As for­mer min­is­ter of in­te­grat­ed plan­ning and de­vel­op­ment John Humphrey said his good­byes to his friend of over 50 years, for­mer prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day, he sent him off with a spe­cial re­quest.“Rest in peace, my friend, and please give He­len my love,” Humphrey said in a pre-record­ed mes­sage played at Pan­day’s fu­ner­al at the South­ern Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts yes­ter­day.

Humphrey mourned the death of his wife, He­len, a for­mer Queen of Car­ni­val, in Jan­u­ary 2023. A year lat­er, he was say­ing farewell to the man who gave him his po­lit­i­cal ca­reer.

Humphrey met Pan­day when his­to­ri­an CLR James and politi­cian Stephen Ma­haraj formed the Work­ers and Farm­ers’ Par­ty (WFP) in 1966. He said they be­came like-mind­ed as­so­ciates im­me­di­ate­ly. He did not con­test the elec­tion as the WFP re­ject­ed his rec­om­men­da­tion to com­bine with the De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Labour Par­ty.

Quot­ing from his bi­og­ra­phy, Humphrey said Pan­day would have been his twin, but he was three months old­er. So deep was their friend­ship.

He was thank­ful that Pan­day ap­point­ed him to the Sen­ate from 1977 to 1981, mak­ing him the St Au­gus­tine can­di­date from 1981 to 2001 and ap­point­ing him as a min­is­ter in two ad­min­is­tra­tions and act­ing prime min­is­ter on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions.

Be­yond their po­lit­i­cal con­nec­tion, Humphrey said he and Pan­day shared a friend­ship which al­lowed him to see where he saw his for­mer leader’s true na­ture.

He re­called that his grand­daugh­ter Re­bec­ca (Becky), who lives with Down Syn­drome, crawled un­der a kitchen sink and drank a mouth­ful of lye as a child. He re­spond­ed to ter­ri­ble screams and near­ly drowned her while wash­ing out her mouth.

Some­time lat­er, he, He­len, and Re­bec­ca vis­it­ed the Pan­days at their home for the women to dec­o­rate a Christ­mas tree. Humphrey pan­icked as Becky dis­ap­peared, and he could not find her any­where. He fi­nal­ly went to the mas­ter bed­room, knocked on the door, and en­tered.

“The TV was show­ing Dis­ney’s The Lit­tle Mer­maid, and Bas­deo was on the floor with Becky wear­ing a div­ing mask play­ing. The Lit­tle Mer­maid was Becky. Since then, Becky has adored Bas­deo Pan­day,” he said.

Humphrey said be­fore he died Pan­day asked him to sup­port his daugh­ter Mick­ela, as he had sup­port­ed him through­out his po­lit­i­cal ca­reer and life.
“This I will do un­til the cre­ator sends for me. Mick­ela is a chip off the old block. I think every­one will agree with me on that,” he added.