Richard?Lord

One of the last wish­es of Ju­liana Cham­bers, wid­ow of for­mer prime min­is­ter George Cham­bers, was for her fu­ner­al ser­vice to be as sim­ple as her life. Cham­bers was cre­mat­ed at the Cinerary, Long Cir­cu­lar Road, St James, yes­ter­day af­ter­noon af­ter a 25-minute pri­vate ser­vice at the chapel at Clark and Bat­too on Tra­garete Road, Port-of-Spain.

Cham­bers col­lapsed and died at her San­ta Mar­gari­ta, St Au­gus­tine, home while prepar­ing to lis­ten to a live broad­cast of a Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment meet­ing in Diego Mar­tin on Thurs­day evening. Among the of fam­i­ly and friends who at­tend­ed the fu­ner­al were Cham­bers' on­ly child An­drea Wil­son, her broth­er Carl Ja­cobs, for­mer ed­i­tor-in-chief of the T&T Guardian, sis­ter Ru­by Reyes, and her niece Lou Ann Moo King.

PNM?of­fi­cials who at­tend­ed in­clud­ed Franklin Khan, Joan Yuille-Williams, Ash­ton Ford, Op­po­si­tion MP Dr Amery Browne, two for­mer at­tor­neys gen­er­al- Rus­sell Mar­tineau and Glen­da More­an-as well as Cham­bers' for­mer co-work­ers from Roy­al Bank. RC priest Fr Gre­go­ry Au­gus­tine told the con­gre­ga­tion that Cham­bers, al­though she was the wife of a prime min­is­ter, chose to lead a sim­ple life. He said her wish was for her fu­ner­al to be as low-key as pos­si­ble, which was "very much re­flec­tive of her be­ing."

He said Cham­bers was a woman of stature and "could eas­i­ly have been of­fered a State fu­ner­al, as the wife of a for­mer prime min­is­ter. But yet she chose a sim­ple gath­er­ing of fam­i­ly and friends, be­cause that is the essence of the woman." He said peo­ple should take ex­am­ple from Cham­bers and live with­out "fan­fare and fuss."

Speak­ing with re­porters af­ter the ser­vice, More­an said Cham­bers was "a sim­ple per­son, down to earth, and she lived and died that way." Khan said Cham­bers was a very ac­tive sup­port­er of the PNM up to her death. Browne said the Cham­bers fam­i­ly "rep­re­sents the best of T&T."

Ja­cobs said she was "a tow­er of moral strength and eco­nom­ic main­stay" for their fam­i­ly. He said his sis­ter "un­der­took this task with the love, hon­esty and loy­al­ty that be­came the hall­marks of her char­ac­ter for the rest of her life."