Once I wrote a eulogy to a good friend who had battled against all odds to rise from $12 a week car-washer to very successful businessman. Afterwards, many people, including his wife, asked if I was talking about the same person. They knew, but I didn't,  that in his latter years he had become an alcoholic and lost everything.

It is in similar vein that I speak of George Payne. You may know different. The people of St. Andrew had long felt themselves downpressed. The affluent parishes took our sand to build their houses. Our clay for blocks and tiles. Our shale for cement. Our natural gas, but we never got any.
They came to pick our guavas, fat-porks, cashews and grapes. To picnic in our unspoilt splendour. To hold their Crop-Over events. To leave their tons of litter behind.

One big-up report even suggested that the Scotland District be abandoned as far as human habitation was  concerned: not worth the expense.
To crown it all, they resolved to put the national dump down here despite our heartfelt pleadings. St. Andrew, which had given so much and received so little in return, was to be their garbage can. Woe was we!

George Payne changed all that. St. Andrew people got jobs, assistance, house spots. We got roads. I am not saying that an $11 million bridge at Greenland Corner was justified. But when I go through Isolation and see improvements and small people bettering themselves, I feel good. Today the people of St. Andrew need feel inferior to no one. Far from it, the developers are clamouring, now recognising its unparalleled beauty and tourism potential.

Just last week two maguffies were on my lawn.

"Do you know the plans we have for your property?" asked the first.

"Just tell me," put in the second, "how much you want for the place".

Take a number and wait your turn, I had to advise them.

Yes, George Payne called the Greenland dump "environmental madness" but remained in the Cabinet that authorised it. Let us not be too harsh. Had he resigned then, St. Andrew would not be where she is today. Indeed I myself fled the Greenland fray after a little bird whispered that an editor had been asking:

"How long is he going to be allowed to continue writing about that?"

The media, I discovered, wants hot issues, not long battles. That $25 million of taxpayers' money was about to be, and was, wasted, didn't matter. So, exit last Tuesday George Payne, minister, into time's ever-rolling stream. May he not fly forgotten.

That same afternoon I heard a loud prah-pramping and discovered the Prime Minister himself at my gate. Which was passing strange seeing that I don't
have a gate (but it sounds better than "out by my mail-box"). So here is my perspective on him.

Owen Arthur is the Barbados Labour Party. Because of reverse osmosis, the BLP had evolved into a hierarchy comprising Sir Henry Forde, Sir Henry Brie St. John, Sir Henry Louis Tull, Sir Henry David  Simmons, Sir Henry Billie Miller, Sir Henry Mia Mottley. But there was no lowerarchy. So they had to make Owen leader. He faces awesome problems: the nobility may at any time retake the leadership. His cabinet is replete with "promising" ministers. And he faces the ridiculous situation where he can only fire people at the top. Road workers, for instance, can thumb their noses if he interrupts their dominoes or discussions on when they're taking their 21 days full-pay sick leave. And he can do nothing about it unless he first appoints them ministers en masse or Central Bank Governor.

I like Owen's style: get rid of inept performers, don't recycle or transfer. He talks my language. And most importantly, he gave me one of his fish-cakes
last Tuesday. A real sweet fish-cake too. Afterwards the family was gloating on the joys of living in a country where the Prime Minister drives himself around the countryside and stops to visit a goat-farmer. When my second-born who's been overseas getting education pointed out that in some cultures they feed transgressors well before executing them. Of course, we laughed that that didn't apply here. But nagging doubts soon assailed us. Whereupon we all set to with a will, computers and calculators. And ere sun-up had completed four years' accounts and the income tax pertaining thereto which was duly submitted next day. I hope you've paid yours. We're lucky to have a capable, down-to-earth, responsible leader. If Vincentians aren't careful, they could very well end up with a West Indian Mugabe.