Thelston Payne laid to rest

Elbert Proverbs, a former captain and longstanding member of St Catherine and Stephen Lorde who started his local club career at St Catherine and was a teammate with Payne at Princess Margaret, delivered the eulogy. Legendary West Indies fast bowler Joel Garner, himself a former Barbados captain under whose leadership Payne played, read the second Lesson, while Tanya Clarke gave a stirring rendition of Bette Midler’s “Wings Beneath My Wings”. Payne’s First Class career spanned the period 1979 to 1990 during which he played 68 matches and scored 3,391 runs from 106 innings. He averaged 36.85 runs per innings and recorded 6 centuries and 25 fifties. He also featured in seven One Day Internationals and 38 List A matches. He has gone to his grave regretting that he did not get to play a Test in front of his loyal home fans at Kensington Oval, especially in the match immediately after the one in which he replaced the injured, first choice wicketkeeper Jeffrey Dujon. In an interview in December 1998 Payne is quoted as saying “I really wanted to play in front of my home crowd where I knew I would get full support and would be comfortable. I felt I could have played as a batsman. I toured around for a few years and got just one Test and seven One-Day Internationals and had to watch on as others failed. I made three consecutive hundreds in 1983 and I knew I was good enough to play as a batsman.” Born February 13, 1957, Thelston Rodney O’Neal Payne has left to mourn, sons Damien Payne and Dwayne Atkinson, and life partner, Pauline Atkinson. (AWH)]]>