By Danny Johnson
Neville and I are the sons of two sisters; the grandchildren of the venerable educator E. P. Roberts. On this maternal side rests our Abaco – Marsh Harbour and Green Turtle Cay – Roots.
From Captain Sherwin Archer to the father of liberation politics in Abaco “Old Boot” Sherlin Bootle, Anglican Priest Father Anthony Roberts- who served in first 1967 PLP Majority Rule Cabinet; my sisters -Rome Italia Johnson and Gladys Sands – to Mike Smith and others, rests my family’s history of Public Service.
When I was a little boy, Neville was already a teenager. Our mothers kept the dots connected. As they say in our unique Bahamian culture; the children of one sister are the children of all the sisters. Neville and my elder sisters were expected to blaze a trail and set examples for the younger of us to follow in footsteps firmly planted by our elders.
My tribute to Neville is not contained to his stellar Public Service. I am writing to give testament to the fact that he was a firm, steadfast and committed adherent and disciple of public service which my family held almost sacred.
Neville never wavered in this regard. He did nothing of which we ought to ever be ashamed and he made us proud and defiant at the same time in wanting to keep the candle burning in the spirit of family public service.
“Coach” as hundreds of Bahamians knew him had a special gift for discerning hidden talent, nurturing it to its fullest release. Neville became a father/uncle figure to his crop of young athletes. His legacy and work with the Bain Town Flyers Association is the icon blast of a legend.
What Neville did to illuminate “The Magic Men” of the Government High School where he served in a senior Administration capacity as well as Head of the Physical Education Department will be written down and told to generations of children.
The sterling gem in his unsung Crown was how the female athletes trusted and gravitated towards him. The best of the best in the decades of the 70s and 80s and early 90s. CARIFTA to the Commonwealth and Pan Am Games to World Athletics, Goodwill Games, Central American and Caribbean Games, to the World Relays and the Olympics.
These athletes will tell their own stories. They don’t need me to call their names and to vouchsafe on their behalf.
The unifying history of Bahamian achievement is deeply rooted in what we once just knew as the Queen Elizabeth Sports Centre. From the allotments of just about every sporting endeavor in this country, now domiciled at the QESC, rings out our national jubilee; our heroes and our victories and our togetherness in our defeats. Neville Wisdom was the sinew or neatly stitched cord which held this together. Not just as a Politician in Office as Minister of Youth, Sports and Culture. Long before Neville assumed this august portfolio; his name and his work were already blowing in the winds that breathe over the QESC.
It should be an emblem to his work that he was in the chair as Minister when the work began with the Peoples Republic of China to assist in the Stadium. Neville, with his even wider outlook on the communities which surrounded the Sports Center also wanted it to be a Shelter in the time of devastating hurricanes.
Understanding the universal brotherhood of Sports, Neville also appreciated that as a Politician his was not to be a voice of insolence, malevolence, bitterness or division. The public grew to appreciate this noble tenet of Neville.
You have to be in Neville’s footsteps in Rock Crusher Road, Lightbourne Avenue, Farrington Road, Queen’s Park, Gambier Village, the inlet around Nesbit’s, to see and feel Neville’s ease of comfort and sincere connection with ordinary people. How folks gravitated towards him. How he spear headed community festivals in these communities long after he left front line politics.
You have to journey with him to his beloved Trinity Methodist Church, Frederick Street to appreciate his Christian humility. His service to his church community.
Neville had this other rare gift of communicating effectively with people from across all levels and strata in their language. He shifted gears effortlessly. He wore one smile for everyone. Neville could be stern and unwavering in his determination and status.
He did not suffer fools long; yet he never walked away in anger or despair. He was quick on his feet with the final word which would take the nerve of any foe and leave a friendship intact.
His laughter and smile were another specialized weapon of peace in his arsenal.
To understand and fully appreciate where he stood in his family and how his siblings adored him, you needed to be at a special function, a banquet, a prayer breakfast, a wedding; to marvel at the Wisdom family table and their togetherness.
The good thing about Neville in political life was he chose not to be controlled or dictated to by the general decorum and sluggishness of an often antiquated public service administrative dinosaur.
The autonomy Neville envisioned in the Sports Authority will singularly define his vision and his fairness.
Not a grand standing bone in his body. Just a gentle humility towards Public Service and a keen appreciation that his new power was to right the wrongs and anomalies of which he was all too much aware.
Every time you go to Junkanoo; and sit in the bleachers; remember it was Neville’s wisdom which led to the contract with a privately owned Bahamian company to put in the bleachers. Junkanoo is the better for it.
In Culture he did not stand in the way of recommendations made by the division in his Ministry. He supported. He contributed. He argued for it. He was determined to make it happen.
He watched from the side lines as knaves and pretenders deliberately set about to wreck or derail the positive foundations he laid down for Sports.
Neville watched sadly as Carifesta was abandoned. He endured the disappointment of the “stop, review and cancelled” World Relays. Neville remained focused in his determination to heal the long rift in Baseball; undeterred by the naysayers.
Neville drove the policy of subvention for our athletes and for scholarships abroad. I suppose Neville’s greatest fault line was his loyalty. His was non-negotiable. Unfortunately for him, as it is in this political culture; he would learn that there were those who felt they commanded and demanded Neville’s loyalty but had little or no intention of reciprocating.
The funny thing about this was Neville would talk about it and make it as a personal joke. He held no anger, No shade. Just a curiosity as to what made men behave so badly.
Neville could not comprehend the politics of revenge and personal spite. How things most beneficial and uplifting to the country and its citizens could be become the insidious software of victimization of some.
Neville Wisdom took great pride and personal satisfaction in the advancement and achievements of others and especially of those whom he had some measure of involvement.
He never lived in the spotlight of his protégés. He never cloaked himself with the “I did this and that.” He showed us how to repair and regenerate when life dealt us the cards of uninvited transformation.
Neville showed us how to keep the faith when his health challenges arrived. I will always marvel over the chemistry between Neville and Manita and Donovan and Florama. They selflessly shared Neville with countless others.
My tribute would be incomplete without mentioning the role my dad; Oscar N. Johnson played in bringing Neville, his nephew – into the realm of policy making in governance. Dad was elected as the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) Member of Parliament for the Cat Island constituency in 1968 and subsequently appointed as Executive Chairman of the Bahamas Electricity Corporation (BEC) the fore-runner of BPL.
Neville had returned from College abroad and Dad pushed to get Neville on the BEC board. Neville saw it as his spring board.
I too once sat in the Chair as Minister of Youth Sports and Culture. Ten years after Neville’s sterling run. Neville had taken the Ministry to another level. Even though five years had elapsed with another administration in office before I arrived in the Chair; the movers and shakers at the MOYSC hailed Neville Wisdom as the breath of fresh air.
It was on Neville Wisdom’s good will I did my job. It was on his comrade ship and his linkages I was able to run the race with little or no handicaps.
“Sports in Paradise” like the World Relays had been banished. We dusted them off, revived them and ran with the baton Neville was ready in his lane to hand off.
Neville was truly a man of tremendous talent.
Talent of which in some instances, I now recognize he was somewhat unaware.
It came naturally.
Rest Well, Neville Walter Wisdom.
You left the Bahamas a much better place because you were once a passerby.
In the end; God and country matter.
Danny Johnson
