BRIDGETOWN, Bar­ba­dos – Sir Ever­ton Weekes was im­mor­talised on Thurs­day as a “spe­cial gift of grace, gen­til­i­ty and great­ness” and al­so hailed as a work­ing class hero and na­tion-builder, as the coun­try and re­gion bid farewell to the West In­dies leg­end who passed away ear­li­er this month.

In an of­fi­cial fu­ner­al staged at the sto­ried Kens­ing­ton Oval on the fringes of the cap­i­tal, Pro­fes­sor Sir Hi­lary Beck­les told a gath­er­ing which in­clud­ed Bar­ba­dos’ Prime Min­is­ter Mia Mot­t­ley and Gov­er­nor Gen­er­al Dame San­dra Ma­son, that Sir Ever­ton had de­fied his his­tor­i­cal and so­cial ori­gins to claim his place at the pin­na­cle of glob­al suc­cess.

Not­ing that Sir Ever­ton had been “lit­tle in phys­i­cal form and less so in mon­e­tary val­ue”, Sir Hi­lary point­ed out that the out­stand­ing Bar­ba­di­an had still emerged as “the great­est gi­ant in a glob­al world filled with gi­ants, com­plet­ing the near im­pos­si­ble climb to the top.”

“Sir Ever­ton was one of the great­est rev­o­lu­tion­ar­ies of our Caribbean world be­cause he de­lib­er­ate­ly de­signed a method to turn this [colo­nial] his­to­ry up­on its head,” Sir Hi­lary said in a com­pelling eu­lo­gy.

“He was a dis­turber of the colo­nial peace that de­nied any jus­tice. He emerged as a dig­ni­fied man, rep­re­sent­ing every­thing he was not meant to be.

“If ever a bat be­came a bridge, if ever a bat be­came a bea­con, if ever a bat be­came a ba­ton, it was the bat in the hands of Ever­ton De­Courcey Weekes.”

The last sur­viv­ing mem­ber of the famed Three Ws, Sir Ever­ton died on Ju­ly 1 at age 95, fol­low­ing a pe­ri­od of ill health.

Long her­ald­ed as one of the finest bats­men to have graced the game, Sir Ever­ton churned out 4455 runs from 48 Tests be­tween 1948 and 1958 at an av­er­age of 58, af­ter mak­ing his in­ter­na­tion­al de­but at age 22.

His feat of be­com­ing the first ever bats­man to score five Test cen­turies in con­sec­u­tive in­nings re­mains a record still to be bro­ken.

How­ev­er, Sir Hi­lary con­tend­ed that while Sir Ever­ton’s amaz­ing record of per­for­mance spoke vol­umes, his life al­so re­flect­ed a sto­ry of achieve­ment and tri­umph near­ly im­pos­si­ble to ob­scure.

“Num­bers are nev­er enough. Be­hind the fig­ures re­side a con­fig­u­ra­tion of life and liv­ing. It is the grand nar­ra­tive of which they are mere­ly a part. Be­hind the num­bers, there is the hid­den his­to­ry. With Sir Ever­ton, the truth of this his­to­ry is even more pal­pa­ble,” said the Vice-Chan­cel­lor of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies.

“He be­came the first Bar­ba­di­an to be clas­si­fied and cel­e­brat­ed as num­ber one in the world in any ap­proved and re­spect­ed en­deav­our,” added the lead­ing re­gion­al aca­d­e­m­ic, in ref­er­ence to Sir Ever­ton’s des­ig­na­tion by Wis­den in 1951 as one of its five Crick­eters-of-the-Year.

“This was a seis­mic, sem­i­nal mo­ment. Bar­ba­dos, not yet a na­tion-state and un­der colo­nial op­pres­sion, had re­ceived its first in­ter­na­tion­al en­dorse­ment as a place that pro­duced per­for­mance ex­cel­lence.

“The is­land en­tered the an­nals of in­ter­na­tion­al pop­u­lar cul­ture as a so­ci­ety that gave life and nur­ture to a na­tive recog­nised as a spe­cial gift to hu­man­i­ty.”

Sir Hi­lary al­so un­der­scored Sir Ever­ton’s con­tri­bu­tion to na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment, de­scrib­ing his emer­gence as a world class fig­ure as one of the dri­ving forces in cre­at­ing a new na­tion­al con­scious­ness.

“He was the metaphor that de­fined the men­tal­i­ty nec­es­sary for the mak­ing of a na­tion. He placed his coun­try and re­gion above the cru­el­ty of his­to­ry. He be­came the cham­pi­on of achieve­ment and lib­er­a­tion of our peo­ple with dig­ni­ty,” Sir Hi­lary as­sert­ed.

“The mass­es that fol­lowed Mar­cus Gar­vey in­to re­ject­ing colo­nial­ism in pref­er­ence of democ­ra­cy had pro­duced an icon that rep­re­sent­ed their dreams for fu­ture gen­er­a­tions.”

Na­tion­al Hero, the Right Ex­cel­lent Sir Garfield Sobers, head­ed a dis­tin­guished list of mourn­ers which in­clud­ed leg­endary fast bowler Sir Wes Hall, Sir Gor­don Greenidge, Desmond Haynes, Joel Gar­ner, Char­lie Grif­fith, and for­mer West In­dies cap­tain Bri­an Lara who was a pall­bear­er.

Sir Ever­ton’s son, the for­mer West In­dies wick­et­keep­er David Mur­ray, was al­so in at­ten­dance along with Bar­ba­dos Crick­et As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent and Crick­et West In­dies di­rec­tor, Conde Ri­ley, and UWI Cave Hill prin­ci­pal, Pro­fes­sor Eu­dine Bar­riteau.

Sir Ever­ton was buried at Three Ws Oval of the UWI Cave Hill Cam­pus, along­side Sir Frank Wor­rell who died in 1967 and Sir Clyde Wal­cott who passed away in 2006.

(CMC)