Mas­man Wayne Berke­ley passed away at 7.35 pm last night at his Clif­ford Street, Bel­mont, home.

Berke­ley, 70, suf­fered a stroke to his right side two weeks ago and was tak­en to the St Clair Med­ical Clin­ic. He was dis­charged six days ago. Ac­cord­ing to his broth­er, Os­wald, his con­di­tion was not im­prov­ing. As a re­sult, Os­wald who lives in Hamil­ton, On­tario, flew in on Mon­day to be with him. Berke­ley is sur­vived by two oth­er broth­ers-Clae­tus who lives in Ch­agua­nas, and El­don, who al­so lives next door at Clif­ford Street. Fu­ner­al arrange­ments are ten­ta­tive­ly set for Tues­day. In 2000 Berke­ley al­so suf­fered a stroke on his right side (his "writ­ing/draw­ing" side).

Berke­ley won nine Band of the Year ti­tles and pro­duced 18 mas bands. In 1974 he was award­ed the Hum­ming Bird Gold Medal for his con­tri­bu­tion to the de­vel­op­ment of Car­ni­val. Berke­ley first at­tract­ed na­tion­al at­ten­tion in 1965 when he de­signed the cos­tume for the win­ner of the then Jaycee's Car­ni­val Queen con­test. It was in 1973, as leader of a large band, he burst on­to the scene with the first of his nine win­ning Band of the Year pro­duc­tions, "Se­crets of the Sky" (along with Bob­by Am­mon). His oth­er eight win­ning pro­duc­tions-from a to­tal of 18 bands, span­ning 1973 to 1997, were in 1974, 1980, then six con­sec­u­tive vic­to­ries from 1989 to 1994, sur­pass­ing George Bai­ley's beaver trick from 1959-1963. He placed sec­ond on five oc­ca­sions and third on three. In 1998, he de­signed yet an­oth­er win­ner "Ama­ranth-The Se­cret Gar­den", this time for band­leader Earl Pat­ter­son.