IF the former United Nations special adviser on gender issues and the advancement of women, Angela Evelyn King, had been at her own funeral yesterday, she wouldn’t have minded the simple, to-the-point thanksgiving service held at the St Andrew Parish Church in her honour.

For although she had risen to the heights of an international office, she was never concerned with titles and positions. She was never caught up with the pomp and pageantry which the high office afforded her. Instead, she was “down-to-earth” and “human”. During the service, King’s son, Richard James, said his mother “wanted only to be called Angela.

“She was a wonderful, magnificent woman who cared for not the United Nations of where she worked, but the united nations of the world,” he said.

In his remembrance, James recounted some of the cultural and historical trips he went on with his mother to museums and to countries such as South Africa during the apartheid struggle, all of which he said prepared him to be a world citizen.

In a tribute offered by Professor Rex Nettleford, former vice chancellor at the University of the West Indies, King was remembered as professional, unaffected, and humanely sensible.

“She did us proud not only here in Jamaica but also in the wider Caribbean… But while the tangible achievements, as in the positions held and the work done to make a difference to millions of persons all over the globe and to challenge humanity to take itself beyond mere survival, it is the character of this remarkable Jamaican woman, underpinning all these tangible achievements that deserve never to escape our notice or our memory,” the retired university professor said.

Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller, who was also in attendance at the service, told the Observer after the proceedings that Kings’ contribution to her country was outstanding.

“Her work in defending the cause of women is a really remarkable thing. She was a very outstanding Jamaican woman, and to have been our representative at the UN speaks volumes to her contribution to her country and internationally,” the prime minister said.

Before her retirement in 2004, King, who joined the UN in 1966, was special adviser on gender issues and advancement of women. Prior to that, she held positions including director of recruitment and placement, director of staff administration and training, deputy to the assistant secretary general for human resources management and director of the operational services division. One of her most noted assignments was between 1992 and 1994 when she was chief of mission of the UN observer mission in South Africa which had its first democratic elections in 1994.