Foul-up delays Toots’ burial
THE INTERMENT for legendary reggae singer Frederick Nathaniel ‘Toots’ Hibbert had to be postponed yesterday after the burial order could not be found when the body arrived at the cemetery.
A thanksgiving service had earlier been held at the chapel of Perry’s Funeral Home in Spanish Town, St Catherine, with plans to lay the singer to rest at the Dovecot Memorial Gardens.
However, the family was forced to change plans when they could not produce the burial order on arrival at Dovecot.
“Without a signed burial order, the body cannot be placed in the grave,” a source told The Gleaner.
The hearse, the funeral parlour representatives, and the officiating minister all waited in vain while the family searched without success for the document.
The minister, Pastor Christine Flowers, had no choice but to leave, after which the team from Perry’s was forced to return the body of the Country Roads singer back to the morgue.
The legendary musician, who fronted the band Toots & the Maytals from the early 1960s and who was described in a Rolling Stone feature in August as “the world’s greatest living reggae singer”, passed away last month at age 77.