Sascha Wil­son

Scores of well­wish­ers braved the in­clement weath­er to pay their re­spects to en­ter­tain­er and co­me­di­an Den­nis “Spran­galang” Hall at Bel­groves Fu­ner­al Home in San Fer­nan­do yes­ter­day.

In­stead of hav­ing a dri­ve-by view­ing, how­ev­er, the fu­ner­al home had to change the event to a walk-in view­ing in­side of the build­ing be­cause of the heavy show­ers.

In the back­drop of so­ca parang and kaiso, peo­ple of all walks of life said their silent farewell to Hall who was al­so fond­ly called Sprang.

A white tow­el was hung on his cas­ket as he al­ways had a tow­el strung across his shoul­der.

Pay­ing trib­ute to him in song were fel­low en­ter­tain­ers We­st­on “Cro Cro” Rawl­ins and Neil “Abebele” Bap­tiste.

Deputy PNM po­lit­i­cal leader Joan Yuille-Williams re­called fond mem­o­ries of him when she was pres­i­dent of the San Fer­nan­do Net­ball League and he used to vis­it and “make the place feel very hap­py.”

Ju­nior Bis­nath, leader of the Kaisokah Moko Jumbies, said he was an all-round en­ter­tain­er who had a wide knowl­edge of the art form.

“They call him the walk­ing en­cy­clo­pe­dia for cul­ture,” he said.

Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice leader David Ab­du­lah said he went to pay his re­spects to Hall be­cause of the tremen­dous and mul­ti­fac­eted con­tri­bu­tions he made to so­ci­ety.

Roseann Gill Thomas, Bel­grove’s qual­i­ty as­sis­tance team leader said they had the cas­ket in front of the build­ing for the view­ing, but had to re­lo­cate to the re­cep­tion area be­cause of the rain.

She said well­wish­ers would have a fi­nal op­por­tu­ni­ty to pay their last re­spects to­day at City Hall, San Fer­nan­do, where a cul­tur­al trib­ute ser­vice would be held. “We do have quite a few per­sons at­tend­ing to­mor­row.

We do have quite a few pre­sen­ta­tions that have been pre-record­ed in keep­ing with the COVID 19 re­stric­tions.”

Fol­low­ing this, a pri­vate cre­ma­tion would be held.

Hall, 71, who had a ca­reer in en­ter­tain­ment span­ning over 30 years, died last week Fri­day at the Er­ic Williams Sci­ences Com­plex.