Former Prime Minister Hugh Lawson Shearer will be laid to rest at National Heroes Park today after an ecumenical service at the Holy Trinity Cathedral on North Street, downtown Kingston.

The multi-denominational service will be led by Reverend Dr Horace Russell, family friend and former minister of the East Queen Street Baptist Church. Other officiating ministers will represent the Methodist, Anglican and Pentecostal districts; the Church of God; Ethiopian Orthodox Church; the Salvation Army; Seventh-day Adventist; the Moravian Church and Jewish community.

Prime Minister P J Patterson, Governor-General Sir Howard Cooke and Opposition Leader Edward Seaga will be among the list of local dignitaries attending the service scheduled to begin at 2:00 pm.

Yesterday, the JIS, the state news agency, said that prime ministers Baldwin Spencer of Antigua & Barbuda, and Ralph Gonsalves of St Vincent & the Grenadines, as well as former prime minister of St Lucia, Sir John Compton and speaker of the House in Ontario, Canada, Alvin Curling will attend the State Funeral.

Representatives from other Caribbean islands, including deputy governor-general of the Bahamas, Paul L Adderley; Margaret Dyer-Howe and Dr Anthony Dyer, chief minister and minister of finance and economic development in Monsterrat respectively; Dr Timoty Harris, minister of foreign affairs and education in St Kitts and Nevis; Trinidadian ambassador, John Donaldson; and former cabinet minister in Barbados, Dr Richard Cheltenham are also expected to attend, JIS said.

Officials from Namibia, Botswana, Iceland, Malaysia and The Netherlands will also be among today’s mourners.

Tributes to Shearer will be made by Patterson, Seaga, Jamaica Labour Party chairman Bruce Golding, president of the Jamaica Confederation of Trade Unions Senator Dwight Nelson, Ruddy Spencer of the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union, National Workers’ Union’s Dwight Goodleigh, and family friend William Clarke.

University of the West Indies vice-chancellor, Professor Rex Nettleford, will give the remembrance, while the governor-general, along with Shearer’s two sons, Howard and Lance, are down to read the first, second and third lessons respectively.

Yesterday, members of the public continued to view Shearer’s body on its final day laying in state at the National Arena.

“I just have to pay my last respect,” said a well-attired Amy Bailey who travelled from Portland to say goodbye.

Bailey, 67, recalled the days when the former prime minister would visit her hometown in Fort George, St Mary.

“He was a good person, loving, kind and good to everyone,” she said. “I have to say goodbye today because I won’t make it to the funeral tomorrow.”

Crawford Bent’s trip to the National Arena was not out of sheer curiosity, but affection for the former prime minister.

“He was a very good friend, a great prime minister and one that I truly loved,” Bent, who was accompanied by his four children told the Sunday Observer. “I just have to look at him today because I don’t expect to get a chance to see him tomorrow at the funeral.”

Shearer’s body had been laying in state since Wednesday, first at the Vere Technical High School auditorium in Clarendon and then at the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union headquarters on Duke Street on Thursday. The body was then moved to the National Arena for Friday’s and yesterday’s viewing.

Shearer, who served as prime minister from 1967 to 1972, died at his home in Hope Pastures, St Andrew on Monday, July 5 after a long illness. He was 81.

While the Holy Trinity Cathedral is able to accommodate approximately 2,500 persons, thousands more are expected to line North and East streets to the National Heroes Circle to witness the pomp and pageantry associated with State Funeral processions.