The following is the eulogy presented by Editor-at-Large of the Jamaica Observer, H G Helps, at the memorial service for the life of Winston Chung Fah on Saturday, December 15, 2018 at the Cathedral of the Most Holy Trinity on North Street in Kingston.

WHEN our good friend Professor “Bagga” Wilson described Winston as a miracle worker in his eulogy at the St Louis Catholic Church in Miami last Saturday [December 8], a colleague of mine enquired whether he meant our departed brother was a kind of obeah man.

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So, I quickly had to push the button of clarification to say no, he was not like the man from your St Thomas community who promised to do things for people and to people for attractive fees, I’m told, and usually flops in trying… what “Bagga” Wilson meant was that Winston Chung Fah was the kind of man who achieved so many things for so many people, in an incredible schedule, at no cost to them … something that he managed to do with precision for over 60 years.

We have heard so much about Winston’s achievements in football, and the esteemed speakers before me have, in large measure, covered the trail of Winston’s juggling act, that leaves me on the bench with very little to chronicle.

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Winston was not just about football, though his life centred on the sport for all his life. He was the man who first taught Jamaicans how they could step up, on the way to finding long-lasting prosperity.

Early in my life, he joined the late Douglas Forrest, as the two greatest human beings that I had come in contact with. But while Mr Forrest had his say, essentially in the specific area of managing young minds at Kingston College, Winston was much more. His mission was broader.

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Winston understood how minds worked – young, old and in-between. He was born, not in east Kingston as he had managed to convince some of us in his quest to have us believe that he was Kingstonian to the core, but in Blackwoods, near Beckford Kraal in north central Clarendon on the third of December 1939.

He spent his early years with his mother Urceline Thomas, who hailed from Victoria in the adjoining north-west Clarendon constituency, one of the first women I saw popularise the habit of smoking with the lit end of the tobacco or cigarette in her mouth; an aunt in Rollington Town, and his father Phillip in Rae Town.

There were times that Chungie had to be on the move, due primarily to his unorthodox way of doing things and handling situations. At one time, in his mission to defend himself and some of the youth in the community, he was forced to make a physical statement on a policeman who was consistently attacking innocent youth in east Kingston, and was forced to lie low in Clarendon until the man in uniform had gone on to meet his maker.

Upon his return to Kingston, Winston maintained his fierce competition in the lane of life, being a fighter at heart. He joined the Young Men’s Christian Association, got a few games as a goalkeeper, but more important things beckoned on the sidelines. Out of concern for the downtrodden and underprivileged, he formed Doncaster Rovers along with Adrian Strachan as the other principal, at age 22. But three years later in 1964, he left to start Santos, one of the most decorated football clubs that ever showed off its talent to the public, and of which you have already heard so many positive things.

Chungie could not, nor did not make money from his involvement in Jamaican football. He took on lots of projects in his bid to pay the bills, among them serving as an insurance salesman, and running the popular International Restaurant at Barry Street, downtown Kingston. And we have heard of sports bars, which are now popular across Jamaica, but Chungie was responsible for the running of Jamaica’s first sports restaurant – the International Restaurant.

It was there that the Who’s Who of the Jamaican landscape met for hours … once you got there you didn’t want to leave, long after you would have consumed a sumptuous meal.

Enemies met at International and made up … and on Saturdays in particular, it was like a picnic.

A man who understood the street, Winston was the most caring person you could find. He was always searching for those in need and usually found them, offering them gifts, usually monetary, that would at least allow them to honour some of their obligations.

There was one search for someone in need though that eluded him, and for several months it bothered him. He had just returned from the Cayman Islands where he coached for several years. I had picked him up at the airport and on the way in he started to enquire of Hugh Crosskill, the outstanding broadcaster, who had fallen into a difficult ditch. He had the urge to see Crosskill that night and convinced me to accompany him on the search. We went everywhere in Kingston we thought that Hugh might have been, but just could not find him and we were forced to retire to bed at my home.

Early in the morning, Chungie abandoned his usual knock on the door and burst into my room. “Sit down on the bed,” he ordered me. Like a willing child, I complied. “You would never believe what happened this morning early,” he said, as suspense grew … he eventually came out with it. “Them just shot Hugh Crosskill.” The tears began to flow. “If only we had found him last night, he would have been alive right now.”

I will always remember Chungie for the many times that he took my children, one of them his godson, to school and picked them up at the end. So frequent was he a visitor to Mico Practising Primary and Junior High that one afternoon when Chungie was running late and my daughter Stacey-Ann was sitting there waiting, the security guard, having seen the old Mercedes Benz enter the premises, shouted out to my daughter, “Little girl, you ‘Chiney’ grandfather reach.”

And speaking of that Mercedes, it seemed as if Chungie and I loved to deal in old cars. The number of times that that Mercedes left us on the road, thirsty for a drink of gasolene, was more numerous than the times that the current US president has made a fool of himself … and you know that’s a lot of times.

At one point during the early 1990s we used to have a five-gallon bottle with a little petrol in it, and a hose, as we tried to fight an unresponsive petrol gauge, until things could get better.

Although he loved people endlessly, Chungie also liked his own personal space. His ideal place to live was away from the crowd, usually in the hills, or some other semi-secluded place where he often used to reflect and strategise.

His larger than life personality could be matched only by his elaborate appetite … one who loved to indulge in, to him, fine cuisine, sometimes to the detriment of his own health considerations.

Allie McNab will remember when the three of us ordered steamed fish at a spot along the Palisadoes Road and while we could manage only half of ours, Chungie wiped away his and knocked off what we both had left – which was half of what was served – without a fuss.

My recollection remains vivid of taking a jerked pig, at his request, to the Cayman Islands, weighing close to 30 pounds and Chungie ‘destroying’ that in less than three days, much to my amazement.

I had driven to Portland to get that pig, taken it to St Mary where it was executed, or so I thought, only for the wounded pig to spring up off the ground and started running into the bushes, but the alert butcher caught up with him and made no mistake on the second attempt.

He was one who was qualified to energise any individual or crowd, most times leaving them in awe. If you were ever late for an assignment and you met Chungie on the way, forget about it … a five-minute conversation could turn into a five-hour lecture and storytelling in one, without you even realising.

He acted in a play or two, but Chungie often saw himself as an acclaimed singer, who would often decorate speaking engagements with some of the top hits of Sam Cooke and Nat King Cole.

He had a sound knowledge of cricket, and his ability to think through challenges, saw him emerging as one of the finest domino players. He was that good. He did not have to resort to coding like Neville Oxford, “Bowla” Morant, Paul Buchanan and Pearnel Charles.

His wife of 49 years, Barbara, daughters Sharon, April, Michelle and Teisha, four grandchildren, brothers Frank, Donald, who unfortunately is not well, and Delroy, and other family members will no doubt understand the tremendous impact that this complete Jamaican giant has had on the many thousands in Jamaica and around the globe.

So huge is the respect for our friend that all of the KC supporters and sympathisers who attended the service of thanksgiving in Miami, did not feel bad, believe it or not, that Clarendon College, the school that he coached to daCosta Cup success in 1977, were allowed to claim the Olivier Shield by an understanding Kingston College on the day of the service. In fact, some of us had a drink in his honour.

He might not have succeeded in his dream of starting a football academy on lands at Bernard Lodge in St Catherine, but many of us were schooled at the Winston Chung Fah college of peace, love, human rights, dignity and respect… respect is due to the man who had the greatest impact on my life.

Long live Winston Chung Fah.