Af­ter re­fus­ing the To­ba­go Medal of Ho­n­our (Gold) while he was alive, Ho­choy Charles was award­ed it posthu­mous­ly for his ser­vice and con­tri­bu­tion to the de­vel­op­ment of To­ba­go.

Dur­ing his fu­ner­al ser­vice at the Shaw Park Cul­tur­al Com­plex yes­ter­day, cur­rent Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine told the con­gre­ga­tion that the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) had made sev­er­al at­tempts to pub­licly ho­n­our Charles while he was alive but he re­fused.

In his ad­dress, Au­gus­tine said, “To­ba­go is yet to re­ceive its au­ton­o­my in the way and form that he (Charles) want­ed it, and so he did not want to be award­ed. But Charles was a man of faith, and so my last du­ty here is an act of faith.

“I have the dis­tin­guished priv­i­lege to present to his wife and fam­i­ly, in the pres­ence of the Pres­i­dent and the Chief Jus­tice, the To­ba­go Medal of Ho­n­our.”

In tears, Charles’ wife Eka Frank-Charles, sup­port­ed by rel­a­tives, ac­cept­ed the award.

Au­gus­tine thanked Charles’ fam­i­ly for sup­port­ing him in his fight for greater au­ton­o­my and self-gov­er­nance for To­ba­go.

Au­gus­tine said he felt it was im­por­tant for Charles to be ho­n­oured while he was still alive but ac­cept­ed he could not con­vince him to ac­cept the award.

“I am aware Charles doesn’t like be­ing ho­n­oured. In fact, I threat­ened him and told him, ‘Every year, as long as you are alive, we are call­ing you to come and col­lect this medal, and we are leav­ing it in a safe just for you, so when you’re ready for it, you will have it.’”

How­ev­er, he said Charles didn’t be­lieve he should be ho­n­oured for a task he had start­ed and not com­plet­ed. “Every year, with­out fail, he would say ‘not this year.’ His ex­cuse was we need­ed to get in­ter­nal self-gov­ern­ment first, and then I would con­sid­er.”

Au­gus­tine said he had even planned to pin the medal on Charles while he was hos­pi­talised.

“I said I would try my luck there. His son said he would be up­set about that. And so, we kept the medal. And so, there are some ways we must ho­n­our Mr Charles.”

He said the THA Ex­ec­u­tive has al­ready de­cid­ed on and ap­proved the re­nam­ing of the Of­fice of the Chief Sec­re­tary at the Calder Hall Ad­min­is­tra­tive Com­plex to the Ho­choy Charles Ad­min­is­tra­tive Com­plex. He said the as­sem­bly will al­so es­tab­lish a li­brary to pre­serve Charles’ work.

“We want to keep all of his doc­u­ments so that there will be pos­ter­i­ty. We can con­tin­ue to ben­e­fit from his wealth of knowl­edge.”

In Sep­tem­ber, res­i­dents of Old Ground Branch Trace, Gold­en Lane, led by their rep­re­sen­ta­tive Zor­isha Hack­ett, re­named the street he lived on af­ter him to Ho­choy Charles Heights. This was done in recog­ni­tion of his con­tri­bu­tions to the is­land’s pol­i­tics and au­ton­o­my ef­forts.

Ini­tial­ly, Au­gus­tine said Charles was not in favour of this move. When he fi­nal­ly agreed, Au­gus­tine said he did not want a com­mis­sion­ing cer­e­mo­ny and so the re­nam­ing was done with­out pub­lic fan­fare.

“I did not ask for his per­mis­sion, I said when he dri­ves down the street, he would see the sign, ‘ ste­ups’ and com­plain. Charles did not get every­thing right but alas, the one thing he got right is that To­ba­go must get its au­ton­o­my,” he said.

“He did not shy away from con­tro­ver­sies nor the cour­t­house. What Charles want­ed was for To­bag­o­ni­ans to not see the THA as a small in­sti­tu­tion but as a le­git­i­mate in­sti­tu­tion for the gov­ern­ment of the is­land.”

In 1996, Charles be­came To­ba­go’s first chief sec­re­tary as the po­lit­i­cal leader of the To­ba­go arm of the Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion (NAR), where he took charge of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly.

Four years lat­er, the PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil de­feat­ed Charles and his team. He served as a Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tor and Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary dur­ing the 3rd Re­pub­li­can Par­lia­ment as a Mem­ber of the NAR be­tween 1988 and 1991. Years lat­er, Charles formed a par­ty called the Plat­form of Truth.

He was large­ly re­gard­ed as one of the main ar­chi­tects of the THA Act and was said to have a thor­ough knowl­edge of gov­ern­ing the is­land and its re­la­tion­ship with the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment in­side and out.

When Charles was ill, the THA set up a room for his hos­pice care. This room will now be main­tained for fu­ture hos­pice care in his ho­n­our, Au­gus­tine re­vealed.

Au­gus­tine said his ex­ec­u­tive will al­so en­sure that Charles’ lega­cy lives on and his sto­ry is told to gen­er­a­tions to come.