Rowley: I want to inspire youngsters

He said, “A lot of young people in this country will read this and bolster themselves by saying, ‘If he could make it, I could make it too’”.

Rowley also said he had learnt that a lot of people do not know him - as shown by one critic describing him as upper-middle class in contrast to his pastoral upbringing in Tobago - and he hoped the book could remedy this.

He shared personal insights into his politics. He said in 2008 he had decided to quit politics but that his firing from the Patrick Manning Cabinet had pushed him to stay on in politics to fight his corner so that his children and grandchildren would not have to bear any stain on his family name.

Rowley also said why he is involved in politics. “If you look at the schools at the end of the day when children are pouring out, somebody has to be there for them.

If you can come from very far and dodge so many near-misses, there might be a future for us all.” Rowley said the book-cover - a 2002 painting of his grandfather, Joe Rowley, on his donkey, on front of their humble home - summarised the spirit of the book.

Earlier, historian, Prof Bridget Brereton, spoke of how Rowley was influenced by Joe Rowley, a self-reliant, hardworking, community- oriented farmer. Hailing the strong network of extended families that had raised Rowley as a boy, Brereton said, “His Tobago grounding carried him through life and shaped his character.” Anglican Bishop, Claude Berkely, at times speaking in the rhyme of a Tobago speech-band, saluted Rowley as a “mannish fellow” and a “fighter” who had battled his way out of political persecution. He said the book might alternatively had been titled, “A man of near misses”, alluding to close-calls in Rowley’s past, such as hiding from the police in Morvant after participating in 1970s Black Power demonstrations.