What a woman, said Neil Giuseppi, summing up the late Hazel Ward-Redman, a teacher, television producer, presenter extraordinaire, educator, guide, mentor, patriot and wife. Ward-Redman, who died on October 27 at 79, was cremated at Belgrove’s Funeral Home after a mass at the St Paul’s Anglican Church, San Fernando, yesterday. The Right Rev Rawle Douglin, along with Canon (Emeritus) Dr Steve West, officiated at the mass.
Douglin said Aunty Hazel lived a tremendous life which was characterised by her love for all her fellow human beings through the grace of God, who was always at the centre of her being.
President Anthony Carmona, San Fernando mayor Kazim Hosein, Minister in the Ministry of the People Vernella Alleyne-Toppin, former PNM minister Pennelope Beckles, and former St Augustine Girls’ High School principal Anna Mahase, as well as a host of journalists, including those from TTT, all turned out to bid Aunty Hazel farewell.
In the first of two tributes, Giuseppi said Ward-Redman was one of the most professional women the Caribbean had ever produced and while we shall all be worse-off for that loss, her friends and relatives are comforted by the knowledge that she is sitting alongside her late husband, Dr Archibald Redman, forever at the feet of the Lord.
Giuseppi traced her life from birth at Fonrose Street, San Fernando, her flair for fashion, to being one of a team of pioneers who braved uncharted waters to launch Trinidad and Tobago Television (TTT). For close to 40 years, through TTT, she played an integral part in the development of T&T, moulding the lives of many through her many programmes, designed mainly for women and children.
“Her cultural programmes like Twelve and Under, Teen Talent, and her magazine programmes like Mainly for Women, Centre Stage and Not for Women Only, set standards of excellence that television producers and presenters today would do well to emulate. “She insisted on excellence in everything that she did, She was the consummate professional,” Giuseppi said.
“She was a teacher and mentor to thousands of young people whose lives she influenced positively. She was a guiding light when all around seemed dark and hopeless. To paraphrase the words of the great bard, William Shakespeare, in his immortal work, Julius Caesar, she ‘bestrode the narrow world like a colossus.’”
In the second tribute, delivered both in spoken word and song, Richard Pierre said all artistes owed a debt of gratitude to Aunty Hazel, who provided them all with a platform to be heard, even those who were not as talented. “You inspired me, you guided me, you were my adviser and mentor. Above all, you were my dearest friend. Thank you,” he said.
His selection of the gospel song You Raised Me Up was an appropriate sendoff from the many people in the congregation whom “Aunty Hazel” Ward-Redman shaped and moulded during her lifetime.