Slowly they trickled in. Ministers of government, parliamentarians, top-ranking members of the military and the judiciary, visiting prime ministers, ambassadors, Jamaica Labour Party and Bustamante Industrial Trade Union stalwarts – all to pay their last respects to a man described as “a decent human being”.

But the dignitaries aside, the most noticeable feature of the majority of persons who turned up at former prime minister Hugh Shearer’s State Funeral yesterday was that they were elderly.

It was somewhat of a tribute to the man who, in his later years, dedicated his energies to securing the welfare of senior citizens.

“We are old-timers, we come from way back,” said Alphanso Rose, his grey beard glistening in the sun.

Rose claimed that Shearer succeeded his father, L W Rose, a former MP, as vice-president of the BITU.

Rose’s equally grey friend, Banjamin Wilson, joined in: “I know Mr Shearer from when him used to wear the pretty-pretty shirt dem and walk though Coronation Market, down on the docks all ’bout, and deal with the people right, y’know slip you a little something if he could see you needed it,” Wilson recalled with a smile.

Rose chimed in: “Don’t let anybody fool you, if they don’t remember the pretty-pretty shirt, then they don’t remember the real Shearer. Those days, we used to feel he owned them by the dozen, ’cause everywhere him go, him inna one of them bright shirt and the ladies used to love it.”

Rose remembered Shearer as “a militant trade unionist” who always defend workers’ rights. “He never believed in the violence, the bad man gangs or anything like that, he was a civilised man, a loving man, always among the people. He had humility, and I have to conclude here, because I’m becoming overwhelmed.”

Eighty-five year-old Alfred Gooden, who said he was Shearer’s former bodyguard, stood outside the Holy Trinity Cathedral for hours before and through the service.

Known to many as ‘Sheriff’, Gooden turned heads in his brown three-piece suit complete with coat-tails and hat to match, his five-star sheriff’s badge glinting in the sunlight.

“He (Shearer) actually gave me the name Sheriff,” Gooden told the Observer. His former employer’s funeral, Gooden pointed out, would not have missed him for the world.

“I’ve known Mr Shearer since the 1940s, from him first come to the BITU,” Gooden related with pride.

Seventy-one year-old Fedwa Thomas said she met Shearer only a few times in passing, but she was there to pay her respects to the man who made a major impact on reducing political violence in her community.

“I remember in 1980 when there were terrible things going on in Olympic Gardens, in a place called Tower Hill, he went there, talked to the guys, calmed them and they listened. Yes, they listened because he was a humble man who approached them with simplicity,” Thomas said.

Although the funeral was scheduled to begin at 2:00 pm, from as early as 12:30 pm, pews in the cathedral and the extra seats under tents erected on either side of the cathedral began to be filled, many with groups representing various bodies Shearer had worked with and for over the years.

Fifteen minutes before the scheduled start of the ecumenical service, Opposition Leader Edward Seaga and his wife Carla arrived. They were followed by the prime ministers of St Vincent and the Grenadines, and Antigua Ralph Gonsalves and Baldwin Spencer respectively, and later by Shearer’s widow, Dr Denise Eldemire-Shearer and the late former prime minister’s sons Howard and Lance.

Five minutes before the service began, Prime Minister P J Patterson arrived, followed by the governor-general, Sir Howard Cooke and Lady Cooke, passing, as all other dignitaries did before them, through a guard of honour formed by Jamaica Defence Force soldiers.

While most Labour Party MPs and officials arrived en bloc, led by Olivia “Babsy” Grange in a flowing lavender dress, chairman of the party, Bruce Golding, and Audley Shaw arrived separately with their spouses, while a dapper Senator Norman Horne accompanied Attorney-General Senator A J Nicholson.

Minister of foreign affairs and foreign trade K D Knight and his junior minister Senator Delano Franklyn seemed to have co-ordinated their couture efforts, both wearing fedoras that looked like a good idea in the blistering afternoon sun.

Across North Street from the church, in an open lot, a small crowd began forming at the beginning of the service, but expanded significantly as more and more soldiers in ceremonial dress began to arrive. Initially, most of those observing from there were vendors, hawking cold water, sodas, cigarettes and snacks, but eventually, the gathering grew, mostly made up of residents of the nearby communities who had come to watch the pomp and pageantry.

“I really learn ’bout Shearer in school, I never yet see that man alive. But true is Sunday and we nuh have much a do, we just a take in what a gwaan,” said one woman, who claimed that she lived on Price Lane, directly across from the cathedral.