­ler. But­ler was a part of our lives grow­ing up. But­ler had an im­pact on dad­dy that was so great that now, in ret­ro­spec­tion, we feel that had a lot of do­ing with the way he lived his life and the things that he did. Dad­dy was all about help­ing peo­ple. It did not mat­ter who, dad­dy would help any­one that came for help in any man­ner,” Vi­mala said.

Grow­ing up with a But­lerite meant be­ing eth­i­cal, moral and speak­ing as­sertive­ly, Vi­mala said. It was al­so about giv­ing with­out seek­ing re­turns.

She said her fa­ther nev­er re­tired, as up to ear­li­er this year, peo­ple came to him for help with land dis­putes and child is­sues and he was hap­py to serve.

“Dad­dy was prob­a­bly the strongest per­son I knew in life in terms of his men­tal­i­ty. His men­tal­i­ty was that it did not mat­ter what peo­ple need­ed, you could help them.”

A man with a firm be­lief in ed­u­ca­tion, Cool­man in­tro­duced the oil quiz to schools in the com­mu­ni­ty. At the OW­TU’s 73rd An­nu­al Con­fer­ence of Del­e­gates in 2012, it be­stowed its high­est ho­n­our, the Labour Star, on Cool­man.

His long­time friend Dood­nath Ma­haraj, a for­mer gen­er­al sec­re­tary of the OW­TU, said Cool­man was a friend, fa­ther and ad­vi­sor and was fa­mous with­in the Fyz­abad com­mu­ni­ty. Ma­haraj said it was Cool­man who brought him in­to the trade union move­ment and worked with OW­TU pres­i­dent gen­er­als John Ro­jas, George Weekes, Er­rol McLeod and cur­rent leader An­cel Ro­get. Cool­man once served as pres­i­dent of the Fyz­abad branch of the union and rep­re­sent­ed the OW­TU at in­ter­na­tion­al con­fer­ences.