Hartley Neita, ContributorON TUESDAY afternoon, I mourned at the funeral of Dr. Joyce Bailey. Then before recovering from this sorrow, an early-morning telephone call next day told me that Ambassador Ashton Wright had died. Later, I received the news that master potter Cecil Baugh had also died. Three of the most humble people I have known.
Joyce Bailey was an early childhood friend. We grew up in our early years at Four Paths in Clarendon. With her brothers Eric and Audley and sisters Masie and Lauris, we sat in the elementary school on week days. Her oldest brother Evans had already left for St. Simon's College in Kingston.
On Sunday mornings, the young Baileys and Lawsons walked the three-quarters of a mile marl road past our home on the way to the Congregational Church. There we joined the Webleys and Smiths for Sunday School and morning service worship.
On Saturdays and Public Holidays we sat on the grass at Glenroy Oval to watch the best of the best cricketers in the West Indies, George Headley, Ken Weekes, Hines Johnson, Neville Bonito, Ken Rickards, J.K. Holt, Jr., Allan Rae and others, and from Mondays at school during recess boys and girls tried to bat like Headley and bowl like Johnson. Joyce's parents left with the family sometime after for Grange Lane in St. Catherine.
IN FULL FLOW
Over the many years since, we have met from time to time. We knew, of course, what each was doing with his or her. But it was only at Tuesday's funeral that the enormity of her achievements and contribution to Jamaican her life, and especially children, came full flow to me. Like being the first woman to earn a doctorate from the prestigious Princeton Theological Seminary in New Jersey. In the world. Wow! Space does not permit me to repeat her other achievements, but for those interested please see last Wednesday's issue of this newspaper.
Ashton Wright was one of the Civil Servants who guided Jamaica during the process of political change, beginning with Federation until Independence. Others who come to mind include G. Arthur Brown, Egerton Richardson, Vincent and Barker McFarlane, Don Mills, A.B. and Fi-Fi Smith, Herbert Walker and Basil Lynch.
Wright and these men were the bureaucrats who steered the process and developed the systems which guided us as a new nation. He was chief of protocol in the new Ministry of External Affairs created after Independence. He compiled the first Handbook of External Affairs published annually since.
PERMANENT SECRETARY
He then became permanent secretary in the Ministry of Development and Welfare before becoming high commissioner to Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados and Guyana, and Ambassador to Venezuela. An attorney-at-law, he joined the firm of Hew and Bell after he retired. He still continued public service as, among other things, contractor-general, chairman of the Beach Control Authority and a member of the Minimum Wage Advisory Committee.
RESPECTED CRAFTSMEN
Cecil Baugh was one of the most respected craftsmen of the 20th century. He inspired a whole generation of men and women who enjoyed creating works of beauty from clay. Men and women such as Phillip Supersad, Jean Bushay, Allison Sinclair, Merdina and others. He helped many of his colleagues when they had problems.
Among my treasured
memories of him was visiting and asking if he would come to Things Jamaican to guide the new staff in the ceramic factory, which he did over and over again. Later he donated a special yabba to the agency to make limited edition replicas, and
visited the agency almost daily to assist and advise the staff while they worked on the re-productions. The original yabba was once on display at Devon House; I hope it still is.
Joyce Bailey, Ashton Wright, Cecil Baugh three giants of their time.
