Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

The late Prof Rex Net­tle­ford rep­re­sent­ed Car­ni­val and so, his fu­ner­al will be held on Car­ni­val Tues­day.

Ac­cord­ing to mu­si­col­o­gist Pat Bish­op, Car­ni­val would be well spent by cel­e­brat­ing his life on Feb­ru­ary 16. Bish­op said that dur­ing her ad­dress to mem­bers of the me­dia dur­ing a lun­cheon, host­ed by the Me­dia As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T, at the La Bou­can, Hilton, yes­ter­day. She said: "Just be­fore I came I got a call from Sir Shri­dath Ram­phal who said some­body in Trinidad has to take note of the fact that Rex Net­tle­ford's fu­ner­al is on Car­ni­val Tues­day. This last lap is for Rex." She added: "Rex, for all that he was a Ja­maican, was a West In­di­an and he un­der­stood in the way that very few of us do, that mem­o­ry, hu­man mem­o­ry has no delete but­ton.

"We can­not for­get even if we didn't re­al­ly know that we stand up­on the shoul­ders of oth­er peo­ple's cul­tures." Prof Net­tle­ford died on last week Tues­day at 8 pm, hours short of his 77th birth­day. He was the for­mer Vice Chan­cel­lor at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus. Jok­ing­ly hes­i­tat­ing to say ex­act­ly when she first met Prof Net­tle­ford be­cause she would re­veal her age, Bish­op de­scribed him as ex­tra­or­di­nar­i­ly glam­orous. She said: "He was ar­tic­u­late and he ran the Na­tion­al Dance The­atre Com­pa­ny of Ja­maica." Bish­op said what Prof Net­tle­ford was about "was pre­cise­ly what Car­ni­val was about."

She said: "He was about span­ning mil­len­nia, span­ning cul­tures, mak­ing re­la­tion­ships and most cru­cial­ly, ac­knowl­edg­ing them." Bish­op said un­like those who were afraid to speak their minds for fear of los­ing their jobs, Prof Net­tle­ford did. "He spoke out for a Caribbean that was part of a world which was part of a plan­et of which we were mere­ly oc­cu­pants. "And that if there­fore, this is Car­ni­val and his fu­ner­al has to take place on the last lap on Tues­day, then I feel that Car­ni­val will not have been bad­ly spent."

?Re­spons­es

?UWI Alum­ni

A re­lease from the UWI Alum­ni As­so­ci­a­tion yes­ter­day ex­pressed con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly and friends of the Caribbean cul­tur­al icon.

"The Alum­ni As­so­ci­a­tion is sad­dened by the loss of our men­tor and friend of many years, but al­so paus­es to cel­e­brate the life that brought so much joy and en­light­en­ment to the uni­ver­si­ty com­mu­ni­ty."

The re­lease added that Prof Net­tle­ford was in the Unit­ed States on alum­ni busi­ness at the time of his death.

It said: "His abil­i­ty to con­nect with the wider West In­di­an di­as­po­ra will be great­ly missed."

?Prof Clement Sankat

UWI St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus prin­ci­pal Prof Clement Sankat, in a brief tele­phone yes­ter­day said the fu­ner­al would be held at the chapel on the UWI Mona Cam­pus at 10 am.

Prof Sankat said: "It will be a small, se­lec­tive fu­ner­al as Prof Net­tle­ford didn't want any­thing grand or elab­o­rate."

He said, how­ev­er, his un­der­stand­ing was that Prof Net­tle­ford had al­ready been cre­mat­ed in the Unit­ed States where he suc­cumbed to car­diac ar­rest.

"I don't know when his cre­ma­tion took place. That was a pri­vate thing with his fam­i­ly."

Prof Sankat said the fu­ner­al next Tues­day re­lat­ed on­ly to a cel­e­bra­tion of Prof Net­tle­ford's life and that the Ja­maican Gov­ern­ment would al­so do some­thing to pay trib­ute to the in­tel­lec­tu­al.