Tony DeyalONE DAY, many years ago, on my way to the Queen's Park Oval in a taxi, I looked at the prominently displayed licence of the very quiet, self-effacing person driving us. It was the oddest name I have ever encountered.
The man's name was "Peaceful Dragon" As my mind was on cricket and we were not far from the ground, I never pursued the subject, content merely to store it in memory until some later day.
I got out on Tragarete Road, next to the 'panyard' of one of the oldest steelbands in the country, 'Invaders,' and crossed the road to the Oval, where significantly the English team was playing the West Indies. I made the connection with England's patron saint, George of dragon-slaying fame, but that faded into oblivion as I thought more of our fearsome fast bowlers, Hall and Griffith, and how they would fare against the ageing but capable, Tom Graveney. As it was, they fared little better than the dragon against St. George.
Which is what I am hoping would happen as my friend George faces yet another dragon in the form of illness. One for George and none for the dragon is my prayer. George is George John, Caribbean journalist and cricket fan, who every year insists on being among the many 'jumping up' with Invaders as they head to downtown Port-of-Spain for 'jour ouveret' in the early hours of Carnival Monday morning. This is a time when the dragons of the masquerade come out to roll in their chains across the road and stage, to be prodded and pummelled by many little demons armed with pitchforks, and to beat their chests in anguish and in vain.
I am not sure about George but I was more afraid of the bats (as probably Hall and Griffith were on that distant day) than the dragons. However, the fact that he went to work for Dr. Eric Williams immediately after what is called the 'revolution' or simply the 'revo' of April 1970, makes George John fearless in my book.
Dr. Williams was a political dragon, very much like the one Saint George slew. Relation-ships with him were highly combustible. Yet, knowing this, George undertook to leave his public relations business, a brief refuge from daily journalism occasioned by the sinking of yet another newspaper flagship, to work for Williams. A few years later, scorched, but not immolated, he left the service of Williams for the Express newspaper. He had already worked for the Jamaica Gleaner.
George's major victory in his years at Whitehall was to induce Dr. Williams to wear a cravat and invite the presenter of a television cooking show into his kitchen. Watching Dr. Williams condescend to cookery as a means of countering the accusations of crookery that surrounded his Government at the time, was as much a pleasure as understanding that, like Mussolini, he could not make an omelette without breaking eggs, or run a government without breaking friendships, acquaintances, rivals and, almost, George John.
George was saved by his sense of humour and his refusal to be intimidated. Whitehall, the Prime Minister's Office, at the time was (and still is) a place of intrigue, much like Spain during the Second World War. Spies, counter-spies, Cabinet-spies, one-upmanship, gamesmanship, were all ingredients of the Williams brew that spelt double trouble for anyone who was getting too big for his boots or too close to the Prime Minister.
George had access whenever he wanted. This was enough to seal his fate. The word went out and Williams said to George one day, "I personally have no problem but the 'boys' are upset about that oil programme you did on television which attacked us." Poor George. As Head of the Public Relations Division of the Prime Minister's Office, he was responsible for the television programmes. The person in charge of the programmes had allowed a panel discussing the Government's White Paper on Energy to criticise the Government and castigate them mercilessly.
George had to take the rap while, as in oil, Dr. Williams and his boys kept to the commanding heights. Pretty soon the Prime Minister's coldness became indifference. He studiously ignored George as he ignored his Permanent Secretary and former close friend, Dodderidge Alleyne. George, like C.L.R. James, another Williams acquaintance, had gone beyond the boundary and Williams (if you like mixed up metaphors) hit him for six.
George has outlasted Williams and has created his own legend in his chosen field of journalism. Many people might know him as Robert P. Ingram. I always thought that his lack of a genuine surname (George and John are, after all, Christian names) led him to adopt Robert P. Ingram as his nom-de-plume. George takes credit for bringing me together with my wife Indranie. I blame George, not for Indranie, but causing both Eric Williams and Sir Vidia Naipaul to 'boof' (shout at, insult or scare to death in this case) me.
I don't think he put those two incidents into his biography, which is due for publication and release soon, or will put it in his acceptance speech when he receives his much- and long-deserved Doctorate from UWI in early November. As he said when the President of Egypt got shot (and as I repeated when I heard about the dragon) "Sad dat."
However, I figure anyone who could tell this joke and keep on telling it over many years will survive any dragon, even if it is a really bad one. His wife Jean, his daughter Deborah and I know it by heart. At a diplomatic reception the guests looked outside and started to argue about the weather. "It's snowing," said the American Ambassador. "It's hailing," said the Indian. The Russian Ambassador, Rudolph Rudokowski, insisted it was raining. As the American started to become argumentative, his wife whispered to him, "Hush. Rudolph the Red knows rain dear."
Tony Deyal was last seen saying that he personally doesn't like talking to large, scaly creatures who breathe fire. The conversation just seems to dragon.
