Florist and own­er of La Trop­i­cale Flower Shop Bernard Beck­les who passed away on Wednes­day morn­ing was ho­n­oured at the British High Com­mis­sion last night as one of his fi­nal arrange­ments will be fea­tured in a dis­play com­mem­o­rat­ing the im­pend­ing coro­na­tion of King Charles.

British High Com­mis­sion­er Ha­ri­et Cross said a staffer saw one of Beck­les’ de­signs at a mar­ket and pitched the idea to part­ner with him.

“She got speak­ing to Bernard Beck­les who turned out to be a huge fan of the King and the Roy­al Fam­i­ly. It was some­thing that he held very dear to him,” Cross said. “So he said let me come up with a dis­play to chan­nel my en­thu­si­asm for the Roy­al Fam­i­ly and to give some­thing to you to cel­e­brate the coro­na­tion.”

Beck­les com­plained of feel­ing un­well at his of­fice on Tues­day and was tak­en to the St Au­gus­tine Pri­vate Hos­pi­tal where he lat­er died. His death was an­nounced on so­cial me­dia by staff of the La Trop­i­cale Flower Shop.

Cross de­scribed his death as a “huge shock” to every­body.

“I want to give my deep­est con­do­lences to every­body who knew him (and we got to know him re­al­ly well in the past few weeks) and he made a re­al­ly big im­pres­sion on us as a team,” she said. “He’s left this beau­ti­ful lega­cy not just with this dis­play, which is a small re­flec­tion of him, but his love for the com­mu­ni­ty, and the en­vi­ron­ment and the vi­bran­cy he brought to every­thing he did.”

Beck­les was de­scribed as a cham­pi­on of lo­cal flo­ra and fau­na who dec­o­rat­ed va­ri­ety of events, from na­tion­al func­tions like the re­cent Swear­ing-In cer­e­mo­ny of Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo, cor­po­rate and diplo­mat­ic galas.