Herb McKenley - 2nd feature down

RICHARD ASHENHEIM (1927-2007) Richard Ashenheim, a man of many parts who has died in Bermuda aged 80 years, was, above all, well-respected as a source of information and inspiration in athletics, in which he was a statistician, administrator and journalist of international renown both in the Caribbean and internationally, and in horse-racing. He was also an accomplished lawyer and a long-serving director of the Gleaner publishing group in Jamaica.     Richard was born in St Andrew, Jamaica in August 1927. Although he was a schoolboy athlete at Jamaica College, he concentrated on reading law at Oxford University and was admitted to the Jamaican bar in 1950, specialising in matters of slander, libel and tax. By then he had started his long career of reporting eight Olympic Games, and several other World Championships and major international meetings, starting with his country’s Olympic debut at London in 1948 and ending with the Athens Games of 2004. His reports chronicled the careers of the many athletes who have brought credit to the island, not least Herb McKenley, who, himself, passed away just three weeks earlier. Ashenheim’s particular contribution to the sport was as a leading statistician for not only the Caribbean but for the judicial committee of the IAAF (International Amateur Athletics Federation). He was also a long-serving President of the JAAA (Jamaica Amateur Athletics Association), where his legal background provided great strength in implementing the often complicated rules and guide-lines, and a member of the IAAF arbitration panel.  His work was characterised by a deep knowledge of the sport, by his meticulous keeping of records and by his commitment. He was awarded the IAAF Veterans’ Pin and honorary life membership of the JAAF. Richard often divided his time at major events between the officials’ boxes and the press benches. He was respected similarly in horse-racing, being a director and vice-chairman of Caymanas Park Limited and a board member of the Carreras Sports Foundation. The Richard Ashenheim Cup, an annual race over 1,500 metres for native-bred two year-olds, was run in his honour the day after he died. He and his wife Ursula (nee Woolf), whom he married in May 1953, left Jamaica to settle in Bermuda in early 206, citing the island’s crime situation as the reason for their departure. It was the first time since its foundation in 1834 that there no Ashenheim on the Gleaner’s board of directors. Richard became a director in 1962, the year in which he also succeeded his father, Sir Neville (who had been appointed ambassador to the U.S.A.), as honorary legal adviser to the Press Association of Jamaica, and he became a full director five years later. As Chairman in 1976 he challenged the state of emergency laws initiated by the (Michael) Manley administration which he believed threatened press freedom in Jamaica. On 24 September 1979, Prime Minister Manley led a march of his supporters on the Gleaner offices. Although the newspaper was forced to comply with the laws to some extent Ashenheim believed that he had been right to “shame” the government. The confrontation has been seen as a watershed in Caribbean politics because Edward Seaga won the general election the following year in the region’s conservative reaction to the radical tide of the previous decade. Richard Ashenheim is survived by his wife Ursula, by sons Lewis and Michael, and by daughters-in-law and grandchildren.   Richard Gordon Ashenheim Born on 20 August 1927 in St Andrew, Jamaica Died on 14 December 2007 in Bermuda   HERB McKENLEY (1922-2007)   Herb McKenley, who has died aged 85 years in Kingston, Jamaica, was an outstanding athlete, coach and administrator who “did everything except win an individual Olympic Games gold medal”. He won one for the relay and had three individual silver medals (twice finishing in the same time as the winner), and held world records at 300 yards, 300 metres, 400 yards, and 400 metres. McKenley, who is still the only athlete to reach an Olympic track final in all three main sprint events (100, 200 and 400 metres), will be remembered chiefly for his amazing run in the 4 x 400 metres relay and narrow miss in the individual 100 metres at Helsinki in 1952. Herb is honoured as Jamaica’s most widely recognised sporting personality who has inspired the many subsequent champions of the worldwide Jamaican Diaspora, including those in North America and, not least, in the United Kingdom. He was awarded his country’s Order of Merit in 2004 and will be given an official funeral with burial in National Heroes Park. However Herb, who enjoyed the recognition of his achievements but was never boastful or selfish, belonged also to the much wider community. Herbert Henry McKenley, the son of a medical doctor, was born on 20th July 1922 at Pleasant Valley, in rural Clarendon. He was educated at Calabar High School, St Andrew, where he showed promise also at cricket and football, and impressed first in the national Boys’ Championships. In 1942 he won a scholarship to Boston College in the U.S.A. His move to the University of Illinois in 1945, where he met up with coach Leo Johnson, launched his career as “the world’s greatest quarter-miler”. Over 1947 and 1948 he set the individual world record on three occasions, including 45.9 seconds for the 400 metres at Milwaukee on 2nd July 1948 less than a month before he competed in the London Olympic Games. McKenley, favourite or the gold medal, started the 400 metres with a dynamic burst putting him well ahead at 200 metres. He blamed his failure to win on his own over-confidence. Feeling easy and relaxed he changed his style of running – and at 40 metres out it seemed that the whole stadium had fallen on him. Arthur Wint, his long-striding compatriot, overtook him to win in 46.2 to his 46.41 seconds. Then Wint’s collapse through cramp cost Jamaica the chance of winning gold in the relay. McKenley was also fourth in the 200 metres. Four years later he won two individual silvers and a relay gold at Helsinki. Herb always thought he had won the 100 metres. After a terrible start he finished strongly in 10.4 seconds, the same time as Lindy Remigino - but the American (who also thought McKenley had won) was given first place by one-hundredth of a second. McKenley attributed his failure to win the 400 metres to that earlier defeat by Wint.  Concerned with Wint’s challenge on the final turn he allowed his stocky team-mate George Rhoden with whom he was running pace-for-pace to slip ahead. Herb closed down the distance but too late – both men finished in 45.9 seconds with Rhoden having the advantage. Jamaica’s performance in the 4 x 400 metres relay has passed into history and legend. On the third leg McKenley took the baton from Wint some 12 metres down on the U.S.A. Pitted against Charlie Moore, the 400 metres hurdles champion, he seemed to have no chance, but remembered coach Johnson’s early advice – “do a little at a time”. A little ? Herb ran an outstanding record-breaking 44.6 seconds to hand over to Rhoden a metre up on Mal Whitfield for Jamaica to win the gold medal in the world record time of 3 minutes 03.9 seconds. On retirement Herb McKenley became an acclaimed coach and administrator, including six years as President of the Jamaican Amateur Athletic Association. Until his final infirmity he was seen often at the National Stadium trackside advising young athletes, and, it is said, feeding and clothing youngsters from his own pocket. After two strokes and heart surgery Herb became a shadow of his former self and his passing was not unexpected.   Herbert Henry McKenley Born at Pleasant Valley, Clarendon, Jamaica on 10th July 1922 Died at University Hospital of the West Indies, Kingston, Jamaica on 26th November 2007. He is survived by his wife, Beverley, and four children (Laura, Herbie, Michael and Kirsten) and grand-children     CONNIE MARK (1923-2007)   Connie Mark MBE, BEM, who passed away on 3rd June aged 83 years, was a large lady with a large personality and an even larger passion and commitment. She was passionate about her Jamaican culture, about Britain, about gaining recognition for the people of the Caribbean who had served in the Second World War and for West Indian pioneers in this country, about the local community in which she lived, about cricket – about life. When Connie put her mind to something – and she worked tirelessly to gain the support of politicians and organizations – because of her own enthusiasm and determination it was difficultnto resist her. Many will remember her best for her role in founding the Friends of Mary Seacole. Mrs Mark was well-known also for her cultural and educational talks on radio and television, and to schools and voluntary associations. The voice of “Connie from Shepherd’s Bush” was heard frequently on local radio call-in shows as she pushed for something, or some-one, to be remembered or an oversight to be righted. She did so with humour and without rancour. Although she had been ill for some time Connie conveyed all that humour, vigour and patriotism – and a desire to continue speaking beyond her allotted time – when she spoke to the West Indian Ex-Servicemen’s Association just a few days before she died.    Connie (nee Constance MacDonald) was brought up in Kingston, Jamaica, where she was born on 21st December 1923. Her background was the proverbial “salad of ethnic genes” - a white grandfather had come from Scotland and her black grandmother was a descendant of slaves. She was raised in a Methodist household as British and loyal to the royal family. Her father, who had been a teacher at the military camp, worked later for Jamaican railways. She learned the piano and as a child wanted to be a concert pianist. Connie was educated at Wolmer’s School, one of the leading schools in Jamaica. As with most of her generation in Jamaica her education was essentially British – British poetry, history and geography. When her home-island and the Mother Country were threatened in the Second World War, and the lists of dead and wounded servicemen began to appear in Kingston, Connie, who from school had trained as a secretary, joined the Auxiliary Training Service (ATS) as medical secretary in 1943 – serving until 1954 - at the British Military Hospital in Kingston. It was there that sick and wounded West Indian soldiers were sent back to Jamaica to recover. On leaving the Royal Army Medical Corps she moved to England with her three-month old daughter in November 1954 to be with her first husband, Stanley Goodridge, a fast bowler who had a professional contract here. She recalled vividly the hardship of life in post-war London – preferring to go to the public baths or washing in the outhouse instead of using the shared bathroom, and bathing her baby in front of the coal-fire in a room so cold that they often slept in their coats. Connie worked hard for the cause of West Indian (ex-)servicemen/women in Britain and for as long as she was able marched in the annual Remembrance Day parade at the Cenotaph. She did as much as anyone to stimulate interest in and recognition for Mary Seacole, the then-forgotten nurse of the mid-Victorian era who has attained subsequent iconic status. Inspired by references to Ms Seacole in the publication / touring exhibition “Roots in Britain” edited by Ziggi Alexander and Audrey Dewjee, and with her own background in the medical profession (she worked in this country as a hospital secretary), Connie was instrumental in founding the “Friends of Mary Seacole” in 1981 (which has since become the Mary Seacole Memorial Association). Connie Mark strove to make Jamaicans aware of their own culture and British society generally aware of its Jamaican heritage. She had a love of poetry and was probably the most effective, and certainly the most memorable, of the many imitators of the late Louise Bennett-Coverley – “Miss Lou” whose poems and stories in Jamaican patois have become the cultural backbone of the diaspora. Connie was also an enthusiastic commere of beauty contests, and a caring chaperone to title-holders, and was a regular, and vociferous supporter of the West Indies cricket team.       GEORGE JOHN (1921-2007)   George John, who has died in Trinidad aged 86 years, was Editor of the Weekly Gleaner for a couple of years during a time of transition in the mid-1980s. He followed, and belonged to, the tradition of Theo Sealy and Hector Wynter, whose presence, professionalism and performance exceeded mere journalism: they influenced events as well as merely reporting them. John had a formidable heritage in that he was the son of the legendary fast bowler of the same name who more than anybody else won Test Match recognition for West Indies by his strength of character and his achievements on the pitch, particularly during the tour of England in 1923. His son was similarly a pioneer in journalism. George Radcliffe John worked in the print media for more than half a century. He began his career in Trinidad, his home island, where at different times he edited both the Trinidad Guardian (where he started in 1936) and Trinidad Express, the country's two leading daily newspapers. He was employed at the Gleaner's head office in Kingston, Jamaica where he covered Chief Minister Norman Manley's two election campaigns in 1959 and 1962, and served also in the Office of the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago during the early years of Dr Eric Williams. The listing of the positions which he held, the media outlets to which he contributed, and the educational establishments at which he lectured would comprise in themselves a catalogue of contemporary Caribbean communication. Colleagues testify to his dedicated professionalism, all-round expertise, sharp memory, the knack of simplifying even the most complicated issues, and his sense of humour. "He was perpetually young". In 2002 George John Jnr was awarded the honorary Doctor of Letters from the University of the West Indies, St Augustine and in the same year his book about his life in journalism "Beyond the Front Page" was published.   I met George first on a visit to the Trinidad Express office in Port of Spain in March 1981. Strikers attempted to block my way with placards proclaiming "George John must go". He was calm and serene in spite of the turmoil, and years later confided his pride that the demonstration had been led by his own daughter, Deborah, "a chip off the old block" who is now Features Editor of the same newspaper. George, who died from throat cancer, leaves also his widow Jean, sons George Anthony and Gregory, and four grandchildren.

	George John (left) with the great cricketer George Headley at the funeral of (Lord) Learie Constantine

Dudley Dryden (left) and Len Dyke (right) submitted by Rudi Page