Gail Alexan­der

The quin­tes­sen­tial in­de­pen­dent par­lia­men­tar­i­an. Out­stand­ing aca­d­e­m­ic. Na­tion-builder.That's how past and present par­lia­men­tar­i­ans paid trib­ute yes­ter­day to for­mer In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Prof John Spence, who died on Wednes­day.Spence, who suf­fered a heart at­tack, was 83, a fam­i­ly spokesman said. His wid­ow and chil­dren were fi­nal­is­ing fu­ner­al arrange­ments yes­ter­day.

A fam­i­ly friend at his home said he had a heart con­di­tion but it was sud­den.He was born in St Vin­cent and mi­grat­ed to Trinidad at age 11, ac­cord­ing to Ni­herst's Caribbean Icons Web site.A for­mer QRC stu­dent, he spe­cialised at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Bris­tol in trop­i­cal agri­cul­ture.Spence was among the first wave of uni­ver­si­ty lec­tur­ers at UWI, St Au­gus­tine, in the 1960s and lat­er head­ed the Fac­ul­ty of Agri­cul­ture. He is cred­it­ed with re­viv­ing the Co­coa Re­search Unit.

A pro­fes­sor of botany, he was a plant pathol­o­gist with Gov­ern­ment and his work has been recog­nised in over 50 agri­cul­tur­al and sci­en­tif­ic pub­li­ca­tions.Spence, a Cha­co­nia Medal (Gold) re­cip­i­ent, served three terms in the third, fourth and fifth re­pub­li­can Par­lia­ments from 1987 to 2000, where he lob­bied Gov­ern­ment to deal with the de­clin­ing agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor.He led the In­de­pen­dent bench­es, par­tic­i­pat­ed in de­bates on over 50 pieces of leg­is­la­tion and was par­tic­u­lar­ly ac­tive on land ac­qui­si­tion and agri­cul­tur­al pol­i­cy is­sues. He served on Par­lia­ment com­mit­tees, in­clud­ing prae­di­al lar­ce­ny and sum­ma­ry of­fences mat­ters.

For­mer In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Daniel Teelucks­ingh, who served with Spence, said:"I am deeply sad­dened by the death of my good friend. The na­tion has lost one of its faith­ful and de­vot­ed ser­vants. He will be im­mor­talised as one of our most bril­liant agri­cul­tur­al sci­en­tists with for­ward-look­ing ideas for any gov­ern­ment on self-suf­fi­cien­cy in food pro­duc­tion and al­ways will­ing to share ad­vice.

"Hope­ful­ly his vi­sion for the restora­tion of our co­coa in­dus­try will be­come a re­al­i­ty. John was al­ways op­ti­mistic in his analy­sis of our ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem and per­sis­tent in his call for on-go­ing re­form at all lev­els of that sec­tor."For­mer In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor East­lyn McKen­zie, said: "We knew he was ail­ing. He had called me once and told me his doc­tors ad­vised him to get lots of rest as his heart was get­ting weak­er but it's still a shock."He was a won­der­ful Sen­ate leader and was one of my men­tors there. I con­sult­ed him on mat­ters even af­ter we had left the Sen­ate. "An­oth­er for­mer In­de­pen­dent col­league, Dr Er­ic St Cyr, said: "John was my dear friend for over 40 years. We worked at UWI to­geth­er, served in the Sen­ate and for some time at ECLAC. He had a good long life and as a sci­en­tist served T&T and the re­gion with ex­cel­lence.

"He was a strong aca­d­e­m­ic and a true na­tion-builder, writ­ing up to the end about na­tion­al is­sues. He had good ideas on agri­cul­tur­al pol­i­cy and was con­cerned how T&T gov­erned it­self."Al­ways lev­el-head­ed, he may have been seen as old school but such char­ac­ter is what T&T needs now. It would be an un­der­state­ment to say his pass­ing is a great loss."

For­mer In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Mary King said: "His death is sad be­cause Dr Spence was still so ac­tive and so in­ter­est­ed in na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment. Up un­til a cou­ple weeks ago we were dis­cussing agri­cul­tur­al mat­ters."For­mer prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day said: "My deep­est con­do­lences to Dr Spence's fam­i­ly. He has made a great con­tri­bu­tion to T&T, serv­ing in sev­er­al ar­eas. He al­ways ex­pressed tremen­dous con­cern for T&T's wel­fare. He was con­cerned about the en­vi­ron­ment, the laws, the agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor and var­i­ous oth­er ar­eas."T&T has lost one of its finest cit­i­zens. He rep­re­sent­ed the prin­ci­ples and val­ues we need. We need peo­ple who are fear­less and will stand by what they be­lieve in, re­gard­less of the con­se­quences or what politi­cians think of them and he was one of those." For­mer PNM min­is­ter Colm Im­bert said: "I knew Prof Spence for over 50 years, since he and my fa­ther were among the first UWI lec­tur­ers."In the 1980s and 1991, when Prof Spence was ap­point­ed an In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor, I was elect­ed as an MP, so it was quite in­ter­est­ing in de­bate when he, on the oth­er side, was one of my fa­ther's friends."

More Trib­utes

Cit­i­zens need to em­u­late the ways of Pro­fes­sor Emer­i­tus John Spence. That was the view of the Gov­ern­ment as well as Spence's col­leagues at UWI.Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Min­is­ter Ja­mal Mo­hammed said: "We are deeply sad­dened at the loss of a true pa­tri­ot who was T&T's most fore­most agri­cul­tur­al­ist and whose work has in­spired many peo­ple now in­volved in the sec­tor."

"He was a re­spect­ed and ar­tic­u­late In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor with con­tri­bu­tions al­ways filled with knowl­edge. Prof Spence had in­tegri­ty and was a true gen­tle­man and man of his word. T&T would do well to em­u­late him and take a page from his book of life, " he added.

Plan­ning Min­is­ter Bhoe Tewarie, who worked with Spence while both served at UWI, said: "My con­do­lences to his wife and sons, Richard and Mal­com. Dr Spence was a gen­uine pa­tri­ot with a deep com­mit­ment to T&T and pas­sion for his true love–agri­cul­ture and food se­cu­ri­ty for the re­gion as well as T&T.UWI prin­ci­pal Prof Clem Sankat said Spence's death was a great loss for T&T.

He added: "We don't have ad­vo­cates like him in agri­cul­ture and food se­cu­ri­ty and I wish we had more. He was pas­sion­ate about get­ting things done."He was a fine gen­tle­man and thought­ful in­di­vid­ual, con­cerned with the is­sues of the day, a pas­sion­ate ad­vo­cate for agri­cul­ture and some­one who served very well at UWI and for a long time, pro­vid­ing lead­er­ship, in­clud­ing for the Fac­ul­ty of Agri­cul­ture and the Co­coa Re­search Unit."