Society
No wonder the heavens wept for this man
Published 15 January 2007
On Friday 5 January, black Caribbean people, Brixtonians in large measure (more than a thousand of us), came out to say farewell to Carl Aloysius Bancroft Daly, who had passed away after a bruising 15-year battle with prostate cancer. Yet, you may be taken aback to hear, he was no politician, no grand trade unionist, no educationalist, no member of the Commission for Racial Equality, no adviser on race relations, no get-rich-quick merchant. He was a major figure in laying down the building blocks in that arduous process of settlement in a strange land.
In the development of most working-class migrant communities, there are moments that trigger among ourselves a response which signifies who we are, where we have come from and, implicitly, where we are heading.
Such responses overturn preconceptions of what we should be or ought to be. They stir deep passions and a range of emotions which, if tampered with, can only lead to disaster.
In the days after he died, and before he was interred, several of us made the pilgrimage to Daly's daughter's house to offer financial assistance to ensure he was given the burial he deserved. The spirit of the Caribbean and its inherent sense of community drew the young, the old and the middle-aged from every corner of Brixton and its surrounds to celebrate a man who did extraordinary things in ordinary ways.
Daly, sometimes affectionately called Fatty, and sometimes Moby Dick, was a Brixtonian. He was a central force in transforming this area of south London from hostile terrain to a reasonable home for migrants from the Caribbean and, much later, from Africa.
Fatty was a salesman and he sold everything, in the tradition of the tallyman. He would serve up those things with which we had grown up in the Caribbean and that we thought, upon migration, we would never see, hear or taste again. He served with a warm smile and was always exquisitely attired, overwhelmingly patient, tolerant and irredeemably black.
Daly demonstrated parenting skills vastly superior to those of people who throw stones at our communities and pronounce at every turn the worthlessness of some of our young men. He had a very close relationship with his daughter, and they were regularly seen together in warm embrace. His son arrived at the funeral from Florida and said openly that, although he was brought up by his stepfather, he would be ever grateful to Fatty for his care and indulgence.
Moby Dick was widely read and could quote his favourite poet, Shelley, with amazing accuracy. He reasoned with the unreasonable, and would always repeat what I dubbed in the eulogy as the Fatty mantra: "In the worst of us, there is always the best of us."
At Corpus Christi Church on Brixton Hill, Father Tom Heneghan extended the limits of Catholicism to include old Anglican hymns in the service. He welcomed to the pulpit a gospel singer who belted out a powerful version of "Rock of Ages". And he accommodated a trumpeter who blasted away to punctuate several moments during the tributes.
Father Tom offered the Eucharist: Fatty was no churchgoer, but he was christened a Catholic. I doubt if anywhere in the United Kingdom had seen anything like this. Afterwards, at the cemetery, with a few score further mourners in attendance who had been at work during the church service, the heavens wept as the priest read the final rites.
The reception was yet to come. Hundreds more poured into the Abeng community centre. And we danced, hipped and hopped until the early hours of the morning.
Daly's death was not a tragedy. He had made his three score and ten, so there was little sorrow, much more joy and a celebration of his life. There were only three or four white people, all of them women who have spent their lives with Caribbean men. And yet, as the cortège left the church, many white folk stood on the pavement and looked on in astonishment.
Our response to Daly's passing surely reinvigorates a dying culture - a working-class hero is something to be.
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