‘DANNY’ Buchanan maintained his vow to fight colon cancer to the very end. His mechanical ventilator or life support machine was switched off on Sunday following an improvement in his breathing.

Prayers offered by Rev Ernle Gordon also gave the family of the political stalwart hope.

However, Buchanan’s condition deteriorated over the next 24 hours, despite a brave and valiant fight, which ended at 11:45 Monday night at the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI).

While the innings of the 68-year-old Donald Barrington Buchanan has ended, his youngest son and political aspirant Hugh insists that he wants to care for the people of South West St Elizabeth as his father did for over 35 years.

“As his son, I want to carry on doing the work of the people, as I find that you get great reward from the Almighty when you work for the people. We had a lot in common, and we both shared a passion for sport,” Hugh told the Observer in-between tears yesterday.

Buchanan, a former Cabinet minister and member of parliament for South West St Elizabeth, had been admitted to the Surgical Intensive Care Unit of the UHWI for a week following surgery at Andrews Memorial Hospital. Family members were at his bedside at the time of his death.

Yesterday, Prime Minister Bruce Golding hailed Buchanan, who was better known as ‘Danny Buck’, as a devoted public servant.

“Mr Buchanan was a stalwart of that brotherhood of legislators who caught the fire of public service from a very early age and who devoted their energies to nation building throughout their lives,” Golding said.

Portia Simpson Miller, president of the People’s National Party (PNP), which Buchanan served for more than 50 years, yesterday hailed him as one who worked tirelessly for the people.

“I am deeply saddened by the death of Danny, who served our nation and party with great distinction for over half-acentury,” she said.

“He was a mentor, guide and friend to me from my initial foray into politics in the 1970s and we remained close friends and colleagues for the entire period up to his death. I respected and admired his stridency and passion in advocating for and on behalf of the poor, disadvantaged and under-privileged,” Simpson Miller said.

Buchanan will be buried on Friday, January 21 in the family plot at his home village, Little Park, St Elizabeth. The burial will be preceded by a service of thanksgiving at the church where he worshipped, St Peter’s Anglican, at nearby Pedro Cross.

Yesterday, the PNP opened a condolence book in memory of Buchanan at its headquarters at 89 Old Hope Road, Kingston. Members of the public can sign the book between 9:00 am and 5:00 pm.

In his last media interview — an exclusive with the Sunday Observer last November — the former PNP general secretary admitted publicly for the first time that he was suffering from cancer, but vowed to fight it as his father did for 28 years after he too was diagnosed with the disease.

His father was murdered in the same house where the younger Buchanan was born at Little Park in South West St Elizabeth.

“My father is an inspiration to me in terms of this particular illness,” Buchanan said then.

“I know that the Lord decides and determines when he is ready and when he is not, for you. I have been very positive about this entire illness. I don’t let it disturb my mind unduly and unnecessarily. I co-operate fully and completely with the medical team, in terms of what I have to do, but knowing always that it is the Lord’s will. I anticipate that, God’s willing, I will be around for a while,” a then upbeat Buchanan said.

Buchanan was born on September 28, 1942. He attended primary schools at Pedro Plains, Big Woods and Moreland Hill before moving to the Corporate Area where he attended Excelsior High School and later Waulgrove College.

A trade unionist by profession, Buchanan studied at the Trade Union Institute of the University of the West Indies and did follow-up courses at the Front Royal Trade Union Institute at Virginia, United States.

His political life began in 1958 while he attended Excelsior at age 16, as he worked with the PNP’s FLB ‘Slave Boy’ Evans in Western Westmoreland and BB Coke in South East St Elizabeth leading up to the 1959 general election. Evans made a late switch as an independent candidate and lost his seat, while Coke was victorious.

Buchanan later became councillor for the Pedro Plains division in the constituency, serving from 1974 to 1977, deputy mayor of Black River from 1975 to 1976 and MP for South West St Elizabeth on February 9, 1989, the first of four victories, spoilt only by an earlier defeat to his long-time rival but good friend Derrick Sangster of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP). Buchanan went down by 3,020 votes in the 1980 general election, a national landslide for the JLP.

His 1989 victory over Sangster by 1,001 votes, followed a hattrick of triumphs starting in 1993 by 418 votes, 1997 (710) and 2002, a mere 110 votes, which carted Buchanan into the annals of political history as one of the longest serving politicians, until his retirement at the end of the 2007 general election.

He served as minister of state in the local government, youth and community development; information and the public service; public service and the environment; and finance and planning ministries, before assuming full ministerial responsibility for labour and social security, then water and housing, and his last assignment — information and development.

Among the achievements in education that Buchanan once boasted of in his constituency were the completion of 34 basic schools, 13 primary schools, five all-age schools, and two high schools.

The Hounslow water supply and those of Newell/Newcombe Valley and Carter Wood, the delivery of over 5,000 telephone landlines and road improvement, particularly in the areas of Pedro Cross, Treasure Beach, Parottee, Crane Road, Newell, Black River and Brompton, were among the projects he implemented.

In addition to Hugh, Donald Buchanan is survived by his widow Dorothy, a former councillor of the Brompton Division in the St Elizabeth Parish Council, now a sales executive at Toyota Jamaica; five other biological children, one step child, 23 grandchildren and one great grandchild.

The former 39-year veteran of the PNP’s powerful National Executive Council, also served as a PNP member of the then Electoral Advisory Committee, later replaced by the Electoral Commission of Jamaica, on which he sat up to the end of November last year.