He may have been eccentric, gruff and straightforward to a fault, but linguist Dr Denis Solomon was also caring, generous and a doting grandfather.
Described by many as the most intelligent man they ever met, Solomon died at 88 on August 27 at his home in St Ann’s.
His daughters Elizabeth and Juliet Solomon told Sunday Newsday he “passed away of fed-up-ness,” as he resented his loss of mobility and independence through age and illness. Elizabeth is married to Attorney General Reginald Armour SC.
Solomon was a retired senior lecturer in linguistics and French at UWI, a translator and conference interpreter, co-founder of the TT Humanist Association, a former diplomat, and a columnist and editorial writer.
At Queen's Royal College he won an island scholarship to Cambridge University. There he earned a degree in modern and medieval languages in 1957, then worked at the BBC World Service.
He also went to Columbia University in New York, graduating with an MA in 1966 and an MPhil in 1974, and in 1990 earned a PhD in linguistics from UWI.
Elizabeth and Juliet said as a sea scout he used to go to Chacachacare to perform Shakespeare plays at the leper colony, and was part of the TT Sailing Association from its inception. He instilled that love of sailing and the sea in his children, as Elizabeth still sails, Juliet fishes and Paul is a marine pilot.
He was also a member of the Selwyn College hockey team at Cambridge.
Elizabeth said, “He was very into sports. He cycled a lot, he was a competitive swimmer, and a sailor his whole life. He also built, refurbished and sailed boats.”
Solomon was also heavily involved in politics. He was a senator with the Tapia House Movement, a political party that started as the Tapia House Group, formed by his former QRC classmate Lloyd Best in 1968. He was involved in the Federation Movement, representing TT internationally when it first became independent.
It was while they both worked for the Federal Civil Service that Solomon met his first wife, the late social activist Sheilah Solomon, from Jamaica. When Jamaica pulled out of the federation and it fell apart, the couple got married. Although they made their base in TT, as a diplomat he was posted to New York and as deputy high commissioner to Venezuela.
Solomon’s father, Patrick Solomon, was TT’s first Minister of Home Affairs, and his younger brother was attorney Frank Solomon SC.
“I think it’s safe to say that, through his father and then his own involvement, he was a significant person in the early years in the development of TT as an independent country and into becoming a republic,” said Elizabeth.
The sisters said he was an activist in the Black Power Movement and, years later, was arrested over anti-apartheid marches. They recalled a time there was an identification card that indicated a person’s race. But he refused to state his race in ethnic terms, instead writing “human.”
After he left the Foreign Service he, his wife and their daughters returned to TT in 1969, one year before Paul was born.
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