Joshua Sur­tees

Isidore Smart, the for­mer chief state so­lic­i­tor, died at home on Mon­day, aged 96.

Born on Feb­ru­ary 20, 1917, he was old­er than the T&T Guardian, the first edi­tion of which was pub­lished on Sep­tem­ber 2 that year, when Smart was six months old. His no­table peers in­clud­ed Ul­ric Cross, who died ear­li­er this year. They were born in the same year and both at­tend­ed St Mary's Col­lege. In the year be­low them was Sir El­lis Clarke, a friend of Smart's, who went on to be first pres­i­dent of T&T fol­low­ing the cre­ation of the T&T?re­pub­lic in 1976. Smart had 12 chil­dren, one of whom, his el­dest daugh­ter, Ca­r­ole, moved home to take care of him af­ter the death of his wife 25 years ago. Her sis­ter, Mar­guerite, al­so re­tired from her job lat­er and helped care for their fa­ther.

One of his sons, for­mer At­tor­ney Gen­er­al An­tho­ny Smart, spoke to the T&T Guardian about his life and lega­cy on Mon­day af­ter his fa­ther passed away at 1.50 am that morn­ing. Smart died at home in bed, where the fam­i­ly had set up his bed­room to sim­u­late a hos­pi­tal room, com­plete with bed, feed­ing tube, oxy­gen and round-the-clock care. He had been dis­charged from West Shore Med­ical a week be­fore so the fam­i­ly could have him close and re­spect his wish to die in his own home. He had been di­ag­nosed with prostate can­cer some years be­fore but took reg­u­lar in­jec­tions to keep it un­der con­trol and lived with­out pain, ac­cord­ing to An­tho­ny. For a year he had been un­able to walk but still was aware of his sur­round­ings un­til a month be­fore he died.

Put to him that his fa­ther had a good in­nings, An­tho­ny said: "Yes, you could say that. He bat­ted well." Born in Bel­mont, Isidore Smart spent most of his life there, even­tu­al­ly leav­ing in 1973 to move to West­moor­ings. "He was an in­sti­tu­tion in Bel­mont," his son said. "Every­body knew where he lived. He would sit in his gallery. "Bel­mont was not a well-to-do place but a very strong com­mu­ni­ty. Peo­ple would come to see him and he would dis­pense (le­gal) ad­vice from his gallery," he added. Smart's epoch-span­ning ca­reer in law be­gan at a very young age, straight out of school. In the old sys­tem, trainee so­lic­i­tors will un­der­go a pe­ri­od of ar­ti­cles of clerk­ship, un­der a prac­tis­ing so­lic­i­tor and write ex­ams set in Eng­land by the Col­lege of Law.

Af­ter train­ing at EGV Kel­ly and Co he passed his ex­ams and was ad­mit­ted to prac­tise in 1942. On qual­i­fy­ing, he es­tab­lished the firm, Wil­son & Smart, and was joined by his fa­ther (An­tho­ny Smart's grand­fa­ther), who had been a ven­er­a­ble court clerk. In 1943 the first of a dozen chil­dren, Ken­wyn, was born. The sec­ond, Ian, is now pro­fes­sor of Span­ish at Howard Uni­ver­si­ty in the US. Ca­r­ole, the third el­dest, re­tired from her job as di­rec­tor of the Town and Coun­try Plan­ning Di­vi­sion, as Smart puts it, to "de­vote her life to our fa­ther." Then came An­tho­ny Smart and his broth­er. Wayne, al­so a lawyer and for­mer chair­man of Recog­ni­tion and Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion Board at the In­dus­tri­al Court. Sev­en more fol­lowed: Mar­guerite, Bri­an, Maria, Al­i­son, Jan­ice, An­drea and Bev­er­ly. All 12 com­plet­ed ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion and all have ex­celled in some way in their cho­sen fields.

All the sons car­ry "Isidore" as their mid­dle name. All of the chil­dren, ex­cept the last, were born at home to Isidore's wife, Myr­le, a pri­ma­ry school­teacher who es­tab­lished her own pri­vate school. The same mid­wife de­liv­ered the ba­bies. Smart re­calls her turn­ing up "in a black car with a black brief­case... a Hum­ber Hawk, I think. When my youngest sis­ter was born, I was 11. With­in an hour of her birth I was hold­ing her." As well as their own chil­dren, the Smarts al­so took in cousins and oth­er chil­dren to live un­der their roof at the eight-bed­room house in Bel­mont. "When the chil­dren came along," An­tho­ny?Smart says, "our fa­ther be­came con­cerned about what would hap­pen to us if he died so he joined the pub­lic ser­vice."

In the event of his sud­den death or in­jury, the fam­i­ly's fi­nan­cial se­cu­ri­ty would be guar­an­teed by his life in­sur­ance and pen­sion. Ini­tial­ly crown so­lic­i­tor, he lat­er be­came chief state so­lic­i­tor in 1965, a few years af­ter in­de­pen­dence. Smart re­mained in the pub­lic ser­vice un­til 1976 when he re­tired and be­came a se­nior part­ner and con­sul­tant with the firm, Git­tens, Smart & Co, which com­prised his sons Wayne and An­tho­ny Smart and re­al es­tate de­vel­op­er and so­lic­i­tor Li­onel Git­tens. Smart con­tin­ued to prac­tise law un­til the age of 90. The part­ner­ship ex­ists to this day and Wayne and An­tho­ny still work for the firm. In 1977, Smart re­ceived the Medal of Mer­it (Gold) for pub­lic ser­vice. "What was in­ter­est­ing about him," says Smart Jr, "was that dur­ing the ad­vent of the PNM, when many pub­lic ser­vants went in­to pol­i­tics, he nev­er did. And he nev­er showed his hand, which was the com­mon thing to do and which in a sense con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed the pub­lic ser­vice. No­body ever knew which po­lit­i­cal par­ty he sup­port­ed."

As well as be­ing a se­ri­ous ca­reer man, the late Smart was a re­li­gious man, a Catholic and mem­ber of the St Vin­cent de Paul So­ci­ety and lat­er a mem­ber of Opus Dei. The whole fam­i­ly would en­deav­our to at­tend St Fran­cis Church, Bel­mont, on Sun­days. Smart says of his fa­ther: "The essence of the man was his com­mit­ment to fam­i­ly and the rear­ing of chil­dren. In view of what is hap­pen­ing to­day with chil­dren in our so­ci­ety, it's a lega­cy peo­ple could do well to fol­low." Isidore Smart's fu­ner­al will take place at St Fin­bar's RC Church, Diego Mar­tin, on De­cem­ber 9 and he will be buried at the fam­i­ly plot in the Lapey­rouse Ceme­tery.