Resh­ma Ra­goonath

For­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning spent his third day back home "lim­ing." So said his wife, Hazel, dur­ing a brief tele­phone in­ter­view with the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day at their Sumadh Gar­dens, Vista­bel­la home. On Tues­day, Man­ning, 66, re­turned from Mary­land, USA where he was re­ceiv­ing treat­ment af­ter suf­fer­ing a stroke in Feb­ru­ary.

The San Fer­nan­do East?MP who spent the last six months re­cu­per­at­ing was mobbed by sup­port­ers on his re­turn at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al?Air­port. Since his re­turn on Tues­day, Man­ning has kept to him­self. He has not been seen in pub­lic and his fam­i­ly have de­clined to speak to the me­dia.

Yes­ter­day when the T&T?Guardian con­tact­ed the Man­nings' home, Mrs Man­ning an­swered. She said her hus­band was not avail­able to come to the tele­phone. "He's not here. He is lim­ing. He is not home," she quipped. The for­mer ed­u­ca­tion min­is­ter sound­ed cheer­ful on the tele­phone but she de­clined to state where Man­ning was or what time he would be re­turn­ing home. "You are wel­come to call back," she said.

On Au­gust 17 Man­ning will mark his 67th birth­day. It is ex­pect­ed that a cel­e­bra­tion will be held in his ho­n­our at his Cof­fee Street, San Fer­nan­do con­stituen­cy of­fice. Yes­ter­day, Wendy Lewis, the San?Fer­nan­do East MP's Pro­to­col Of­fi­cer, al­so de­clined to com­ment on Man­ning's con­di­tion or his plan.

San Fer­nan­do may­or Dr Navi Mu­radali, speak­ing with re­porters af­ter the swear­ing-in of two al­der­men at San Fer­nan­do?City Hall, wel­comed Man­ning's re­turn. "Yes­ter­day (Thurs­day) I met with the Op­po­si­tion Leader and I did in­di­cate that I would like to meet with the San Fer­nan­do East MP, Patrick?Man­ning. I know that he is still re­cov­er­ing and that when I am ready and he is ready my doors are al­ways open to the Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for San Fer­nan­do East. I wish him a speedy re­cov­ery and I cer­tain­ly want to work with him so that we can strength­en San?Fer­nan­do," he added.

Pleas­antville coun­cil­lor Robert?Par­ris said he was elat­ed to have Man­ning home. He said he went to the air­port to wel­come the for­mer Prime Min­is­ter and was al­most moved to tears of joy to see him up and about. "I knew how well he was do­ing but, to ac­tu­al­ly see him walk out that day was amaz­ing. Tears al­most came to my eyes to see Mr Man­ning, one of my men­tors walk out like that, was some­thing touch­ing. It touched my heart. I called him yes­ter­day (Thurs­day) but, did not get through. I will go and see him," he said.