The Tribune

By KYLE WALKINE

Tribune Staff Reporter

kwalkine@tribunemedia.net

A MEMORIAL service and Junkanoo rush out has been planned for Paul “Diamond” Knowles, one of the founders of the Roots Junkanoo group, tomorrow. 

The memorial service, set to begin at 7.30pm in Rawson Square will be followed by a mass Junkanoo rush from Rawson Square, heading east and onto Elizabeth Avenue to Mr Knowles’ law office. 

Mr Knowles died on Saturday evening after a 22-year battle with illness. His sister, Sonia Forbes, said while his illness may have caused some physical challenges, he never let it hinder him from completing a task. 

“He took his challenges head on,” she said. “He never backed down. My brother never let those challenges deter him from going to his office and working all day, every day.”

“When it came to Junkanoo, he was hands on and especially when it was Junkanoo season he would get very little sleep preparing for it. Despite being unable to do things a certain way, he found another way to do it.”

Mrs Forbes described her brother as a “leader in every sense of the word”.

“Although he was the third of four children, he was the person his siblings and his friends looked up to,” she told The Tribune. “He was more like the person that you would go to who would give you advice on how to do things. That was just his personality.

“He was a leader in every sense of the word. One thing that can be noted about his leadership style is that he didn’t believe in there being just one leader or one person making the decisions. He was not a dictator.”

Mrs Forbes said her brother firmly believed that the Junkanoo he helped to form should be led by a committee and not one man. 

Knowles grew up in “the heart of the valley,” according to his sister and was the next door neighbour of Prime Minister Perry Christie. 

“In fact,” she said, “Mr Christie’s mother was a nurse and a midwife who delivered all four of us.”

Aside from being an avid Junkanooer, Mr Knowles, a father of two (one pre-deceased), was a member of St. Christopher’s Anglican Parish and a veteran lawyer. 

His funeral service is set for Friday, July 4, at 11am at Christ Church Cathedral.