ROUND AND ROUND WE GO

Feb 09, 2009 Features / Columnists, Tony Deyal column

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Samuel Goldwyn, the famous Hollywood producer, was famous, even during his lifetime, for “Goldwynisms” which came after “Malapropisms” and pre-dated “Bushisms” and other “isms” that perpetrate grievous bodily harm on the English Language.
While some of them may have been attributed to, and not originated by, Goldwyn, they are all very funny.  Speaking about a Western in which some native Americans were needed, he said, “We can get all the Indians we need at the reservoir.”
On the subject of a self-made man, “He worked his way up from nothing, that kid. In fact, he was born in an orphan asylum.”  Others include: “I had this terrible thing happen at the track. My horse was winning and then his caddy fell off”, “”I would be sticking my head in a moose” and “A verbal agreement isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.”
The Goldwynism I like best is, “If Roosevelt were alive today, he would turn over in his grave.”  The British/American Rock Band, Fleetwood Mac, came out with the song, “Murrow Turning Over in His Grave” about the present excesses of the media and CBS, the major US broadcasting company, at which the legendary American Journalist, Edward R. Murrow, spent his entire career as a broadcaster.
Murrow’s famous tagline, which he first used during his radio broadcasts from London during the Battle of Britain, “Good Night and Good Luck” was the title of a movie about his life.
The Fleetwood Mac song about Murrow, in the album “Say You Will”, is a condemnation of the increasing lack of integrity in journalism.  According to one source, “Edward R. Murrow was a legendary CBS news broadcaster who was the first to appear on a television newscast (the show was called See It Now). He represents the standard for integrity in broadcast journalism, so when a network does something unethical, incompetent or stupid relating to its news division, it is often met with commentary that ‘Edward R. Murrow is turning over in his grave’.
“As news divisions at major networks suffered budget cuts in favour of entertainment, Murrow has turned over quite often.”
Another person who is reputed to be rotating faster than a test tube in a centrifuge or Lance Armstrong’s bicycle tyre in a Tour de France, is Dr. Eric Williams, first Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago.  Even though, like Murrow, he too was cremated, it did not stop the story about one of his old cronies, John O’Halloran, finally reaching the Pearly Gates and asking St Peter if he could talk to his old friend and ally.
St Peter was not very helpful. “Listen, there are a lot of Eric Williams up here and some due over the next few years.  I need more information than that.”  Johnny O thought a bit and then said, “We used to call him Bill.”  St Peter was impatient, “Look man, we have thousands of people named Bill Williams up here, is there anything else you can tell me about him.”  Johnny O had a flash of inspiration, “Well he once told me if his party ever lost an election or misspent the oil wealth he left them, he would turn over in his grave..”  “Oh,” St Peter said triumphantly, “you mean ‘Revolving Bill’!”
I used to think that Dr. Williams held the record in the Pinwheel Stakes, eclipsing even the Trinidad and Tobago government bureaucracy, with its everlasting spools of red tape, which has a global reputation for making poor people go round in circles and for giving them the run-around.
But there is a new kid on the rotisserie block.  He is Cyril Duprey, O.B.E., father and founder of Colonial Life Insurance Company (later to be known as Clico), the first locally-owned insurance company incorporated in Trinidad and Tobago, which opened for business on June 1, 1937.
According to the Clico website, “Colonial Life offered coverage in the form of industrial insurance, with premiums ranging from six (6) cents to twenty-four (24) cents a week. By the end of the Company’s first financial year, Colonial Life was able to gross $20,000 from its single branch located at 75 Queen Street, Port of Spain.”
The company’s success in Port-of-Spain led to branches in other parts of the country.  By 1946, in less than ten years, the company had branches in Grenada, Guyana, Barbados, St. Vincent, St. Kitts and St. Lucia. By 1954 the company’s profits had reach TT$6.5 million.
In 1974 Clico sold over TT$100million and made a profit of TT$14.6million.
Lawrence Duprey, the nephew of the firm’s founder Cyril Duprey, joined the Colonial Life Team as Head of the Data Processing Operations Department in 1970.  In 1987, he was promoted to the post of Managing Director of Head Office, Trinidad and in 1988 was appointed Chairman.
Fast forward twenty-one years to Wednesday, February 4, 2009. The Clico website boasts, “From offering 24 percent premiums in 1937 to operating in more than 24 territories today, CLICO, the first locally owned insurance company in Trinidad & Tobago, has come a long way, and with plans for the years ahead already in place, CLICO’s future promises to be even greater than its illustrious past.
“More than seventy years later, the dream of one man has become much more than reality. Taking on a life of its own, CLICO has grown to become an integral part of LIFE in the Caribbean.”
The irony of it all is that last Friday, January 30, 2009, the less than illustrious present and most recent past caught up with CLICO.  It was bad enough when Lawrence had to appear in court in the Panday matter, something the straight-laced Cyril would never have anticipated or condoned. Now, his company is in such a sad and sorry state that it had to beg for a bailout from the Trinidad and Tobago Government.
Included in the package of goodies on the block is Cyril Duprey’s Colonial Life Insurance Company (Trinidad) Ltd.  While CLICO is trying to consolidate and put itself in a defensive position, what in the old Wild West they would call, “circling the wagons”, old man Duprey has to be like Chief Crazy Horse, going round and round on the outside as he watches his pride and joy, a genuine gem of Caribbean entrepreneurship, turn into paste.
If I were Cyril, my nephew Lawrence would feel my wrath both in this life and the next.  The Duprey in his surname would become two words, “Do Pray.”
*Tony Deyal was last seen saying that perhaps Lawrence should have taken the advice of Sam Goldwyn and pay closer attention to who he has as advisors, “I don’t want yes-men around me. I want everyone to tell the truth, even if it costs them their jobs.”

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