Moving tributes dominate Hector Bunyan’s funeral service –interred at Le Repentir Cemetery

THE body of ex-serviceman and former President of the Guyana Legion, Mr. Hector Joseph Stanley Bunyan was yesterday laid to rest at Le Repentir Cemetery, following a moving thanksgiving service presided over by the Bahai’s of Guyana at the Lyken/Newburg Funeral Home.
Joining his widow, Mrs. Winifred Bunyan, children, grandchildren and other bereaved members of the Bunyan clan were representatives of the Guyana Legion, members of the judiciary – past and serving; friends, former working colleagues and other sympathizers, some of whom gave tributes.
In glowing tributes rendered in his honour, Mr. Bunyan was remembered as a man who had been very committed to his family; one who made a significant contribution to his country, both as a serviceman and in the numerous capacities in which he functioned, particularly in the legal field, where he had functioned at the level of Chief Note-Taker within the courts, and later as a Justice of the Peace and Commissioner of Oaths to Affidavits.
For several years, he had tutored secretaries and reporters in Shorthand speed writing, and was known to have produced many of Guyana’s best.
In later years, he also worked with the Guyana Elections Commission, among other places.

Prior to taking up duties within the legal system, Bunyan, as a young man, worked as a newspaper boy, and later as a journalist with the Argosy and Chronicle newspapers.
Mr. Kingsley Nelson, its General Secretary, gave a tribute on behalf of the Guyana Legion, remembering the late Hector Bunyan as a knowledgeable, amicable, pleasant yet jovial associate within and without the walls of the Guyana Legion.
A man of quiet dignity and deep love of country, Bunyan was well versed in the technicalities of the law; and, by extension, lived within the law, while urging others to do likewise. A repository of knowledge in the legal field, for which he had a passion, Bunyan won the respect and admiration of judges throughout the Judiciary.
His life was exemplary, Nelson said.
“Having myself been a product of Mr. Hector Bunyan’s attending a Shorthand Speedwriters’ course at the Guyana Public Service Union in the 1970s, I can vividly remember some of his work sheets. One, for example, in which he would authoritatively affirm:  “One of the cardinal principles of the law is that a man is assumed to be innocent until found guilty.”
Nelson also spoke of Hector Bunyan’s contribution while serving as a member of the armed forces, being enlisted as a member of the British Guiana Fourth Coast Battery Forces; and his attachment to the South Caribbean Forces, around 1945, as part of a back-up contingent in World War II.
On his return to British Guiana, Bunyan became associated with the Guyana Legion, and was later elected President of the Legion in 2007.
On behalf of the Legion, the General Secretary extended condolences to the grieving widow, Mrs. Winifred Bunyan, and other family members of the Bunyan clan.
Meanwhile, son of the deceased, Mr. Wendell Bunyan, remembered his father as a pleasant, loving, caring person to his family and others whose lives he had touched; and possessing a sense of humour, which he maintained to the time of his death.
His father, of recent, had been ailing, but even as he went through his final moments, he lifted family members’ spirits by the jovial way in which he chatted and interacted with them.
He had an uncanny ability to remember things, even the fact that his initial job earnings yielded him a ‘princely penny per day,’ as Bunyan had reminded his son on the day before he died.
Ironically, Wendell said, as he left the United States to travel home to Guyana, it was not to attend a funeral, but to share in the joy of celebrating the 90th birth anniversary of his father.
Hector Bunyan should have turned 90 on August 28, but regrettably died 48 hours earlier — on Sunday, August 26 — and never saw that milestone. Trying to muster up courage as he spoke, Wendell remarked, “Dad was a man who was fully prepared for death… so at peace with his pain, he was able to advise the family on what should be done on his passing.”
Wendell also offered on the keyboard a musical tribute to the father he held dear.
Other family members had fond memories of good times shared with Hector: viewing family photos together, and also reciting prayers together.
There was also a tribute on behalf of the Judicial Service; and trumpeter of the Guyana Police Force Band, Jerimiah Trim, rendered ‘The last Post’ and the sounding of the ‘Revalle’ as Hector Bunyan’s body lay serene in his casket draped with the National Flag, before the cortege took off on its final journey – to Le Repentir cemetery for interment.

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