LONG before the 1:00 pm start, the Greendale United Church, St Catherine, was filled with family members and friends to bid their final farewell to the late Carlyle Ernest Benjamin (CEB) Gordon who died on May 1.

Gordon was 96 years old at the time of his death. He was born in Ewarton, St Catherine, and grew up in Mountainside near the Worthy Park Sugar Estate, Lluidas Vale, in the same parish.

Despite his ambition to become an engineer, he worked as a cane cutter for a short period.

Gordon was later apprenticed to a tailor and became skilled in cutting and sewing shirts and trousers. He also learned carpentry and became skilled at building furniture.

During the years of learning trades his teachers encouraged him to pursue further studies.

He went overseas and completed several courses. He was successful in those and then applied to the Kingston Technical School (as it then was) and was accepted for evening classes.

He was employed at Stresscrete (later known as Caribbean Construction Company) in Rockfort, Kingston. This company made and erected pre-stressed concrete structures to support buildings. Although he was employed as a junior engineering draughtsman, he was told that he had to be broken in with manual labour before assuming appointment in the drawing office.

So he took shovel and wheel barrow to transport broken stones to make the beams and columns. He was not good at it and so the other men laughed at him and called him ‘College Labourer’. He had muscle pains for days.

After he was fully “broken in”, he worked in the labour office for a week and then, finally, was placed in the drawing office. He had arrived as a professional worker.

While employed in several firms over the years, Gordon was instrumental to the construction of many recognisable projects islandwide.

Although he delivered yeoman service otherwise, it was as an entrepreneur and businessman that he found a real calling.

During the 1950s he employed his sewing skills to make and sell caps and uniforms used by many organisations.

After working a number of years as manager with Allied Hardware & Electrical Supplies Ltd on Molynes Road in St Andrew, Gordon was able to partner with a colleague to purchase the business in the mid-1970s.

He later procured the entire shares in the business and renamed it Gordon Electrics & Commodity Ltd, which exists to this day. He worked there until October 2014 when he became ill.

He and Ver, his lifelong partner, also established and operated for some 10 years the Eat ‘N’ Fill restaurant at the corner of Olympic Way and White Wing Avenue, St Andrew.

– Racquel Porter