MP Marsha Caddle pays tribute to George Lamming

Statement from MP for St. Michael South Central Marsha Caddle on the passing of George Lamming

Carrington Village has always been immensely proud that George Lamming was a son of this community, and those who now attend the primary school named for him are reminded and I believe understand the legacy of the man, his work, and his contribution to helping generations of young people in Barbados and across the world understand their history and their power.

The village in In The Castle Of My Skin is Carrington Village, is every Barbadian village in which young people must every day come to know their worth, develop their consciousness and learn an independence that would not just serve them, but would help them to serve their communities. This work, and several others of George Lamming’s, helped raise many generations. And it was in The West Indian People of 1966 that we find one of his most inspiring challenges and calls to action to us as Caribbean people: “The architecture of our future is not only unfinished; the scaffolding has hardly gone up.”

As a teacher, broadcaster, and internationally acclaimed writer, he represented not only the voice of our consciousness and ongoing fight for justice, but the very best our region could grow and gift to the world. On behalf of Carrington Village and the wider community of his birth, I send my deepest sympathy to the Lamming family, and wish our brother a safe journey to the ancestors.