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(This column was written on the day he died, before I knew.)
In January 2021, I wrote a column about headaches, and my perpetual one since I was about 14. It was not so much a complaint (I hope), but an attempt to explore that world of pain and its forms and causes, because I knew many people suffer their debilitating effects.
When he read it, Reggie Dumas called me. He was surprised that I lived this way, but his surprise could not match my astonishment at his revelation that he had suddenly realised that he never had a headache in all of his life. Never.
I could not imagine it. I peppered him with questions, convinced that there might be something he’d forgotten. But he did not even know what a headache felt like. The conversation turned to his remarkable good health, and the robust constitution that had protected him throughout his long and full life.
Around this period, I had been working with him, editing a fascinating manuscript of his time as a diplomat and his posting in India from 1977 to 1979. This was going to be what he described as the third volume of his recollections.
It has not yet been published, but it must be, because it is yet another of his significant contributions to understanding our West Indian condition. Therein, he had revealed one episode of illness. Just one.
Reggie has been such a superb specimen of the human race—physically and mentally—that it never occurred to me that he might fall ill. So, when I read in the newspaper that he was hospitalised at the Scarborough General Hospital and was in need of blood, I was shaken to the core.
It hung over me constantly, this dreadful anxiety, and I know his family and friends share this emotion. It is instinctive for me to deal with this kind of trauma by writing about it—partly because I know it is not a singular state.
But I also wanted to use this space to publicly say what I think about him and the place he has occupied so meaningfully in our world. And I wanted to say it aloud while he could read it.
As a former head of the Public Service, and a retired diplomat, Reggie never withdrew from the public space. He has been a fount of wisdom and guidance throughout the regular contretemps that occur in our bacchanalian space.
Newspapers faithfully seek his interpretations to bring some deeper understanding of the background and implications of public behaviour. He has also shared his thoughts on various issues in his weekly column in the Newsday newspaper.
Needless to say, his counsel is privately sought by a wide range of folk concerned with the development of our society. He has also been an activist in many ways.
In 2015, professor emerita Bridget Brereton, another national treasure, reviewed the first of his three retrospectives, “The First Thirty Years”, in UWI Today. She opened it with this paragraph:
“Reginald Dumas has been described as a mandarin: a member of a scholarly elite devoted to public service, perhaps an endangered species in these days. His contributions to nation-building in his own T&T and to regional and international causes have been multifaceted, distinguished, and sustained over a lifetime.”
I hope he will forgive me for reproducing just one paragraph from the prologue of the yet unpublished manuscript where he cited the thoughts of three graduates from Cambridge University, where he studied:
(Copyright Trinidad Guardian)
“The positive attitude of the octogenarians comforts me, and helps relieve me of the disappointment I felt at not being able to publish this third volume at the time projected. So much the better, because the delay has brought a benefit every octogenarian would appreciate: I am aiming to launch the book at age 85.
“I still have ideas. I still contribute. The brain cells are still working for their living. I am not ready for retirement.”
He will turn 89 on 4 April, just a few weeks from now.
(Courtesy Chevaughn Christopher/ Wired868)
Our society has produced a remarkable amount of people with sharp intellects, brilliant minds that can analyse situations astutely. There is no question of that. What has not been as apparent are the qualities of decency and integrity.
Reggie has been the steadfast epitome of those characteristics. He has often faced the backlash for his courageous and principled stands, but he has not wavered.
A few years ago, I wrote a letter to the press declaring him the perfect choice to be president of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. It seemed to me that there was no question that he was ideal. He resounded with all the necessary traits.
(Copyright Office of Parliament 2023)
He was principled. He was experienced. He was intrepid and he was certainly erudite.
He had a good laugh when he saw it, telling me that he had not endeared himself to the political class, and they would never consider him. He was right, as usual.
It was our loss.
One of the things that struck me was how rooted he was, and how much of his very being he credited to his mother, Adeline’s influence—in our most recent conversation, he’d invoked her lovingly.
Photo: Trinidad Guardian
John Reginald Phelps Dumas, Adeline would be so proud of you, as we are.
Editor’s Note: Reginald Dumas, a member of the Tobago Council of Elders, distinguished former diplomat and head of the Public Service, died on Thursday 7 March 2024. He was 88.
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Vaneisa Baksh is a columnist with the Trinidad Express, an editor and a cricket historian. She is the author of a biography of Sir Frank Worrell.
