Eulogy For Chiefton Allan Cruickshank

by Simeon Greene

Before I knew that I would be the one to do the Eulogy for Allan, I had already written a tribute to him, which I had proposed to share in the print media. With the pen and outlook of a journalistic piece, I had captioned it, “THIS ILL-BEGOTTEN BASTARD.”

The opening paragraph to this piece read as follows:

I have heard and seen many glowing tributes about Allan on the radio, social media, and more, of course, would be written in the pages of our newspapers. In this piece, I do not intend to concentrate on his political life, since much would have been spoken or written on this aspect of his life. Instead, I propose to concentrate on his early life and from whence he came. Allan and I shared the same pot, the same roof, the same bed, the same cricket field, and the same classroom, so there is a sense of duty for me to tell his story.

Since then, some modifications had to be made, but the leaning is still the same.

One cannot tell the story of Allan without telling the story of his grandfather—Claudy George Cruickshank. Claudy was a cultured peasant and estate foreman who always kept abreast of international affairs. He was literate and dabbled a bit with non-instrumental music. All his daughters, including Allan’s mum, Martha, had lovely voices and were always performing in the village concerts and recitals. There were two grandfathers in the village who spoke about sending their grandsons to Grammar School; Claudy was one: “Allan had to go to Grammar School and would become Prime Minister,” were words he always uttered about his favourite grandchild. How did these spoken words impact/influence Allan?

All villagers took Claudy’s prophetic words as just some of his strange, typical sayings since he was ageing and a man of little means. When provoked, Claudy had a tongue as sharp as any two-edged sword, and his anger would last no longer than “Miss Janey fire.” When Allan’s behaviour was unbecoming, he was called an “ill-begotten bastard,” a term he used to refer to those of us who were born out of wedlock from a fling.

When Allan and I were having a meal somewhere in his presence, Claudy would say, “That boy fuh Martha and that boy fuh Jerusha (my mother), if you give them a lion, they eat it off,” and then would turn his tongue to say: “furthermore, food to man is like grass to beast,” giving a thumbs-up to our ferocious appetite. Many of his sayings still resonate with us.

Allan and Claudy were joined at the hip; there was a very special bond of love between grandfather and grandson. Although Allan was poor, he was never malnourished nor starved. He grew up quite burly, with powerful thigh muscles, hefty calves, and a broad chest. His nickname was “Boley,” a butchering of the English word burly, like we do in our vernacular with so many English words; stripe for tripe is another good example.

Like all of us who knew poverty, Allan knew how to eat from the fields around, which yielded an abundance of fruits. It was only later in life that we knew we were eating much better than today’s children, who feed on salted and sugary snacks, contributing much to the lifestyle diseases of today. As a young boy, Allan knew how to assist his mother and grandfather in providing meals. His mother lived in her own little “wattle and daub” near to her father Claudy with three of Allan’s maternal siblings: Paulette, St. Clair, and Lassey. How she needed the help! So Allan brought the firewood and breadfruit into the kitchen. He was particularly skilled at packing a bag of coconut shells. His bag was so tightly packed that he needed no string to tie the bag’s mouth.

The housing stock in the village was mainly “wattle and daub” with grass roofs. Allan’s grandfather’s house was board on posts but with a grass roof, situated right at the entrance to the Mt. Grenan/Diamond ridge. Trash (grass) roofs were very challenging during the rainy seasons, but we knew how to shift our sleeping places to avoid the leaking rain disturbing our sleep.

Health challenges were always at the door of the children of Allan’s generation, and many of his contemporaries succumbed to worm infections, marasmus, and other childhood afflictions. But Allan was burly and strong. With uncomfortable houses, borehole toilets, and a lack of in-house entertainment, the outdoors was his “stamping ground.” When the poor man’s lantern gave its light, the village was teeming with corporate moonlight games. Cricket was the predominant game during the daylight hours. Every convenient and, many times, not so convenient plot or road was converted into a playing field. Allan was an opening batsman, very much in the mould of Geoffrey Boycott—stubborn at the crease but with limited scoring shots. However, he knew and understood (in application) the intricacies of the game. Many nights we would cut our sleep short to listen to games from Australia at Clyde Latham’s home, where one of the few radios in the village was owned and located. When we spoke, as we often did, there was always some time for cricket.

Allan left the Diamond Infant School at stage three in December 1959 and went on to the Union Methodist School in January 1960 at class two. Diamond got its own all-aged primary school around September 1960, and Allan, like the majority of students, was transferred to this new school under the headmastership of Walden Ryan. Since my mother opted to let me remain at Union Methodist, Allan and I then, had different classrooms, and it remained so for some years.

At Diamond School, Allan would have seen Deb (the niece of the headmaster), who later became his wife. I doubt that they had much contact at this stage, for she was his senior in school.

Claudy was not able to meet his goal of sending Allan to Grammar School, but Bishop’s College in Georgetown had become available, and the family, with the greatest of effort, managed to send Allan to this secondary school.

Many times, without adequate funding to attend school, Allan persevered. I remember seeing him as a senior boy, in his one grey (I believe it was) pants, trying to lock in his powerful thigh and calf muscles, but they would burst through regularly. Not daunted, every weekend, and sometimes during the week, the pants would be repaired and cleaned, ready for the next assignment.

When in Form Five and it was not possible for the family to keep him at school any longer, he got accepted as a Grade Three teacher, and we started again to share the same classroom at the Georgetown Teachers’ Center.

Allan’s father, Cecil Rose, was the overseer at the neighbouring Sans Souci estate. He was a small, handsome man, always nattily attired, with not an ounce of fat under his skin. He commanded a presence, especially when riding around on his horse. He was a “girl’s man” who loved the dance floor, and the stories are told of the beautiful village girls who would be present at the Diamond Dance Hall or at the Experience Hall at New Ground to see whom he would pick for the occasion. His relationships brought forth many children: many I am told means 36. Those I know around our community are Bertram, Maurice, Beebs (Gwenda), Dawn, Earl, Ewin, and his two sisters. While Mr. Rose tried his best to provide for his children, they were too many for him to adequately maintain.

In 1971, Allan moved on to receive teacher training at the Teachers College in Kingstown. Our cohort, with an average age of 22 or 23 was the youngest cohort up to that point in time. Of this cohort among those whom death would have stolen, included Gasnel, Vie, Sonia Lewis, Philbert Butler, Hugh Wyllie, Conrad Sayers, and now, Allan Cruickshank. Many from this group went on to make contributions in various disciplines, both at home and in the diaspora. Among those still in SVG are Jonathan Bacchus, Pastor Dermoth Baptiste, Dr. Reynold Murray, Dr. Marks, Kenneth Douglas, Sydney Tucker, and Errol Belgraves.

Allan taught at the Diamond Government School and the South Rivers Methodist School and served as headteacher at the Lowmans Anglican School before leaving the profession in 1984. He was recruited by James Mitchell to become a candidate for the NDP in the South Central Windward Constituency. In 1979, I had contested this constituency on a UPM ticket led by Dr. Ralph Gonsalves. Allan and I were left-of-center political activists, so when he aligned with the NDP, our common interpretation of the history of political struggle diverged. However, the ties forged from sharing the same space remained intact.

History has shown that both Allan and Mitchell were more pragmatic than my own youthful idealism, especially after the debacle of the Grenadian Revolution, when Coard and his colleagues chose (as Fidel said) to evoke the purest norms of Marxism in their murderous adventure.

The years of light Allan saw between 1951 and 2025 witnessed six major advancements in our island state that have had and will continue to have a lasting impact on our development:

1. Universal adult suffrage in 1951

2. Universal access to vaccination against childhood diseases that once brought sorrow to children and parents and other improvements in primary health care.

3. Universal access to primary and secondary education and growth in tertiary level education.

4. The deepening of social democracy after the setbacks of the ’70s and early ’80s

5. The land reform programme, which saw the demise of the estate system and the rise of a thriving peasantry, correlating with the conversion of bananas into “green gold”

6. Greater integration into the global space via physical transport and electronic means

What, then, is the legacy of Chiefton Allan Cruickshank?

According to the United Nations, sustainable development is “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs, encompassing economic growth, social inclusion, and environmental protection.”

Development, therefore, is about people—the impact on lives and livelihoods.

While some, like James Linn, may argue that there is no objective way to measure the effectiveness of political leaders, assessing Allan’s legacy cannot be divorced from the corporate impact of the James Mitchell administration (1984–2001).

Of the six major development thrusts identified above, I would argue with much justification that the administration in which Allan served built on one, two, three, and six. Despite the problems one may identify with this administration, they were the major protagonists in deepening social democracy and ushering in economic independence, fuelled by the land reform programme and the transformation of bananas into “green gold.”

Time in this eulogy does not allow for further discussion on these issues, but in this “silly season,” they may come in for further debate.

Allan was a religious man. In his youth, he attended Bible class and Sunday school, travelling on religious missions with the New Testament Church of Mother Pryam, which was located in the village. However, when a new group of worshippers who kept the Sabbath moved from John Harry’s downstairs to the Thomas’ downstairs in the village, he began attending their Wednesday and Sunday night services sporadically.

The Sabbath debate arose in the village during this time, and Allan accepted the seventh-day Sabbath as the true Sabbath of the Bible, leading to his baptism in 1974. As a Seventh-day Adventist Christian, he served the church in many capacities, but his true strength lay in teaching a Sabbath school class. By this time, his love with Deb had ripened, and in that same year, the Deb/Allan fifty-plus-year marriage was forged with an inseparable and irreplaceable materials. Through thick and thin Deb remained fiercely loyal to her man. They were soul mates.

Sometime after his passing, while up at my farm in Perseverance enjoying a coconut-enriched callaloo soup, his brother Bertram remarked, “If Allan was here, he would have taken a good helping of this food—and with a dish to take some home for his Deb.”

Allan, the fine teacher and community activist, was, like his grandfather—a master of language coinage. As one of the founders of the community organization Diamonites, it was he who coined the name “Diamonites” which remains one of the oldest community organization in SVG.(going since 1977).

His creativity extended to his children’s names:

• Amos, a classical biblical name

• Debalani, a fusion of Deb and Allan’s names for their daughter

• Allanson, meaning “son of Allan”

• Debson, meaning “son of Deb”

• Debron, another tribute to both parents

Had they gone for a sixth child, one wonders what the name might have been. However, Allan did have a sixth child from an Antiguan mother. Zackery, a lawyer by profession—whom Allan ensured was well integrated into the family.

Allan became a grandfather quite late in his life. When he got grandchildren, he was elated. He loved his British, Acacia, Xavi and Adam with a passion. They brought pride and joy to his life. How much he would have loved to have seen them grow up a bit more.

As with all human beings, there were the highs and lows of Allan’s life: delight and sadness, service and achievements, but also one lingering disappointment. This disappointment was related to him being denied his pension when he left Parliament before reaching the age of 55. There was no law preventing his payment, and the precedent had already been set. This denial almost cost him his house and his children’s education.

For the last seventeen years, life’s pathway has allowed us to resume the close relationship we shared in our early years. One has come to understand that the meals at the king’s table, the magnificence of hotel rooms, the jet- settings around the globe, and the knocking of glasses with the famous are fleeting. What makes a lasting impact are the testimonies of the students he encouraged, the lives he changed as a politician, and his own children, whom he nurtured into outstanding citizens.

Not that he did not have good memories of his local, regional, and international colleagues—he certainly had great admiration and respect for them.

From speaking with him, though, there was something special in his heart for Sir James Mitchell and Jacques Diouf, the Director-General of the FAO (1994–2011).

Allan was never careless in having his medical checks, so when this monster of a disease choked out his life with such rapidity, we were all surprised.

I am comforted, though, because I knew a man who was a man—a man who believed he was a man. The heights of life never separated him from the soil. He still cherished the smell of soil being tilled and the crackling sound of a tannia plant giving up its yield at harvest time.

In public office, he never wasted nor pocketed the nation’s silver. As a headteacher, he had an eight-seater hired vehicle by the name of ‘Integrity.’ At the time of his death in March 2025, his feet were his only carriage, but he proudly carried the named of his first vehicle: ‘Integrity.’

Note: Allan Cruickshank, former Member of Parliament in the James Mitchell administration, died on March, 1,2025, and was buried on Sunday, April 6, 2025.