Farewell, Selassie

In between meetings with the police, I made time to attend the funeral at 1pm today of my constituent and friend Stan Kendall-Morris, who died just after Christmas aged 72, following an illness. I had visited Stan just before Christmas at his home in Streatham Vale. He had just returned from a spell in Trinity Hospice, and was relieved to be home, with a view from his window of his garden.

We had a friendly talk, me sitting at his bedside taking notes as he urged me to press on with gating the alley behind his home. Stan was often on the phone with advice or requests from neighbours, or just for a chat about how things were going.

Stan would always call me “Mark, my councillor” and every time we met he would extend a big, powerful hand and shake mine, holding it tight until he had finished what he wanted to say. For a small man, Stan had very big hands. When Stan’s niece referred to those great big hands in her recollections of her uncle, and all the people he comforted with them, things he made and meals he cooked with them, there was a ripple of approving recognition through the small chapel.

The funeral, which was held at Streatham Vale Crematorium was, I’m pleased but unsurprised to record, very well-attended by Stan’s family and friends from the Streatham Vale Property Occupiers’ Association (SVPOA) and allotment holders from the Vale.

The service was conducted by the vicar of the Holy Redeemer Church, Streatham Vale. Bible readings were followed by a eulogy from Stan’s boyhood friend Dr Randy Chan, now resident in Toronto. While Randy was speaking we were surprised to find out that throughout his boyhood in Guyana, Stan was known universally as Selassie.

We were cheered by anecdotes of Selassie’s early life with his friends in the small village of Rosignol, on the west bank of the Berbice river in Guyana. It sounded like a simple, unhurried life; picking fruit, fetching cans of milk, playing bat and ball, watching the boats go by on their way to New Amsterdam and daydreaming about everything and nothing over shaved ice bought from a man who strolled the streets with a block of ice and fruit syrups to flavour it.

I was surprised that another of Selassie’s boyhood friends was already known to me through my work with Lambeth’s inter-faith forum, Vidur Dindayal. I had never connected the two. Vidur also lives in Lambeth. It’s a small world, he said to me afterwards, with a big smile.

It might not have seemed that way to the young Selassie when, one of ten children, he embarked on a small cargo boat for the two week crossing to England fifty years ago. He settled in London, found work as a telephone engineer, joined the CWU, had a family, but always harked back proudly to his roots in Rosignol.

Friends like Vidur, a Hindu, were close by and a constant reminder of the untroubled ethnic diversity of Rosignol – people of Chinese, Indian and Black Guyanese origin grew up happily together.

Dr Chan told a story about a visit Stan and his widow Norma made to Toronto in 2000. The visitors and their hosts had a meal in the fancy restaurant on top of the CN Tower. After the meal, Stan turned to his old friend Randy with a grin and said “if the folks in Rosignol could see us now, Randy. You understand me? You know what I’m saying?”

I could hear Stan saying it. I will miss the man, his advice and phone calls and his enthusiastic support for his Labour councillors - Stan and his family were kind enough to endorse me during my by-election.

I am glad to have seen my friend one last time before Christmas, though it wasn’t an easy visit to make. Stan – Selassie – was dying, but the grip of those big hands was as strong as ever.