I miss you. It's been a year... but it seems like forever... I really, really just miss you. I am so lucky to have called you Dad. Continue to rest in peace. Love always, Joey.

Today, was the first father's day that I didn't have my daddy here to wish him Happy Father's Day. I miss you, Daddy. Continue to sleep in peace.

Hello Bobby hope you are having a Happy Father’s Day . Miss you.

Happy heavenly birthday Daddy. I miss you.

Continue to rest in peace Bobby.

Those who touch our lives stay in our hearts forever .

Happy Birthday Bobby…….hope you are both having a great day . Still missing you very much, miss our long discussions on so many topics and your sound advice . So much I would like to tell you . 

Greatly loved !!!

Hey Dad.

I miss you.... So I had to order duccana for today. I realized it's the first time since you've been gone that I'll be eating duccana... Brenda already made the saltfish for me yesterday.
I'll add some veg today... Pumpkin... And maybe some spinach.

I have quite a bit of your spinach growing... Even in hanging baskets... Decorative and edible.

Love you! ❤️

A year ago, on this day, I remember the healthy discussion that we had regarding statistical averages for your vitals. We debated and we laughed.
We never know when we will be called home and I could never have guessed it would have been our last Christmas day together.

But... I am thankful for the beautiful memory of that... my last Christmas day with you.

I can't wish you back but I pray for your soul's rest in the Lord. 

I miss you Daddy.
Merry Christmas.

I do have fond memories of visiting Bobby and Mary in their home. Their warm hospitality will long be remembered. Bobby has left indelible footprints on the sands of time and as we gaze on these noble footprints we can take courage and be proud of a life well lived. My sincere condolences to all my cousins.

Rest in peace Bobby. I hold precious memories of you faithfully chauffeuring Mary (Queen of Scots) to HMP each Wednesday afternoon. May you continue your journey together throughout eternity.

I would like to join in offering condolences to the Scotland family on the passing on their beloved father, Jasper, fondly known as Bobby who was my colleague at the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) for close to two decades.
We will all remember Bobby for his ease of greeting coupled with his reassuring smile which were his tools of making you feel welcome, even when time was not always on his side.
As a colleague, I came to value him over time as a force for excellence, well beyond the area of Corporate Planning & Policy in which he worked. As a resource, he was multi-dimensional in his thinking and always brought a feeling of freshness to the discussion, even well into the extended work evening. Added to that was his ability through well reasoned analysis to make things complex appear to be extremely simple.
His embrace of simplicity also filtered through in his engagements with colleagues and despite his considerable range of talents spanning such areas as finance, music, literature, etc, his impulse was to minimize those rather than putting them on full display.His motto was to be of service, giving of his best at all times and doing so without feeling burdened by the effort required.
We were privileged as an institution and as colleagues to have benefited from his rich reservoir of experience and skills and especially for his contribution to the Corporate Planning & Policy architecture of CDB.
May his soul Rest In Peace.

My condolences to the whole Scotland family. I remember growing up in Barbados spending a lot of time in your home. Your Dad was like a second Dad to me. Both of your parents were so kind to me. I will always remember their warmth, love and genuine care for others. May he Rest In Peace.

To say Cousin Bobby was an exceptionally astute and gifted man is to underestimate the enormity of his multifaceted talent.

He was undoubtedly an intellectual giant with an acuity which was breathtaking but that was not his essence.

He had a heart as large as an ocean - endlessly kind and wickedly funny. Even when incredibly busy and weighted down with issues of state or regional finance (which would have made another buckle under the weight of the complexity and difficulty of the issues involved) he found time for family and for friends.

I often thought of and referred to him as “uncle” Bobby for that is how he always treated me. I was the 10th of his uncle Arthur’s and Aunty Viva’s twelve children. One of the little ones and we adored him.

On one of my first visits to Antigua he introduced me to the stories of Paul Keynes Douglas. I laughed so much that my sides ached until I cried. Tanti Merle became my absolute favourite. I was so enamoured by cousin Bobby’s rendition I ran to acquire a recording of the great PKD only to find to my total surprise that my beloved cousin was so much funnier than the great bard himself.

It demonstrated something central to cousin Bobby’s character he knew how to listen, divine what the individual to whom he was speaking needed and delphically supply it in a way best suited to their needs. He taught as he entertained, quietly, gently. He was an inspirational mentor and a wise and kind friend.

Yet he was tough, rigorous, as unrelenting when it came to integrity as he was brutally honest. For the slothful or the dishonest he made a fearsome opponent and gave no quarter. He suffered neither gladly but his patience for those who wanted to learn or improve was humbling. He pushed all hard but no one harder than himself.

His beloved Mary was his heart. It’s difficult to think of him without thinking of her as they were two sides of the same coin. So different but so complimentary. It was hard to see him without her so the one thing that warms my heart is to think of them restored to each other’s embrace.

My heart breaks for all of us as I think of his no longer being there to laugh and to talk with but I feel so grateful for the fact that for so many years he was ours. He loved us, his family and his friends and we loved him, fiercely, in return.

I’m so sad that I can not be there today in person with everyone in Antigua as we come to do him homage but I will be there is spirit.

I thank God for the blessing of having had ‘uncle’ Bobby in my life. He helped remind me what a true Scotland looks like, what is demanded of a public servant who is committed to serving humanity and God, and showed me what is possible if you have determination and courage.

I’m so proud to have counted him as my “uncle” and to be numbered as a member of this Scotland family.

He is loved and will always be remembered.

May his soul rest in peace and perpetual light shine upon him.

Cousin Bobby. Forever with Mary. Just the tone of his voice when he said her name told you how he felt about her. He was the person who told me most about my father, his Uncle, who like him said little about his accomplishments in Antigua. He was the grandfather who spent time crawling on the floor to find a ball that his grandson had thrown on the floor. He could not find it because it was a "dustball". It was his calm explanation that taught me that sometimes when someone has a conflict with you it is because the person is being emotionally dishonest and so do not drink tea for his/her fever. He has gone to the fulfillment of the love he gave and the love he received. He is no longer separated from Mary and now He knows His Master as He is known. He rests in peace. Thank you, Cousin Bobby. You will be missed.

REMEMBERING JASPER “BOBBY” SCOTLAND……

I first met Bobby in the latter half of the seventies at Caricom gatherings. He was among the elite young professionals including Edwin Carrington, Dwight Venner, Byron Blake, Swinburne Lestrade, Vaughn Lewis, recruited (in various capacities and institutions) by the seventies’ titanic proponents, architects and administrators of regional integration as the path for West Indian development: Arthur Lewis, Shridath Ramphal, William Demas, Alistair Mc Intyre, to be the future generals to lead the regional integration movement. These visionaries were on a continual hunt, individually and collectively, for Caribbean talent and would have been impressed with Bobby’s national and regional commitment, academic brilliance and the fact that, already at an early age, had climbed to the pinnacle of his country’s civil service as the youngest Financial secretary of his country and would therefore need a higher platform or wider battleground to develop his skills for the direct benefit of our region or else be lost internationally as part of the brain drain.

We maintained a professional relationship and deep personal friendship from then till his passing. So impressed was I with Bobby that when, whilst attending a Caribbean Group meeting in Washington, I got a call from CDB Vice president, Crispin Sorhaindo, that the CDB Management was offering me promotion to the position of Director of Economics and Programming I stated that I would accept, on condition that Bobby who was then employed at the Caricom Secretariat as Director of Economics, Statistics and Industry, be offered my position of Deputy Director of Corporate Policy and Planning, a recently created position that needed a very skillful hand to consolidate it.

Officialdom can, and may, say lots about Bobby as a public servant, but I will focus, very briefly, on three aspects of Bobby’s life: firstly, as a family

man, secondly, as a philosopher/teacher, and, thirdly as a patriot/friend. I also, always believe that the true character and nature of an individual is manifested not necessarily, in grand achievements which are generally collective efforts but on the little, unnoticed, spontaneous gestures and deeds, and on off-the-cuff comments as spotlights of what is in the heart and soul!

Bobby, the Family Man

I believe that the family is the cradle of civilization and that naturing and nurturing it, is, after the absolute Love of God, man’s most important purpose in life since family is neighbour.

Coming himself from a large family (ten siblings) and being the eldest son, and hence, de facto second father to the rest of the brood, Bobby learnt early about the obligations, sacrifices and responsibilities of family life and never shirked from it. He started his own, by deviating from the modern norm by having a comparatively large nuclear family even though there would have been much added responsibilities and obligations to his large extended family. I remember an early instance when he was remitting forty percent of his monthly income to educate and maintain his eldest son in the United States when he still had six more souls to educate and maintain at home! I noted to him about the sustainability of that arrangement and his pithy comment was that one would help another and that God would take care of all. As it turned out his faith prevailed, and God did take care as the five children are accomplished humble professionals today: computer specialist beginning from the evolutionary days; linguist to tourism marketing specialist to First Lady; medical practitioner; industrial engineer; and graphic artist/entrepreneur/businessman. And the Scotlands were able to achieve those accomplishments while instilling and imbuing, by practice and precept, Godly virtues and values to those under their care.

But that achievement was at considerable obvious personal sacrifices to him and to Mary, his exemplary and very supportive wife and this they endured without a whimper of complaint. Their marital vow of ‘Till death do us part’ lasted one year shy of their diamond anniversary and I am also sure that their golden celebration of this self-sacrificing couple would have been more of a children’s initiative and execution rather than their own. Their satisfaction was the success and happiness of their children and grands. Seeing the images of pride and satisfaction of Bobby with a grandchild across his shoulder or of Mary sprawled on the floor at play with a grand say it all!

Bobby, Teacher/philosopher

A man of few words but which, when spoken or written, were profound. I recall the first instance when he was called upon to draft the CDB President’s Annual Address to the international gathering of the Board of Governors Bobby used the theme of casting one’s net and optimizing the opportunities where one is rather than spending time wading through, looking for opportunities and gathering no catch! On another similar occasion he suggested the theme for this essentially aid-seeking development bank as ‘it is better to give a man a rod and teach him how to fish than to create a dependency by continually providing him with fish’. Very wise advice that, alas, are still ignored.

Bobby used God’s law and guidebook for man, the Holy Bible, as the blueprint for his own thought, philosophy and actions. He also grounded that in the documented life experiences of that Antiguan centenarian, Samuel Smith, 1877 – 1982, which has been documented in “To Shoot Hard Labour” and which he recommended to me as required reading - an advice that I have followed and pass on to the younger generations.

Bobby, Patriot and Friend

It was quite natural for us to be close friends with navel strings buried in the same country, working in the same department with similar academic interests and being the only pair of Antiguan professionals at the Bank for a long time. But more than that was his erudition with humility, the profundity of his thought, his sincerity and empathy and somebody one could trust implicitly, his maturity and wealth of experience and the fact that apart from my migrant parents he was the only one who could anchor me to Antigua as he knew acquaintances, the location of my birth and even the doctor who delivered me! Before the internet he was my sociology, geography, economics, politics and history teacher on all things Antiguan.

The professional demands and rigours of CDB work life, his own domestic obligations to his growing family did not offer much time for casual socializing in Barbados, but we were able to make up for it during spare times on foreign trips to Sao Paolo, Washington and the occasions of CDB’s Annual Meetings held offsite. We both virtually retired from CDB about ten months apart, I in 1998 and he in 1999. Our penultimate joint post retirement assignment was when we, together with Alick Lazare of Dominica, CIMS Martin of St Vincent and the Grenadines, Simon Hendrickson of St Kitts/Nevis, under the chairmanship of Alistair McIntyre of Grenada were appointed by the ECCU Monetary Council to Recommend New Approaches to Taxation and Tax Administration in the ECCU. The main 2004 recommendations were: simplification of the tax system; shifting taxes away from income and trade to consumption particularly through the introduction of VAT; centralization and improving the efficiency of tax systems and the establishment of Revenue Authorities. All the recommendations were accepted with VAT implemented and others still in the works. The final regional patriotic assignment was when that same Council established an ECCU Pension and Pension Administration Reform Commission with Richard Peterkin

of Saint Lucia, Justice Albert Matthews of Dominica and Jasper Scotland under my chairmanship. That Commission reported in 2010; its recommendations were generally accepted in principle while the issues and challenges continue.

During these assignments and in between in transit visits to Anguilla and Montserrat for Board meetings and the occasional Eastern Caribbean cruise I had opportunities to meet Bobby and to get my in-person social science lessons on Antigua to make me Antiguan. I recall two such in transit occasions. On the first one he shepherded me through getting my Birth Certificate, my photographs taken, documents completed and notarized and stamps affixed and my Antigua passport approval in such time that we had time for an early lunch, a visit to Epicurious and time to get some documents laminated, all without having to pull any strings! When I indicated that experience/achievement at an ECCB meeting chaired by Governor Venner he asked his staff to undertake statistical comparisons with other OECS countries and to use the Antigua as, by far, a best-case, worthy of emulation model, for providing that essential public service.

On that second occasion which happened to be my birthday I spent the day with him at home with Mary, surveyed the Itals restaurant in St John’s, had lunch at a quaint seaside restaurant, toured the coast including the Obama Hills, visited Nigel’s business place, whilst having discussions on his efforts at the A&B DB, which he chaired, and recounting his efforts at encouraging the establishment of water ponds and model farms for growing corn and the famous Antigua Black. His sense of national service and giving back was so great that he used that opportunity to casually chastise me for not having a public office in Saint Lucia!

Covid interrupted my movements and our two-way correspondences. So, it was an utter shock when I enquired from Ann Henry, at a virtual meeting about Bobby to be told that Bobby has not been up to it since Mary’s passing. The bigger shock was not only that she had passed but that happened more than eighteen months ago. (Covid made us so fearful of death that we seem afraid to talk of the inevitable!). I left the meeting immediately to call Bobby. We established bearings, accepted my belated condolences, enquired about the state of each other’s health, sent regards to Kieran, my wife, reminisced on past times together, including the need to renew my now expired passport, sang Mary’s virtues and praises, reminded me of her many efforts to get me closer to the church and left me with the final thought that he would have been a better man if he had followed more of Mary’s advice. I made a mental note to book a cruise in February to visit him but less than a week later, Vernese Clarke, our mutual friend and co-worker in Barbados reported his passing to me.

Conclusion

Bobby had all it takes to acquire wealth, wield power, have status and exercise influence for his benefit but he chose, instead, a path of integrity, providing divinely inspired service in humility for the benefit of God, his family, his country and his region. May he now rest in eternal peace, and may he and Mary enjoy the lasting rewards where it matters most.


- Marius St Rose

strosem777@gmail.com

September 2, 2022

I last spoke via telephone to my friend and former coworker one-year pre Covid 19 when I visited Antigua on a boat cruise.  The then Chairman of the Antigua Commercial Bank, Mr. Carlton Lake an ex WIR soldier tried to connect us physically but to no avail.  Notwithstanding we resorted to communicate via the telephone.
While at the CDB, Bobby and his family shared many fond periods with me and my family. 
Bobby was a pragmatic person whom I relied on for advice on many and varied subjects both professional and personal.  Both he and his wife Mary gave willingly and expected nothing in return.

May he rest in peace and rise with His Saviour in Paradise.

Bobby Scotland was like a second Dad to me because I was so close to his dear wife Aunty Mary. I admired his intelligence in the financial and economics sector. What I also admired was his humility with all of his career achievements. 

Love you and miss you Sir Bob

R. I. P

Jasper "Bobby" and Mary Scotland were exemplary God-loving parents. They natured and nurtured a comparatively large family with God-inspired virtues and values to make them all accomplished professionals imbued with humility. They are again, together, with God. May thy rest in eternal peace after their lives' mission and may their children continue the perpetuation of this legacy!