Forced to say goodbye from a distance due to COVID-19 restrictions, family and friends of respected journalist Ian George Alleyne were nevertheless united in their adoration and fond memories of the man many described as small in stature but big in heart.
In an intimate service attended by a handful of close family members, but viewed online by scores from the Clyde B Jones Funeral Home, Alleyne, who would have turned 62 in just 12 days on February 15 was celebrated as a prolific writer, serious-minded intellectual, doting father, loving brother and gentle friend.
The just under 90-minute service turned the pages on a full life which went far beyond his chosen career of writing news stories and features, conducting interviews and capturing photographs.
Foremost was a story of a father who doted on the apple of his eye, his only daughter Tendai Alleyne.
Speaking in a pre-recorded video from the Cayman Islands, she heaped praise on her dad.
She said: “My father was a very loving man, caring, empathetic. He often reminded me that we all need to be able to formulate our own understanding of the world and how it works and to apply the basic principles of life.
“Who I am today is solely based on how he and my mum raised me and for that, I will be ever grateful to him.”
His sister Ann Wallace briefly opened several other chapters of George, the beloved younger brother, who had countless nicknames including Shorty, Shortman and the hilarious Bad Man George from the Bayland.
He also doled out a few nicknames of his own for close friends and family, especially to sister Grace, whom he dubbed Smallie.
Wallace reflected: “George was very gentle with us his sisters, and highly respectful of his older sisters, Myrtle, Pat and me.”
She also told of a man who was not only competent with his pen but versatile around the kitchen. In fact, she fondly recalled a joke among the sisters that “George had a bottomless stomach lined with concrete.”
“As much as George liked to eat, he liked to cook, especially his famous jerk chicken, two types, some without pepper for the ones he called the wimps and some hell-raising one for the rest of us,” she recalled.
Choking back tears, Wallace said that George Alleyne was deeply committed to his family, never sparing a chance to play cricket with his great-nephew despite a long-standing ankle injury, or joking around with his beloved niece Dr Namitasha Goring who suggested that he was now probably chatting with two other top personalities who also recently passed, Larry King and Cicely Tyson “as they wait in line to be hand sanitized and have their temperatures taken at the pearly gates”.
Wallace did not leave out his passion for journalism and the Caribbean on which he reported.
Intense and driven, Alleyne, a journalist for more than four decades enjoyed a storied career, having worked at the Guyana Information Service, the Guyana Chronicle, the Caribbean News Agency, the Caymanian Compass, TCI weekly news, Barbados TODAY, the Nation and a number of extra-regional outlets.
Wallace proudly shared that the unrepentant regionalist was an avid reader and researcher who was intrigued by all things Caribbean and was well known for his knowledge on the African diaspora and the movement of peoples of varying races and ethnicities across the globe.
His cousin, veteran broadcast journalist David Ellis, said in a tribute that Alleyne carried himself with a quiet dignity which could have led many to miss his significant contribution to regional journalism and his support and kindness for fellow colleagues.
Delivering the homily, Reverend John Rogers urged family and loved friends to not let Alleyne’s work go to the grave but to celebrate the full life of the “beautiful soul that had touched the lives of others.”
Alleyne’s body was later interred at the Christ Church Parish Cemetery. (sandydeane@barbadostoday.bb)
