A reflective, cerebral person
I MET Easton in the late 1970s while he was permanent secretary in the Ministry of National Security and Defence. An impressively dignified, knowledgeable, articulate gentleman with all the features of a genuinely professional civil servant greeted me with all the warmth of a long lost brother, for he seemed to know everyone, even a neophyte as I was, meeting him for the first time.
We became friends almost instantaneously as we began to exchange our thoughts, recognising how much we shared in both vision and philosophy. I marvelled how he could have reconciled his role as civil servant, loyally and clinically defending the
status quo, while at the same time obviously being driven by an inner, an irrepressible passion to change the status quo, to enable the best outcomes for the people of Jamaica whom he loved so much.
It came as no surprise whatsoever when he accepted a call from Michael Manley to serve in a political role as a member of his government and representative of the people in the constituency of St Andrew South Eastern. As minister of health and environmental control; minister of the public service and the environment, and finally minister of land, environment and housing, Easton’s enviable legacy as the best authority in Jamaica and the Caribbean in the area of National Physical Planning and Development is well documented as a record of historical fact. This imprimatur of excellence is beyond the scope of ever being successfully challenged by anyone, then, now or in the future.
A very thoughtful, reflective and cerebral person, Easton was given to the rigour of evidence-based and data-driven decision-making. This was invariably tempered by the fact that the Almighty also gave Easton the gift of common sense which he combined with the wisdom and vast experiences throughout his life, enabling him to give the best advice freely and generously to many, including his loving sister Portia.
Easton was the unfortunate victim of an insidious and lethal form of cancer which he fought with dignity and valour to the end. He was more knowledgeable than most of the diagnosis and prognosis of his condition as he overcame the prognostic legacy of his condition, defying all the laws of the negation of both body and mind. He did so in a display of human fortitude, stoicism, discipline, mental and physical will which went beyond all human expectations, indeed human thought or imagination.
What more could we expect or ask of this man? Today, even in death, Easton’s legacy inspires us; for he has left a good name. A name which will live on in the book of life, as a testament to the perfection of the creation of the One Almighty, the God of all creation, within whom we live and move and have our being.
PROFESSOR WINSTON ‘WINTY’ DAVIDSON Brother, Friend & Colleague