Gordon Robinson | Farewell to a man of light and love

My friend, Jeff Cobham, passed away on August 13 as quietly as he lived.

I met Jeff 30 years ago through mutual friend Danny Melville (whose life mission is to trick or force this confirmed hermit into meeting people he thinks I should). Especially whenever Jeff’s world famous brother-in-law was in Jamaica, Jeff and Marjorie would join us at Casa Tout and discuss everything from the sublime to the ridiculous.

And, of course, listen to my vinyl records.

Since the pandemic hit, we’ve been converted into e-mail correspondents. He regularly sent music from everywhere and every genre.

Everybody knew Jeff as a banker who rose to the top as NCB Managing Director. After retirement, when asked to join Stocks and Securities’ Board to try cleaning up the mess, he visited Casa Tout and asked the Computer Wiz (then an investment banker) for advice. The Wiz, ever a diplomat, was non-committal. Jeff accepted the offer. But the patient was beyond resuscitation. I can’t help feeling stress from unfair, baseless accusations to which he was subjected late in life affected his health.

It’s not widely known that Jeff was a fine classical guitarist and a quality short story writer. During his youth he was leader/lead guitarist of a band named The Logarhythms that included Arnold Bertram (yes, HIM; drums and vocals); Peter Bellot (saxophone); Howard Cooper (vocals); John Jones (same one; vocals); Tony Lynch (percussion); Harley Moseley (bass); Trevor Carrington (Trumpet); Cyril Fletcher (guitar). Jeff contributed so much more to the arts in Jamaica but, as was his wont, without fanfare.

I have no better way to honour Jeff than by re-producing an excerpt from one of his short stories (essentially a memoir), titled Blue:

My father celebrated for three straight weeks when I entered Harrison College. Up to the first day of school my success in the exam was secret, closely confined to the immediate household - his three sisters and my grandmother with whom my father and I lived after the death of my mother. It was only after my father had duly deposited me under the sandbox tree in the quadrangle on that first day, stiffly khakied, and with the distinctive maroon (not red!) and gold (not yellow!) flashes on the garters (epaulets, like coeducation, came in later years), that he actually believed that I had joined the fraternity of young men from whose ranks since 1733, national leaders in every walk of life had emerged. His celebration was limited to the level which one of my aunts always described as “the highstep”. That was the level at which, after a few drinks, my father’s gait assumed the slightly exaggerated knee lift which suggested that he was climbing unseen stairs.

It was in those three weeks that I met Blue. Having picked me up from school as he did for all of my first term, he halted in front of Mr. Ward’s rum shop, a popular refuge about a mile from where we lived, where year by year, flask by flask, middle aged men lived out their diminishing dreams.

“You are going to learn a lot from books,” he said, “but you have to learn from life too. Come.”

I walked behind my father up the steps, absurdly conscious of the bright maroon and gold garter flashes, evidence of my recent promotion to “Kolij boy”. In Barbados, in 1952 “Kolij boy” meant a Harrison College pupil, despite the growing number of colleges. To be a Kolij Boy meant that your opinion could be sought on any topic as you passed any street corner discussion, any rum shop debate. And if you acquitted yourself well, the disputants would then sagely utter comments like “he soun’ like another Grantley” , referring to the Premier of the country, a revered Oxford Educated lawyer. If it was discovered that before entering Harrison College you had attended St.Giles Boys’ School as had the Premier, then your future was considered ordained.

I followed my father to the corner of the bar where a man was hunched over a half empty flask of Cockspur Rum; there were three other empty flasks…..”

Jeff Cobham was a kind, decent, brilliant man. His outstanding intellect and the eclectic nature of his experiences personified his Bajan upbringing where education is valued above all else.

National Dance Theatre Company posted the following remembrance:

“It is with profound sadness that NDTC announces the passing of our beloved former Chairman, Jeffrey ‘Jeff’ Cobham, an exceptional leader, artist, and friend whose life was marked by service, creativity, and unwavering dedication to NDTC’s mission.”

When Karen Smith, one of our favourite singers, died Jeff called her “a creature of Light and Love.” He was correct but also inadvertently projecting.

Jeffrey Carl Cobham, born December 22, 1944; died August 13, 2025; R.I.P.

Peace and Love.

Gordon Robinson is an attorney-at-law. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com