MPs pay tribute to the late Frank Arthur

 

Members of Parliament across the political divide put their differences aside yesterday morning to pay tribute to the father of Member of Parliament (MP) for St. Peter and former Prime Minister, Owen Arthur.
 
Leading off the tributes in the House of Assembly, Leader of Government Business, MP for Christ Church South, John Boyce, said that the late Frank Leroy Arthur, who passed away on May 10, this year at the age of 89, had a strong belief in the power of education, insisting that “young Owen would spend long hours beating the books” and also spent many hours in the library at Speightstown.
 
He said that the patriarch of the Arthur family, in addition to being a staunch member of the All Saints Church, was a shopkeeper, butcher, joiner and cricket umpire and like the other men in the Mile and A Quarter and Benn Hill community would have been a father not only to his children, but the entire community. Moreover, he said that he would have died content, knowing that his children, in particular the St. Peter MP, had made significant contributions to the Barbadian society.
 
Meanwhile, speaking on behalf of the Barbados Labour Party, of which MP Arthur was once a member, Leader of the Opposition Mia Mottley offered her condolences to the Independent MP’s family, as she urged them to take comfort in the memories they have.
 
“Those we love don’t ever go away, they walk with us and their mem-ories stay with us. But what is good news is that those memories don’t necessarily evoke sadness, they often evoke a smile or a cheerful laugh when we remember the things that they did with us,” she said.
 
Thanking his Parliamentary colleagues for their kind words and noting that they will be greatly treasured by his family, MP Arthur told the House that his father was not one for the limelight, which resulted in his father never seeing him being sworn in as Prime Minister.
 
“He felt that it was his duty to prepare me in life to be here and if I was here, there was no need for him to come here. Members on the other side know that they never saw him at meetings, because it was not about him, it was about me… He saw his duty in life to prepare me to be better than his circumstances allowed him to be,” he added.
 
The St. Peter MP also spoke of his father’s parenting skills; skills he maintained, that if all parents in Barbados were to possess, would ensure the country would be free of problems. (JRT)

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