Deal with curse on children right away

In an improvised eulogy of her son, slain teenager George Langford Jr, Haslan Langford sent a message to parents. She said: “Do not let people talk bad about yuh children. That is a curse and anytime anybody say a curse, deal with it right away.” Haslan said that such talk occurred in her son’s case, since “many people misinterpreted him”.

Fourteen-year-old George Jr was laid to rest yesterday, following a funeral service at the United Apostolic Pentecostal Church, Petit Bourg, San Juan. He was stabbed to death last week by a woman alleged to be a prostitute. In describing the endearing qualities of her son, clad in a white suit and with a cricket bat, ball and gloves in his casket, she said he was “jovial, always jovial, very loving and kind”. Since age seven, she said he did the shopping for her at the supermarket. “All he needed was a list. He always did it.” Haslan recalled the day her son died. She said he had a nine o’clock appointment and didn’t want to go. “He came and rest his head on my chest...he hug meh up and ah say yuh have to go, it getting late.” Haslan said. “I have a thing with my children when they out late they have to call home by 7 o’clock. I sat in the gallery waiting when I didn’t hear from him. Then two policemen came at my home and told me to meet them at the police station. They never tell me he dead.”

Amidst friends and relatives who came out to pay their respects were George Jr’s classmates, dressed in the school’s (Tranquillity Government Secondary) uniform. They remembered him as always “making a joke” and always running off during lunch time to play cricket. In the foyer of the church, the students set up a notice board, decorated with pictures of George Jr and his friends surrounded by handwritten poems and farewell notes. Just as the school’s cricket coach, known as “Pops” rose to say a few words, the students draped the school’s flag, yellow in colour, over the casket. Pops said the flag was the school’s highest honour and George Jr deserved such honour. He said in the two years he had known George Jr, he was always enthused about cricket. “No young cricketer that I have ever come across had rose to certain heights in a short space of time to cover all aspects of the game,” Pops said.

George Jr was a member of four cricketing clubs, namely El Socorro, Barataria, Queen’s Park Oval and his school’s cricket team. He represented the school in Trinidad and Barbados at the recently held BET competition. Pops said George Jr never tried to exalt over his achievement to enhance his development. “Seldom he would accept congratulations. What humility!” said Pops. He said that George Jr loved cricket so much that he obtained a job as waterboy for cricket matches at the Queen’s Park Oval and was in charge of the umpire’s room when Australia toured the West Indies.