Yvonne Webb

For­mer San Fer­nan­do May­or, Ian Ather­ly, cel­e­brat­ed his 57th birth­day and his ap­point­ment as chair­man of Plipde­co with se­lect­ed friends at City Hall, San Fer­nan­do, on Ju­ly 16.

Ather­ly spelled out that his guests were the ones who stood with him through the rough years, af­ter his tenure as may­or of San Fer­nan­do end­ed pre­ma­ture­ly.

"I want to pub­licly thank you for your love and con­cern," Ather­ly told his guests, among them Sen­a­tor Pen­ny Beck­les-Robin­son and her hus­band, Noel, for­mer com­mis­sion­er of po­lice now TSTT chair­man, Ever­ald Snag­gs and his wife Gwen­dolyn, Mag­is­trate Lu­ci­na Car­de­nas-Ra­goo­nanan and hus­band Har­ry, and Plipde­co pres­i­dent Ash­ley Tay­lor.

The night was full of pi­cong and laugh­ter, which was start­ed by Ather­ly's wife Marie Louise, when she dis­closed the growth of her hus­band, ex­cept in cer­tain ar­eas.

Ather­ly is a for­mer sup­port­er of the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), who has now pledged sup­port for the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment, and sup­port­ers from both sides of the di­vide were present, so pol­i­tics was up­per­most on every­one's minds.

It was no sur­prise, there­fore, when Ather­ly's sis­ter Karen, dressed in a yel­low dress and red shoes, prompt­ed po­lit­i­cal com­men­tary from Mas­ter of Cer­e­monies Ter­rence Beepath, as he in­vit­ed her to bring greet­ings.

"I no­tice the yel­low (colour of the UNC) on top and red (PNM's colour) on the bot­tom, but we will rise," Beepath, a mem­ber of the PNM, said to rous­ing laugh­ter.

"The colour of my dress is no re­flec­tion of my po­lit­i­cal per­sua­sion," Karen re­tort­ed, as she wished her broth­er suc­cess in his un­der­tak­ing.

Ather­ly's for­mer boss at Cli­co, Claude Mosahib Ali, de­scribed him as a love­able ras­cal, who al­ways got in­to mis­chief which they had to re­solve.

Nev­er­the­less, Mosahib Ali added, he was a good pro­duc­er, hard work­er, good man­ag­er and ex­pressed lit­tle doubt that he would ap­ply that same pas­sion in his chair­man­ship.

Ather­ly's long-stand­ing friend, Dr Tony Elias, said he had lots of sto­ries to tell, but opt­ed in­stead to thank those who had giv­en Ather­ly the op­por­tu­ni­ty to serve his coun­try once more.

Sen­a­tor Beck­les al­so joined in cel­e­brat­ing the two mile­stones. Beck­les said she was there, like so many oth­ers, be­cause she was his friend.

"We are your friends and we un­der­stand that life does not al­ways deal the cards you wish, but cer­tain­ly if you are dealt those cards you play them to the best of your abil­i­ty.

"As you go in­to your new job as chair­man we wish you all the best in your un­der­tak­ing, do it to the best of your abil­i­ty and be as­sured that you have our sup­port."