TRIBUTE TO SIR CECIL ALBERT JACOBS, MBE, CBE
I am deeply honoured to be requested by the family of Sir Cecil Jacobs, the first Governor of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB), to make a contribution to this service which I consider to be a celebration of his life and work. Cecil Jacobs is one of a brand of renowned individuals whose time of birth and life span placed them astride some of the most significant historical periods and events of our countries and our region. - He would have been a teenager when the riots and revolts which took place in the region, starting here in St Kitts in the 1930s, ushered in what was referred to as the birth of the modern West Indies. - He would have experienced the deprivations in the region which were the result of the Second World War. - He would then have traveled to England to study as a young man, a route taken by many of our bright young men and women in the 1950s. There they experienced life in the Mother Country and developed a sense of their own countries and region, as well as aspirations for self government. - He would have been in his thirties when the region experienced the euphoria and then the bitter disappointment of the West Indies Federation, 1958
