Dear Editor,

Jamaica and the People’s National Party have lost another political stalwart and representative of the people in the passing of former MP for Western St Andrew and Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives Onel Theobalds Williams.

OT, as he was affectionately called, cut the posture of an urbane gentleman with a great sense of style. He found favour with many in and outside political circles because of the courage of his decisions, lack of self-doubt, clarity of conviction where public issues affecting his constituents were concerned, and because he never quite learnt the trick of hiding his soul as a politician.

The OT Williams I knew came from a generation of urban politicians with their roots in the PNP who helped define the strength and purpose of the party in inner-city Kingston. Personalities like the late Bobby Jones, Arthur Jones, Ralph Brown, Minna Wilmott, Dr Wykeham McNeil, AJ Nicholson, DK Duncan and Opposition Leader Portia Simpson Miller, readily come to mind. Like OT, they proceeded in various ways through representational politics to counsel an entire generation that there was room for intelligence and idealism in public life and that politics was not just a way to live but a way to live unselfishly.

OT was blessed with gentleness, sensibility, and a love that in unseen ways was felt by thousands. Above all, he could laugh and be cynical. Were he to read these words, he would joke about them, and he would deride this writing with soft self-deprecation.

As I bid him farewell, I shall miss his wonderful sense of humour, urbanity and capriciousness. I hope that our judgement of him will echo Shakespeare’s own when the new king stands beside Hamlet’s body, saying:

Let four captains

Bear Hamlet like a soldier to the stage,

For he was likely, had he been put on,

To have proved most royally…

Everton Pryce

lxpryc@yahoo.com