Ian McDonald

Most jobs are done because they have to be done – to earn a living, support a family, get on in the world, secure the future.

At 90 I am in overtime and a penalty shoot-out looms which I know I cannot win.

The place I have loved the most in my life is the garden my wife has created.

Love of sport is woven into the fabric of my long life.

I have loved Poetry all my long life. It is impossible for me to name an all-time favourite – though Derek Walcott’s   A LETTER FROM BROOKLYN would be a contender.

Not all that long ago, looking into the future, it would have been easy to prophesy  the situation in South Africa: the whites in their apartheid laager fighting on and on a prolonged last-ditch battle against an ANC growing increasingly militant and the whole country disintegrating into blood-soaked ruin.

On March the 8th I attended a Night of Recognition in honour of Reds Perreira at Bourda.

One ordinary morning some years ago I had an unusual experience.

My father was a gentle, calm, and wise man. “He never raised his voice except to give encouragement nor raised his hand except to greet a friend.”

The great unabridged Oxford English Dictionary contains half a million words.

Who can doubt that the West Indian nation in relation to its tiny population and insignificant economic and military weight has been disproportionately blessed by the fruits of our extraordinary range of creative men and women.

When I worked in the sugar industry I remember once discussing a problem with a young and junior colleague.

Some years ago I was invited by the Queens Park Cricket Club in Trinidad to their Annual Dinner and made a speech during which I described what I thought would make any sports Club great.

I once read a long article about two remarkable books: “The Poetical Works of Gerard Manley Hopkins,” published by the Clarendon Press in Oxford, and “The Early Poetic Manuscripts and Note-Books of Gerard Manley Hopkins in Facsimile,” published by Garland in New York.

Karl Popper (1902-94), one of the greatest thinkers of his, or any age, was modest in expressing his philosophical findings.

One of the things I used to enjoy the most was to browse in good book stores and buy a stock of books to read and add to my library.

When I was young I often used to sit in the evening with an old aunt while she told her rosary beads.

Having worked 52 years in the sugar industry, including working closely with Governments and regional institutions along the way, if there is one thing I have learned it is the extreme frailty of all grand plans.

The best words for Christmas are from T.S. Eliot’s marvelous poem, “The journey of the Magi.”

I last worked in the Guyana Sugar Industry in 1999 – though I continued in sugar as CEO of the Sugar Association of the Caribbean until 2007 – so I do not pretend to understand Guysuco’s current challenges and have no intention of second-guessing the executives now tackling its challenges.