In an edition of the Umbrella magazine of 1967, the Reverend O J Thorbourne was listed as one of the honorees for the 25th anniversary of the Jamaica Co-operative Credit Union League. On reading that magazine in 1967, as a teenager, I first became aware of O J Thorbourne. My late father, K C Burke, was also one of the honorees on that occasion, and I read the magazine when he returned from the function.

I was surprised to know that O J Thorbourne was the guardian of a classmate at Jamaica College (JC). On one rainy afternoon in October 1967 he rescued his son and myself by picking us up, soaking wet, in his Morris Oxford motor car at the bus stop opposite JC. I recognised him from a photograph in the Umbrella magazine, and he in turn told me that he knew my father, my mother and my aunt.

The Reverend O J Thorbourne, a Methodist minister of religion, died two weeks ago and will be buried next Thursday. He was a pioneer in the GSB Clerks Credit Union founded by D V ‘Gerry’ Smith. He later founded Kingston Moravian Credit Union, which evolved into Churches Credit Union. He would later convert to the Methodist Church.

There is a line from Calypso Cha-Cha that fits the Reverend Ossie Thorbourne: “When first I heard the cha-cha/It thrilled me to the bone/And I thought that sweet Jamaica/Should have a cha-cha for its own.”

In the early years of credit unions, most of them were Roman Catholic credit unions. Thorbourne evidently felt that the Moravian Church should have a credit union of its own. The common bond of Kingston Moravian Credit Union was eventually extended to Lyndhurst Methodist and All Saints Anglican churches. Then it was extended to all churches; so the name was changed to Churches Credit Union. On August 1, 2012, Churches Credit Union merged with GSB Credit Union to become First Heritage Credit Union.

Actually, O J Thorbourne did not like the new name, but he went along with it as it was democratically chosen. The rationale for the new name was that it came into being on Emancipation Day. I was one of the last directors of Churches Credit Union before the merger. Between 1989 and 1993 I had been a director of GSB.

My own wish was that the name of the merged entity would be Families Co-operative Credit Union, but someone added “Families United” to the proposal. We abandoned the idea when one director (now deceased) wrote out the initials and acronym for Families United Co-operative Credit Union and we all agreed that voicing the acronym would be a problem in polite company.

Thorbourne served as president of the Jamaica Co-operative Credit Union League and he was the president of the National Union of Co-operative Societies. One has to understand the setting in the Jamaican society at the time of the founding of the first credit unions. In the period 1935 to 1950, a new spirit of nationalism was at its peak.

The National Reform Society was founded in 1935 to push for self-government. This would evolve into the People’s National Party in 1938. At the same time, in 1935, Alexander Bustamante was writing letters to the media about conditions in the country. By 1938 he would found the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union.

In the 1930s, there was the decline of the banana industry due to a fruit disease. Norman Manley, who was the lawyer for the Jamaica Banana Producers Co-operative, worked out a solution with the United Fruit Company to stem the rural urban-drift caused by the decline in bananas. This is how Jamaica Welfare (now Social Development Commission) was established as a special endowment fund to develop the rural areas in 1937.

In 1941 the Young Men’s Sodality of Holy Trinity Roman Catholic Cathedral established a credit union. In 1942, the Jamaica Co-operative Credit Union league was established. Also in 1942 the Council of Voluntary Social Services (CVSS) was established. All of these activities were forerunners to the genesis of universal adult suffrage and self-government in 1944. It was born out of a spirit of nationalism of which credit unions were a part.

By 1946 only some Roman Catholic churches and the Kingston Clerks Credit Union (the first to be registered) had credit unions. So the GSB clerks, led by D V “Gerry” Smith, formed a credit union in 1946 and O J Thorbourne was one of its foundation members.

Ossie Thorbourne was a serious credit unionist. Even when his son Paul was president of Churches Credit Union, he would question just about everything from the floor of the annual general meeting. As a floor member of Churches, I was highly amused at his scrutiny of everything and his demands as a member from the floor — even when his son was president.

In a personal way I remember Reverend Thorbourne because of his moral support. And when many of the ultra-conservatives were against me for being outspoken at meetings, Thorbourne always supported me. He would greet me, with a big grin on his face, saying: “Hi, Michael, I hear you are raising hell.”

Indeed, the amazing thing is that many of the credit union pioneers always supported me in all of my complaints that we have moved away from the original principles of credit unions. Many of them supported me whenever I raised objections or proposed new ideas.

I think of Reynauld Mason, a former president of the GSB Credit Union, who nominated me from the floor of the GSB Credit Union in 1989. I had many discussions with the late Paul Thompson, the first president of Sodality and second president of GSB Credit Union. And I had many discussions with most of the pioneers of Sodality who always encouraged me when newer persons to the movement did not.

One of the things that I would like to see return is a greater amount of credit union education for the members. Most credit union members do not know that they own the credit unions. And this is another matter in which the late Reverend O J Thorbourne agreed with me. May his soul rest in peace.

ekrubm765@yahoo.com