In 1980 when Hugh Shearer coined the phrase “built by Labour”, it was intended as a catchy statement of the performance of the Jamaica Labour Party in government during the 1960s, part of which he served as prime minister.

Yesterday, nearly a quarter-of-a-century later, the phrase was being heralded as a summation of his life and a final celebration of Hugh Shearer’s contribution to the building of Jamaica before he was laid to rest at National Heroes Park in Kingston.

“If Jamaica has been built by labour, then Hugh Lawson Shearer has been one of its foremost and most skilled contractors,” Professor Rex Nettleford, the vice-chancellor of the University of the West Indies, told the hundreds who attended Shearer’s funeral service at the Holy Trinity Cathedral on North Street in Kingston.

“As trade unionist and the legatee of the great labour leader and mentor the Rt Excellent Sir Alexander Bustamante, Hugh Shearer has carried the mantle of concern of those who labour in his native Jamaica, and he has worked assiduously for all of 50 years in their interest,” Nettleford added.

It was a long service, officiated over by 22 members of clergy from various denominations. And inside the church, the dignitaries and others reflected the wide range of friends Shearer developed over his relatively long life and the respect with which he was held in Jamaica, across the Caribbean and outside the region.

The mourners included Shearer’s widow Dr Denise Eldemire-Shearer, his sons, Howard and Lance, Prime Minister P J Patterson and Opposition Leader Edward Seaga as well and current and former leaders from other Caribbean Community (Caricom) countries.

Among them were Baldwin Spencer, the prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda; Dr Ralph Gonsalves, prime minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines; former prime minister of St Lucia, John Compton; chief minister of Montserrat, Margaret Dyer-Howe; as well as Canada’s Jamaican-born speaker of the Ontario House of Representatives, Alvin Curling.

There were Jamaican Cabinet ministers and members of both the upper and lower Houses of Parliament from both sides, diplomats, civil servants.

As the evening shadows crept across the Holy Trinity Cathedral, the casket bearing Shearer’s body was carried out of the church by an eight-man Jamaica Defence Force bearer party and placed on a gun carriage hauled by a JDF land cruiser for the two-mile slow march to the National Heroes Park.

There were slow drum rolls from the Jamaica Military Band along the way. The funeral cortege headed west along North Street and then north along East Street – the wrong way during the regular flow of traffic. But not yesterday.

Ahead of the dignitaries marched Jamaica Defence Force soldiers in their red tunics, followed by members of the Jamaica National Reserves in green and the Jamaica Constabulary Force in their white tunics.

Six hundred police and soldiers, in ceremonial dress, lined the route. Hundreds of on-lookers gawked from sidewalks. They were all embraced by the Military Band’s playing of the mournful Dead March.

Many onlookers expressed surprise at the lateness of the procession entering National Heroes Park, past sunset, and as the shadows lengthened across the sky. But it was obvious that with so many people wanting to say farewell to the revered leader, the event would drag on beyond normal time.

The church service started on time. Mourners began pouring into the cathedral at noon for the 2:00 pm service.

Mourners were treated to the music of the National Chorale conducted by Winston Ewart. The music flowed periodically from the chorale and singer Jimmy Tucker. But doubtlessly the highlight was cantor Kevin Williams’ rendition of Jerusalem.

In his remembrance, Nettleford, a respected trade union educator, said that Shearer carried the mantle of concern for those who labour in Jamaica and contributed to the improvement of the quality of life of the ordinary Jamaican against “ancestral afflictions of the exploitation of labour and the denigration of the working class”.

He said, however, that his death had left behind “a million dollar question for his legatees to answer: ‘Where do we go from here and how are you going to row the boat?'”

Shearer was sure, Nettleford said, that the gun was not the answer, had pointed out that “Jamaica did not achieve nationhood through the use of bullets,” and should not be allowed to be destroyed by bullets, bombs and by barbarism.

In his sermon, the Rev Dr Horace Russell, who returned from his base in Pennsylvania, USA for the service, likened Shearer to the disciple Andrew who, he said, learnt “quite early” to distinguish between power and authority.

Shearer realised that his success was not for himself alone but to be shared with others.

In his tribute, Prime Minister Patterson said that Shearer’s abiding legacy was his humanity, which he had bequeathed to the nation “and to generations who will be inspired by his life”.

“I am proud to have known him and to have benefited from our deep and lasting friendship,” Patterson said.

Opposition Leader Seaga said that it was remarkable that it was at Shearer’s death that Jamaica asked who he was and the media busily started to expose his contributions to the country.

He said that because of this, the old Shearer, to which most Jamaicans were accustomed, had disappeared and a “new Shearer has emerged as a serious strategist and negotiator capable of settling tough domestic disputes and international problems”.

He said that Shearer had remained in the limelight for so long without really being understood because of his humility, a characteristic that prevented him from ever pleading his own case.

But Shearer, Seaga said, “was the right man, at the right place, at the right time”.

Tributes were also read by: chairman of the Jamaica Labour Party, Bruce Golding; vice-president of the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union, Ruddy Spencer; and general-secretary of the Jamaica Confederation of Trade Unions, Lloyd Goodleigh.