Clifton Stone remembers well the day the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) lost the 1972 general elections. He was campaign manager to Hugh Shearer, the then prime minister and parliamentary representative for South Clarendon.

So shaken was Stone by the defeat that he is mostly remembered as the dejected colleague of Prime Minister Hugh Shearer in a press photo published the day after.

Stone, who was Shearer’s campaign manager in South Clarendon, admits that although he was probably just as disappointed as Shearer, he showed it more.

That was an election the JLP was not expected to lose. The economy was buoyant, unemployment was at its lowest, Shearer’s Government had built 50 new secondary schools as a sign of its commitment to education, and tourism and the bauxite/alumina sectors were growing real fast.

“The JLP was confident of winning based on our record and the state of the economy,” Stone reflects in an interview with the Sunday Observer late last week, a few days after the passing of Shearer, his close friend and confidant for 40 years.

According to Stone, he and Shearer received the devastating news of the election loss while they shared drinks with some supporters at Miss Bertha’s place in Vere, near the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union (BITU) office.

“When we were sure we had lost, we went down to the court house and he conceded, then we drove to Kingston and straight to Jamaica House,” Stone relates. “He opened up the bar at the entrance to where they used to have the Cabinet room and we started drinking again.

“He saw how dejected I was and he looked at me and said, ‘Cliff, you guys are young, go out there and fight again and make a comeback’.”

It was the most stirring lecture Shearer had given him in their eight years of friendship, not only in terms of the inspiration, but moreso as a measure of the man he looked up to as his mentor.

Stone heeded the advice, moved back to Kingston to continue his work at the BITU head office on Duke Street, but remained close to Shearer over the next two years as he struggled to keep the JLP together in the period of acrimony that followed the unexpected loss.

When Edward Seaga was elected leader of the JLP in 1974, Stone and Shearer retreated to the sanctuary of Duke Street and the labour movement. Six years later, they would re-emerge as cabinet ministers in another JLP Government, this time led by Seaga.

The relationship between Shearer and Stone dates back to 1964, when Shearer visited Washington with a team of government officials accompanying then prime minister Sir Alexander Bustamante to the Walter Reed Memorial Hospital. Bustamante was to have an eye operation.

Stone, a native of Thompson Town, Clarendon, was at the time, president of the Caribbean Students Association at Howard University, and Shearer, who was being groomed to succeed Sir Alexander in South Clarendon, the BITU, and possibly the JLP, struck up a close friendship.

Stone recalls that when he graduated in 1965, Shearer sent him a plane ticket home and picked him up at the airport. That was May 9.

Later that night, he says, Shearer came back for him at the Mountain View Avenue home of the future Mrs Cliff Stone and took him to a JLP meeting at the intersection of Laws and East streets downtown Kingston.

That night, Stone was introduced as one of the young new recruits to the party. He started working at the BITU head office the next morning.

Eventually, the BITU appointed Stone parish officer for Clarendon’s sugar belt. He was also mandated to assist with Sir Alexander’s transition of the South Clarendon seat to Shearer.

The seat was considered BITU territory, so Stone moved to Vere and started preparing for Shearer’s candidacy in the 1967 general elections.

“The relationship between Busta and Shearer was more like a father and son relationship than anything else,” Stone explains. “Remember, Shearer came to the BITU as a very young man and grew up under Busta’s wings.”

According to Stone, despite the fact that everyone accepted that Shearer was Sir Alexander’s heir apparent, Shearer never challenged any of the elder leader’s positions while he was alive. He remained as the first vice-president of both the BITU and the JLP – even though he led both organisations in the late 1960s and early 1970s – until the old man died in 1977.

When Bustamante retired from active politics in 1967, Donald Sangster was appointed prime minister. But after only three months in office, Sangster took ill and died after flying to Montreal, Canada for treatment. Ironically, according to Stone, Shearer, who had accompanied Sangster on the trip, could easily have lost the chance to become prime minister after Sangster’s passing, were it not for the intervention of Seaga, the man who eventually took over the reins of the Labour Party after Shearer wilted under intense internal pressure and stepped down as leader in September 1974.

As Stone tells it, while Shearer was in Canada, Robert Lightbourne, who had acted as prime minister when Sangster was abroad, went to Sir Alexander and asked whether he felt that he shouldn’t become prime minister. Sir Alexander said that he would have no objection.

According to Stone, Lightbourne then went to the governor-general, Sir Clifford Campbell, and suggested that he be sworn in as prime minister. Campbell agreed, but decided to consult with the members of parliament first. Seaga was not amused when he heard and sought to clarify it with Sir Alexander. The old man suggested a ballot instead.

Stone recalls that David Clement (DC) Tavares, the then minister of housing and MP for South West St Andrew, actually won the first ballot to decide on the new leader, but a run-off between Tavares and Shearer was requested and Shearer won by two votes.

One of the persons who voted for Shearer, Stone says, was Elliston Wakeland who was at home on his sick bed. By this time, a disappointed Lightbourne had left the party to become an independent parliamentarian. He later formed his own party, the United Party, and eventually slid into oblivion.

Stone insists that the relationship between Shearer and Seaga was always cordial.

“They had an ideal relationship,” he says. “Remember, he was the one who promoted Seaga to minister of finance. The problem was really between Seaga and Wilton Hill over who should succeed Shearer in 1974. Shearer was fully supportive of Seaga and played an active role in the Government led by him.”

After Seaga defeated Hill, who had succeeded Tavares in South West St Andrew, Hill disappeared from the political scene. Shearer and Stone returned to their trade union jobs for the next six years.

Stone insists that even after the internal conflicts which forced Shearer from the leadership of the JLP, Shearer was never bitter.

“I never detected any bitterness in him,” he says.

He also denies a once-popular rumour that Shearer’s colour became an issue inside the party. “There was no question of him being judged by his colour. Colour had nothing to do with it,” Stone asserts.

During their return to full-time union work at the BITU (1974-1980), Shearer and Stone teamed up to revolutionise the trade union movement, starting with the unionisation of white collar workers.

For years, Bustamante, his fellow trade unionists and the daily-paid workers they represented were considered semi-literate proletarians and riff-raff – not the kind of people white collar employees of the banks and other financial institutions should associate with. This discrimination expanded into the political arena where the JLP became associated with the masses as against the middle-class character of the People’s National Party.

“The white collar workers weren’t warm to the idea of joining the union, and we had strong resistance from the employers as well,” Stone says. “Our greatest challenge was the Bank of Nova Scotia with its 2,500 workers and its 45 branches islandwide, which made it very difficult to organise. But we got a breakthrough at Jamaica Mutual Life and things started happening.”

According to Stone, the union’s attention was drawn to the banks primarily by female employees who claimed that they were being sexually molested. However, after some 30 years of trade union representation there is still no protection against any form of sexual harassment in any unionised sector.

“We heard rumours, but we have never had any hard evidence to support the claims,” Stone explains.

He insists that it was Shearer and not Michael Manley who introduced maternity leave into labour contracts.

“Shearer made the breakthrough with sugar workers, then Michael Manley brought legislation to Parliament to extend it to other sectors,” he claims.

The BITU, he says, was able to make the breakthrough because the Sugar Producers’ Federation, which represents the employers, weren’t unduly worried about maternity leave for women at the time, given that there were only a few women working on the estates as daily-paid workers and furthermore, those who worked there were usually too old to have children anyway.

Stone also remembers his and Shearer’s tireless efforts to unite the trade union movement. It started, he says, with the Norwegian Government’s support of the Joint Trade Union Research Development Centre, which eventually gave birth to the Jamaica Confederation of Trade Unions, of which Shearer became the first president in 1994.

He doesn’t shy away from discussing some of the controversial issues which stained the Shearer administration in the 1960s. For instance, the banning of Guyanese-born UWI lecturer, Dr Walter Rodney, in 1968 resulted from Shearer acting on information which was provided by the police, Stone explains. “He believed in law and order and he genuinely believed the information he was given and did what he felt was right for the country.”

On Shearer’s speech beseeching the police not to recite beatitudes to criminals Stone says: “You have to look at it in the context of the time and his strong belief in law and order. What he meant was that the police must be resolute in fighting crime.”

On the highly contentious issue of the West Indies Federation, which the JLP opposed and eventually had its position endorsed in a referendum, Stone says Shearer “was not for federation but, like the rest of the JLP, he welcomed Caricom.”

Stone also recalls the night Shearer was shot with a fish gun in Falmouth Square during the violent campaign for the 1980 general elections. Shearer was on his way to a JLP meeting in Montego Bay.

“We were waiting for him at the InterContinental (hotel) in Montego Bay, and when he came his head was bandaged and bleeding from the wound over his eye,” Stone says. “But he was determined to go to the meeting that night. The crowd applauded his courage. I never heard him speak about it after that.”

Shearer, Stone also insists, had a deep concern for African-Americans and the civil rights struggle in the United States.

He relates a story of Shearer going to Washington in 1968 to accept an honorary degree from Howard University. He was scheduled to speak to the students there at 9:00 pm. However, he was determined to attend the funeral of Robert Kennedy. But the heavy traffic resulted in Shearer arriving at the university at approximately 11:00 pm. Surprisingly, the students were still there waiting patiently to hear him.

With his close friend now gone, Stone believes that Dwight Nelson, the current president of the BITU and the man who has emerged as the new trade union statesman, is the person most likely to follow in Shearer’s footsteps.

“In the latter part of his (Shearer’s) life, Dwight became his closest aide,” Stone tells the Sunday Observer. “He was the first one he called every morning.”