Even in death, An­ge­lo Bisses­sars­ingh made his­to­ry. He was the longest sur­viv­ing pan­cre­at­ic can­cer pa­tient.

At his fu­ner­al yes­ter­day, his aunt Prof Dr Ann Marie Bisses­sar ap­peal­ing to the au­thor­i­ties to do more to help can­cer pa­tients.

An­ge­lo, 34, died at his Siparia home on Thurs­day morn­ing af­ter a two year bat­tle with pan­cre­at­ic can­cer. He was di­ag­nosed in 2015 with stage four ter­mi­nal pan­cre­at­ic can­cer but con­tin­ued his work as a his­to­ri­an de­spite his ill­ness.

Bisses­sar, dean of the Fac­ul­ty of So­cial Sci­ences at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI), said on many oc­ca­sions An­ge­lo was turned away from the on­col­o­gy cen­tre at St James be­cause there was no med­ica­tion avail­able.

"An­ge­lo was an amaz­ing per­son. He stood not on­ly for his­to­ry but he was al­so an ad­vo­cate for can­cer pa­tients," she said. "For the last two years, when we found out An­ge­lo had can­cer, we used to go every Mon­day to the can­cer cen­tre and he had trans­formed that can­cer cen­tre, he would go in, peo­ple would come with books and An­ge­lo was like this con­sum­mate per­son, sign­ing books for peo­ple.

"Un­for­tu­nate­ly, I think the med­ical ser­vices failed An­ge­lo and failed him dread­ful­ly. Many times when we went there it was to be turned back be­cause there was no med­i­cine, the chemo did not come. There were times the chemo did not come for months and we there­fore we had to source it in­de­pen­dent­ly and fi­nan­cial­ly. A lot of peo­ple that he knew as friends died be­cause of that."

Bisses­sar said t120 new cas­es reg­is­tered every Mon­day at the cen­tre.

"I hope for two things, that his books get in­to the schools and sec­ond­ly that the can­cer cen­tre gets up­grad­ed. The re­sources in term of hu­man re­sources are fan­tas­tic, the prob­lem is it needs as­sis­tance in terms of mon­ey.

An­ge­lo's fa­ther, Rudolph Bisses­sars­ingh, called for a preser­va­tion fund for his­to­ry to be start­ed in his son's name.

"In his death, there must be po­lit­i­cal ac­tion, not po­lit­i­cal will, to ded­i­cate a fund in An­ge­lo's name for the preser­va­tion of our her­itage," he said.

"An­ge­lo pos­sessed a gift where­by he told the sto­ry of our na­tion, a sto­ry of di­verse peo­ple and cul­ture brought to­geth­er by ac­ci­dent, brought by the sug­ar cane. He taught us to love our­selves and pro­tect each oth­er and if we want to pre­serve his lega­cy we must put in place funds to pre­serve our her­itage," he said

Among those pay­ing trib­ute to the late his­to­ri­an was Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Kaz­im Ho­sein who said if it was up to him, there would be a mu­se­um named af­ter An­ge­lo in San Fer­nan­do.

"I am no longer the May­or of San Fer­nan­do but if it were up to me I would take that li­brary we have stand­ing emp­ty and turn it in­to a mu­se­um named af­ter An­ge­lo," Ho­sein said.

He went told An­ge­lo's fam­i­ly that Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley had promised to en­sure that the his­to­ri­an's lega­cy lives on.

Pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Car­mona added his voice the call for An­ge­lo's books to be in­clud­ed in the school's syl­labus.

"I have been qui­et­ly pur­chas­ing scores of his books and hand­ing them out to school chil­dren and dig­ni­taries," he said.

Re­call­ing An­ge­lo's abil­i­ty to bring joy to oth­ers, Car­mona said: "With that cheru­bic smile that could light up any room, we will nev­er for­get the pow­er of one to change the per­spec­tive of a na­tion."

In ad­di­tion to be­ing award­ed the Hum­ming­bird Gold Medal last year, An­ge­lo was al­so pre­sent­ed with the keys to the city of San Fer­nan­do by then May­or Kaz­im Ho­sein.

His books, Walk­ing with the An­ces­tors–The His­toric Ceme­ter­ies of Trinidad, pub­lished in 2013; Snap­shots of the His­to­ry of Trinidad and To­ba­go, Vir­tu­al Glimpses in­to the Past; and Pan­cho's Dilem­ma, all pub­lished in 2016, have earned him many ac­co­lades.

His lat­est book, Wood­land Shad­ows, is ex­pect­ed to be pub­lished in the com­ing months.