Editorial | The good choice and great value of Sir Geoff

Jamaica could scarcely have found a more distinguished individual than Sir Godfrey (Geoff ) Palmer to appoint as its honorary consul in Scotland.

Sir Geoff, who emmigrated to Britain as an underschooled 15-year-old in 1955, is emeritus professor at Scotland's Heriot-Watt University and one of the world's leading authorities on grains and cereals. His pioneering research on enzymes during the fermentation of grains, and the machine he designed to help speed up the process, reshaped conventional ideas on the matter and greatly influenced the use of sorghum in the manufacture of beer in Africa by multinational brewers.

Apart from his achievements, Sir Geoff has compelling stories to tell, including the controversial one about the Tory politician and Margaret Thatcher's intellectual guru, Sir Keith Joseph, who told him in 1964, during a panel interview for funded position, when a young Geoff Palmer wanted to read for his MSc degree, to "go back where you come from and grow bananas".

Recounting the incident to The Guardian newspaper nearly a decade ago, Sir Geoff said: "I said: 'There aren't any bananas in London'." Sir Keith's angry retort was to ask Palmer whether he could identify wheat from barley from a moving train. Palmer didn't get the bursary.

Human-rights Advocate

"I think of him when I pass a field at 125mph and I can tell the difference," said Sir Geoff, who has not only been a human-rights advocate, but once worked with the poet Benjamin Zephaniah on a film aimed at exciting Afro-Caribbean students to enter the sciences.

"African-Caribbean children and students are more aware of the financial rewards of sports, music and the media than they are of the benefits of science," Sir Geoff noted in that interview. "When I was asked how much I earned as a researcher by a group of black children, they laughed when I told them. One boy said: 'Rio Ferdinand could earn your annual salary in a day!'"

Educational Issues

Many of the educational issues, as well as matters of values among black children in the UK highlighted by Sir Geoff remain prevalent in the Jamaica he left more than six decades ago. We don't know how many of the one per cent, or 53,000 or so of Scotland's 5.3 million inhabitants who say they are of African/African-Caribbean origin are of Jamaican background, or how busy Sir Geoff will be kept by his duties as honorary consul. We doubt he will have a hectic time at it.

However, he can be of immense value to Jamaica, especially if ways can be found to leverage his intellect, profile and natural charisma. First, we'd encourage the Government, particularly the education ministry, to make Sir Geoff a new poster boy for Jamaican science, joining persons like Dr Henry Lowe and Professor Errol Morrison, researchers, respectively, in marijuana and diabetes, for a new thrust in science in the island. Sir Geoff's life experiences should be shared with young Jamaicans.

At another level, Sir Geoff has the heft in the UK that might help Jamaica articulate to its communities in Britain a position on Brexit, once our Government can think of what that position should be.