THE EDITOR: I have to begin by extending my warm regards and deepest condolences to the Bartholomew family.
Not too long ago I enquired of someone whom I expected to know about the status and well being of Prof Courtenay Bartholomew and was very pleased to hear that he was up and about. It is with great regret, therefore, that I find myself writing under these sad circumstances.
Courtenay and I have known each other for a long time, going all the way back to the 1940s and '50s. We were near contemporaries at St Mary's and were again brought together when we were both recruited into the Customs and Excise Department in Port of Spain. From those two environments I brought with me memories of some of the major interactions with him and with other school and work mates engaged in educating ourselves and building careers in pre-independence TT. I'm sure he did, too.
Remembrances of Courtenay prompt the recall of contemporaries like Tommy McKenzie, Ivan Perot, Herman Bharath, Ken Julien in the field of scholarship and the annual competition for honours and awards in the pursuit of higher educational achievements.
These remembrances also recall the glory days of West Indies cricket. Several prominent members of the West Indies team - Clarence Skeete, Prior Jones, Wilfred Ferguson, Jaswick Taylor - and at least one prominent official - Harold "Bobool" Burnett - worked in Customs and Excise. My guess is that Courtenay worked there while mobilising the resources to study abroad, a project on which he embarked in 1954.
These early contacts were capped later on by our service in the University of the West Indies where we were both employed for a significant period in post-independence TT. It would be an understatement to say that Courtenay was a good, or even an excellent, doctor. He was, for many years, recognised as the leading medical professional in the country with a sterling national, regional and international reputation in his field of work.
The AIDS epidemic saw him at his best. He was the Caribbean Imhotep of the day, engaged in serious disputation with Robert Gallo and Anthony Fauci. He is universally credited with the diagnosis of the first case of AIDS in the English-speaking Caribbean. He was also generally acknowledged as an unusually gifted specialist in the field of internal medicine, as Harry Annamunthodo and Knolly Butler were in the field of surgery.
Quite apart from his own personal distinction, Bartholomew's biography is yet another chapter in the public exchanges we have been engaged in relative to the crafting of an appropriate platform for the education of children of all ages in TT.
In his lifetime, and still today, education has been the bridge to the future, the unique connection between the humblest of origins and the final destination, even in the most testing and demanding of professions. As the first prime minister of the country declared, the bookbags made the difference.
Unfortunately, the strike rate for accomplishing what was accomplished in the old days, albeit with di
