Shopkeeper shaken after seeing 75-year-old friend die in accident

By Anesta Henry

Shopkeeper Vanessa Grannum, who witnessed the death of “kind-hearted” Grantley Skeete right outside the establishment where he usually helped her, said the traumatic sight had left her shaken.

Unable to hold back the tears, 56-year-old Grannum said Skeete, affectionately known as Bucky, was a father figure, friend, and colleague who assisted her with daily operations at her business, Big V’s Snackette and Bar in Sugar Cane Avenue, Husbands, St James.

“We had a father and daughter kind of relationship, although some people would ask him, ‘where you wife?’ and he would laugh. I cooked for him, washed for him, I did everything for him. Honestly, he was a good person, very kind-hearted. Everybody in this community is going to miss him,” she said on Friday.

According to police, around 11:30 p.m. on Thursday, 75-year-old Skeete, a pedestrian, was involved in a collision with a Sanitation Service Authority truck in front of the snackette.

“What troubles me most is how he died because I don’t think he deserved to die like that,” Grannum said.

Recounting the moments before Skeete’s death, she said the elderly man had just left her shop and was on his way home, just a short distance away, to get some sleep because he was scheduled to reopen the establishment early Friday morning.

“He took up the keys to go, and he stepped down on the road to walk to come down this gap and the sanitation truck was coming out of that gap, and the big bright light [apparently] affected him. So he put his hands over his head to shade the light, and he stumbled, and he wasn’t able to retain his balance, so he fell down,” Grannum said, adding that the accident happened moments later.

“I was in shock. I ran home and called my gentleman [partner] and he asked me who got shot, and I just left him and ran back, and he ran behind me and then is when he realised I wasn’t telling him about a shooting but that Bucky got run over.”

Grannum said that Skeete, who lived alone at a house in front of her home at Westwood Park, Husbands, St James, loved reading the newspaper and interacting with people.

She said the former cricketer, who retired as a supervisor at the government printery, looked forward to assisting at the shop, particularly in the mornings because it allowed him to keep active.

“He liked numbers, he liked to add, he could have calculated fast. He had all his faculties and he wasn’t even sick. He just turned 75 on Sunday. He was a cricketer and he used to be an umpire. So he was well known and everybody would say the same thing about him.

“He was very kind-hearted. If he has $10, he would give you and stay without; he doesn’t care about having money in his pocket if you want something. He was a very nice person, I can’t say very nice enough,” the shopkeeper said.

Grannum added that Skeete had one son, Fabian Skeete, and a nephew whom he treated as a son.

anestahenry@barbadostoday.bb