Alhagi Abdoulie Antouman FAAL ( A.A. FAAL)
The best protection and the best prayer in life is to always be honest and to protect your name - that is your wealth.
— Alhaji A.A. Faal
Obituary
A Life of Faith, Service and Dignity — Remembering Alhaji A.A Faal ORG.
By Ebrima Faal
My father, Alhaji Abdoulie Antouman Faal, A.A. as he was known to almost everyone, was born on 17th February 1931 into a family that understood the weight of history. The Faal family traces its roots to the ancient kingdoms of Baol and Cayor in what is now Senegal, from which his grandfather migrated over a century ago to settle in The Gambia. On his maternal side, he carried the heritage of the great Jarga Njie family of Lancaster Street. He grew up knowing that he came from somewhere, that the past made demands on the present, and that a man’s life was not his alone to spend as he pleased. That understanding of lineage, of duty and of the obligation to give more than you take ran through everything he did, from his family to his faith to his fifty-year relationship with the institution we are gathered here to honour.
Before he ever set foot in a secular English school, he was grounded in the Quran and in Islam through the local Darra, the neighbourhood Quranic schools that formed the spiritual foundation of children in Banjul. That formation came first, and it came early. His faith was not something he acquired alongside his professional life or added to it later. It was the bedrock on which everything else was built, and it was there from the very beginning.
He lost his father, the family patriarch Alhagi Antouman Faal, when he was just sixteen years old and still in high school. He was shaped profoundly by that loss. His elder brother, Alhagi Ibrahima Antouman Faal, stepped in to raise him — and such was the depth of his gratitude and loyalty that when I arrived as his first son, he named me after the man who had been both brother and father to him during those formative years. My father’s sense of loyalty to family was a trademark he carried all through his eighty-two years, and it began in that early apprenticeship in what it means to be held and to hold others in return.
Behind everything he was and everything he built stood his partner of fifty-five years, Aji Yam Jallow, Ajaratou Mariam Faal, herself a teacher who shaped young minds in The Gambia with the same quiet dedication her husband brought to its institutions. This piece is about him, but it cannot be honest without acknowledging that they were solid and in complete accord in everything they did in life. A happy, grounded home does not happen by accident. It is built by two people who share the same values and the same direction, and she was his equal in that, always.
A Generation of Giants
To understand my father fully, you must understand the school that formed him, the generation he belonged to and the friends who accompanied him from youth to the grave.
The Methodist Boys High School was the elite school of its era in The Gambia, an institution that produced men who were at once deeply rooted in their Gambian identity and fully equipped to stand anywhere in the world. Among its principals, my father held a particular admiration for J.J. Baker, a man whose influence on his pupils extended far beyond the classroom and whose memory was honoured in Fajara, where a street bore his name for many years. What Baker and that institution gave its boys was the mastery of the English language as a precision instrument, and a breadth of knowledge and curiosity that they carried for the rest of their lives. My father was among the finest products of that formation. He read widely, wrote with care and spoke with an exactness that commanded attention without effort. It was a standard he set for himself and expected, quietly but unmistakably, of those around him.
From that school emerged the circle of friends who would define his life. They were among the first crop of educated Gambians in the years surrounding independence, young men formed together and sent out into a country and a world that was changing at breathtaking speed. They studied together, played cricket and tennis together, argued ideas together and, in the natural order of things, married within the same close cohort. They remained companions through every season of life: Alhagi Mass Jarra, known to all as Biddy; Alhagi M.A.R. Njie, known as Mboor; Matarr Sarr; Ousman Jobe, known as OJ; Alhagi Saihou Sisoho; Alhagi Abdoulie Jeng and Dr. Ebrima Malick Samba(Mboor), his closest collaborator in civic and Muslim life. All late now. All giants of their generation.
What bound them was more than friendship in the ordinary sense. They were erudite, elegant men who carried themselves with a dignity that was both personal and historical, understanding that they were building something new and that how they conducted themselves mattered to the country they were helping to shape. My father was one of them, and their company defined and sustained him across a lifetime. To see them together was to understand what post-independence Gambia aspired to be at its finest.
The Making of a Banker
He entered public service in 1951 and rose through the ranks with the quiet, unhurried determination that was his signature in all things. From third grade clerk he ascended through nearly two decades of Government Service to Senior Accountant, before joining on secondment in 1970 the institution that would define his professional life. He arrived before the Central Bank of The Gambia had even formally opened its doors. He was there at the creation.
The Bank was established in 1971, inheriting the assets of the Gambia Currency Board and the full responsibilities of a sovereign monetary authority for the first time in the nation’s history. A new currency, the dalasi, was being introduced. Systems were being built from nothing. Standards were being set that would either hold or crumble depending on the character of the people setting them. He brought to that task not only the professional formation he had built through studies at the Manchester Business School at the University of Manchester and training at the Central Bank of Nigeria, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and Bank of America, but the ethical seriousness of a man who understood that public office is a form of stewardship.
He served as Chief Accountant from 1971 to 1975, then as General Manager Designate from 1976 to 1978, and then as General Manager from 1978 until his retirement in February 1986. He was the first Gambian to hold that title. In 1978, when the Bank opened the doors of its permanent headquarters in Banjul, marking a new chapter in its institutional life, it was my father who held the office of General Manager. He was not merely present for the milestones. He helped to make them. In 1986, the nation recognised what he had given: he was appointed an Officer of the Order of the Republic of The Gambia, receiving the ORG in the same year he retired.
To maintain the confidence and respect of three successive Governors across nearly two decades of institutional life is not something that happens by accident or by compliance. Horace Reginald Monday led the Bank through its first critical months, from March 1971 to November 1972, a period of establishment and first principles when the weight of responsibility on the senior staff was unusually heavy. Sheriff Saikuba Sisay then led the Bank from December 1972 to April 1982, a decade during which the institution found its administrative footing. Thomas Gregory George Senghore followed from May 1982 to February 1988, the years during which my father served as General Manager and brought the Bank into a new phase of maturity. Through all three tenures, he was the constant. What sustained him across those transitions was the same quality that would later sustain him through multiple heads of state: he understood the difference between serving leaders and serving the institution, and he always, in the end, served the institution.
What He Built in People
The achievement I consider his most lasting was not, however, his own career. It was what he built in others.
He understood that the Bank’s long-term strength would depend not on the founding generation alone but on the quality and preparation of those who would follow. He identified young economists, accountants and banking supervisors of promise and ensured that their formation was not left to chance or confined to on-the-job experience. He championed graduate studies for those in his care and secured training placements at the Bank of England, the Federal Reserve Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Bank for International Settlements, the four pillars of the international monetary order. He was not building a bank for the present. He was building a bank for the decades that would follow, and he was determined that those who would lead it should be prepared to the highest standard the world could offer.
He also published his own scholarly contribution to the field he had spent his life in. His paper, Money and Capital Markets in the Gambia and the United Kingdom and the Problem of Economic Management at Central Bank Level, produced at Manchester Business School in 1979, is testament to a man who was not simply an administrator of a central bank but a student of central banking, and who expected the same intellectual seriousness from those around him.
The proof of his investment is visible in the Bank’s own leadership record. Among those he helped to train and develop, three went on to serve as Governor of the Central Bank of The Gambia: Momodou Clarke Bajo, Momodou Bamba Saho and Buah Saidy, who leads the Bank to this day. Basirou Njie rose to serve as Deputy Governor, the second highest office in the institution. The wider cadre he shaped, professionals who went on to distinguished careers across banking and financial supervision, formed the technical backbone of this institution across a generation. Three governors and a Deputy Governor. That is the measure of what he invested, and what that investment yielded.
A Man of Integrity Across Every Season
On his retirement from the Bank in February 1986, President Sir Dawda Kairaba Jawara asked him to serve as Presidential Adviser at State House, a role that reflected the trust the highest office in the land placed in his judgement. He also chaired the Civil Service Salaries Review Commission in 1988, becoming the first Gambian to do so, and went on to chair the Standing Commission on Civil Service Salaries and Allowances from 1989. When the political season changed in 1994 and a new government came to power, the Jammeh administration appointed him Commissioner under the Public Assets and Properties Recovery Decree, charged with the sensitive work of investigating public assets and accountability. A man of lesser reputation would not have been trusted with such a role in such a moment. He was trusted because his record left no room for doubt.
Over lunch or dinner, when some corruption issue or moral failing raised its head in the Gambian public life, he would look at me, E. Boy his name for me since childhood, and say quietly and without drama: the best protection and the best prayer in life is to be honest and to protect your name. He said it often enough that I eventually understood it was not advice. It was testimony. He had lived it, tested it across every political transition The Gambia had known in his adult lifetime, and found it to hold without exception. That counsel has walked with me throughout my own career. There have been moments, at the height of professional opportunity, where I have walked away from situations because I heard his voice and understood that a name is worth more than any position or any sum of money. I have never once regretted those decisions.
The Letter to Canada
When I left for Mount Allison University in Canada, far away in every sense, he wrote me a letter. Two things in it have never left me.
The first: never forget your prayers, and when you feel lost, which you will, return to Allah. Not if you feel lost. When. He knew life well enough not to offer false reassurance. He offered instead a compass.
The second: enjoy university, enjoy life, but keep it balanced. Live well, but live frugally.
I did not fully understand that second piece of advice until after I graduated. My father, who had given his children every opportunity he could provide, was still carrying debt when I completed my degree. When I was hired by the National Investment Board, I went to him and asked, requested, that I take over the loan repayments. He listened. He smiled, that beautiful smile of his, and he said: E. Boy, you have grown into the man I expected. But certain things a father must do alone.
I have told very few people that story. He never repeated it to anyone. It says more about who he was than any title or honour ever could.
The Building That Connects Everything
There is a thread in my father’s story that I have always found quietly remarkable. When Balfour Beatty, the British construction firm, came to The Gambia in the early 1970s to build the Central Bank’s permanent headquarters, they brought with them an unexpected connection to the Rotary movement. The Rotary Club of Banjul’s own records note that formal Rotary contacts in The Gambia began in 1974, directly linked to the construction of the Central Bank building. From that connection, my father helped nurture what became the Rotary Club of Banjul, chartered in 1979, of which he became the founding President. One of the Balfour Beatty men became a personal friend, and from that same friendship came something else of permanence: the design of our family home, which stands solidly to this day, a building as enduring in its way as the Bank itself.
From the construction of a national institution to the founding of a civic one to the building of a family home, it is all of one piece. My father did not separate the professional from the civic from the personal. He built things, in every domain of his life, that were meant to last. He also helped establish the Inner Wheel, the women’s counterpart to Rotary International, in The Gambia, extending the civic mission he had begun beyond his own circle.
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The Seamless Man
What those who knew him only through his institutional role may not have fully understood is that his professional and spiritual lives were not two things running in parallel. They were one thing. He epitomised what I think of as the seamless man: piously spiritual and rigorously professional at once, with no contradiction between the two.
Together with his close friend Dr. Ebrima Malick Samba, he led the Gambia Muslim Association and was instrumental in building the Gambia Muslim High School, founded in 1975 to provide education for Muslim youth who could not gain admission to the missionary schools. He later chaired its Board of Governors. He served as Vice Chairman of the King Fahad Mosque Management Committee, as a member of the Sharia Advisory Committee of the Arab-Gambian Islamic Bank and as an Executive Committee member of the Supreme Islamic Council. From October 2005 until his final days, he served as Chairman of the Committee of Banjul Muslim Elders, bringing patience and purpose to positions that at times threatened the fabric of Muslim community life in The Gambia. The tribute written to Dr. Samba upon his passing noted that Dr. Samba had taken over the chairmanship of the Muslim Elders from the late Alhaji Abdou Faal. Two remarkable men, two close friends, who between them helped shape the spiritual and civic landscape of The Gambia across half a century.
His faith expressed itself not as display but as ethical architecture, the foundation upon which everything else was built. He was a Giver, his own word and his own philosophy, and his generosity encompassed family obligations, community service and the quiet daily courtesy with which he treated every person he encountered.
What He Demanded at Home
He loved cricket, loyally and stubbornly, all the way through the West Indies’ long and painful decline, never wavering in his allegiance. He loved tennis and taught me to play, taking more pleasure in the game itself than in winning, even on the many occasions I eventually got the better of him. He loved clothes and dressed with care, modelling his latest outfit for whoever was nearby and asking, with complete seriousness, for their verdict. He was looking good. He usually was.
He imposed on his children two hours of study every evening and one hour every morning before school. He was fond of quoting Henry Wadsworth Longfellow when we asked why, and it was not a casual quotation. He meant it as both instruction and prophecy: "The heights by great men reached and kept, were not attained by sudden flight. But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night.”. His grandchildren knew that his first question would always be about how they were getting on in their studies." Paraphrasing
That discipline was not imposed for its own sake. It was the transmission of something he had lived and proven. What his children went on to achieve in our respective fields and lives is, I believe, his answer to Churchill’s challenge, and the most personal measure of what he invested in us. He fully intended that we would have even greater opportunities than he had, and he was not content to leave that to chance. He backed his intention with structure, expectation and the quiet, immovable force of his example.
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What He Left
On the evening before he passed, on 4th April 2012, he smiled and said to my sister: tomorrow is going to be a great day. Rejoice in it and pray for me. We thought he was being delusional. He was being prophetic.
Fourteen years have passed since we lost him, and since the generation he belonged to, those erudite and elegant friends who walked through life together, have one by one gone to join him. The Gambia they built with their learning, their friendships, their institutions and their example was no accident. It was the deliberate work of people who understood that character is the foundation of everything.
His story is the Bank’s story. He was there at the creation, he shaped its standards, he served three founding Governors with distinction, he trained the people who would lead it after him, he published scholarship on the very problems he was working to solve and he received the Order of the Republic of The Gambia for his contribution. He continued advising Presidents and serving integrity commissions long after his official tenure was done, maintaining the same standard across every political transition The Gambia experienced in his lifetime. At the same time he was building schools, founding civic institutions, leading Muslim organisations and designing the architecture of a family that would carry his name and his values forward.
He did all of this while being, at the centre of it all, a husband to Aji Yam Jallow for fifty-five years. A father. A grandfather. A friend to more people than I could count, and a true and steadfast friend to a few whom he loved deeply and who loved him in return.
He left indelible footprints. His name is worth more than gold. He told me so himself, across a lunch table, many years ago. He was right, as he almost always was.
Dad, may you rest in perfect peace, and may Allah grant you eternal bliss.
And may the values and principles you stood for live on, footprints in our hearts and souls.
Timeline
Born in Banjul, The Gambia, 17th February. Descended from the ancient kingdoms of Baol and Cayor in Senegal, and from the great Jarga Njie family of Lancaster Street on his maternal side.
Pupil at the Methodist Boys High School, the elite school of its era in The Gambia. Inspired by principal J.J. Baker, whose memory was later honoured with a street named after him in Fajara.
Enters Government public service as a Third Grade Clerk, beginning a steady and determined rise through the ranks — Trainee Executive Officer, Accountant, Senior Accountant — culminating in his appointment as Chief Accountant of the Public Works Department, the first Gambian to reach that level through the civil service.
Appointed General Manager Designate in 1976 and General Manager in 1978 — the first Gambian to hold that title. Presided over the opening of the Bank's permanent headquarters in Banjul and served across the tenures of Governors Sisay and Senghore. Invested deeply in training the next generation of Gambian bankers at the Bank of England, the Federal Reserve, the IMF and the BIS — several of whom went on to lead the Bank as Governor. Retired February 1986. Appointed Officer of the Order of the Republic of The Gambia, ORG, the same year.
Founding President of the Rotary Club of Banjul — the first Rotary chapter in The Gambia, chartered through connections formed during the construction of the Central Bank headquarters. Also instrumental in establishing the Inner Wheel, the women's counterpart to Rotary International, in The Gambia. Served as Founding President from 1979 to 1981 and was later awarded the Paul Harris Fellowship of Rotary International, the highest honour Rotary bestows.l
Appointed Presidential Adviser at State House by President Sir Dawda Kairaba Jawara following retirement from the Central Bank. Chaired the Civil Service Salaries Review Commission in 1988 — the first Gambian to chair such a commission. Appointed Chairman, Standing Commission on Civil Service Salaries and Allowances, 1989.
Managing Director, Continent Bank Ltd. Chairman, Board of Governors, Muslim High School 1992. Appointed Commissioner under the Public Assets and Properties Recovery Decree 1994 — a testament to his integrity across political transitions.
Appointed Member of the Commission to inquire into Government Departments and their line Ministries. Vice Chairman, King Fahad Mosque Management Committee. Member, Sharia Advisory Committee, Arab-Gambian Islamic Bank. Member, Judicial Service Commission 2001.
Vice Chairman, Committee of Banjul Muslim Elders 2000. Appointed Chairman, Committee of Banjul Muslim Elders 22nd October 2005 — a position he held with wisdom and purpose until his final days.
Passed peacefully in Banjul aged 81, surrounded by family. On the evening before he smiled and said: tomorrow is going to be a great day. Rejoice in it and pray for me. He was being prophetic. May Allah grant him eternal peace.
Gallery
Memory wall
Aminta John
Thanks so much for sharing
Bro, you remember those days when we used to study late nights at your house? Both Mum and Dad used to go out of their way to make sure we were comfortable and you can see the pride in their eyes. I for one owe this family immense gratitude for what I have become. I remember my dad used to be so comfortably when I say I am going to Faal Kunda because he knew I would be in good hands
I am on my way to the Haram in Mecca as we speak and I will make my sincere DUA for him after fajr prayers. May Allah grant him the highest Janna
Ties of Kinship:
( “ Nit Amut Da La ludut Mbokam “ ).
Importance Of Education.
( “ janga Chabi La. Dafa Uube Bunta Yu Bari” ).
Dua is the weapon of the believer:
(“Nyan Moi ganaay ye Ku gem Yalla “).
Extending Prayers To Everyone:
( “ Dekkal Sa lohor Ma Nyan Nal La”).
(“ NYU Nyan Nal Lanteh “).
Courtesy to visitors:
(“ Gan Yomba Na Munal “).
What a beautiful, befitting tribute from a son to his beloved father. Just finished reading it, very touching and impressive indeed👌👍🏽
I have fond memories of his pleasant, smiling and welcoming face whenever I visited my sister Yam. A.A. Faal was a wonderful brother-in-law, indeed the epitome of kindness. May Allah SWT grant him Jannatul Firdaus where he rightfully belongs and all our departed loved ones🙏🏽
May his gentle soul continue to rest in heavenly peace with the Almighty God 🙏
Ernest Aubee
(Thank You Uncle)
As someone who spent considerable time at your house growing up, I experienced his warmth and generosity, and I can definitely attest to Aunty Yam’s culinary skills. On my visit to The Gambia in January of 2012, my wife and I went to see him and Aunty Yam, unaware of his illness or the extent of it. Though he was resting, he made the effort, clearly with difficulty to come out, greet us, ask about everyone, and pray for us before returning to his room. Even then, he was fully himself. His illness may have affected him physically, but it did nothing to diminish his presence, kindness, or stature.
Thank you for honoring him so well. May Allah grant him Jannah and continue to bless his legacy.
As a friend privileged to visit the family home in my high school days, I can not but admire his exceptional qualities.
I was equally privileged to work with him as Secretary to the Judicial Service Commission in the late 1990s. He still treated me with fatherly advice and counsel on many occasions privately about very difficult decisions that were tabled before the JSC. These helped to shape my own views about public trust and ethics to date and for which I shall be eternally grateful to him.
May Allah SWT continue to bless him with eternal peace until we meet with him again.
Thank you once again for sharing this invaluable insights. May we continue to celebrate his wonderful memories with Aunty Yam. An ever ggratefuland gracious mother to all.
Jummah Mubarak
Ousman Jammeh
This association dates back to my formative years, when my late father, Alhaji Matarr Touray, served as Carpentry Workshop Supervisor at the Public Works Department (PWD), where A.A. Faal distinguished himself as the Accountant. Even then, his reputation for integrity, professionalism, and quiet excellence was unmistakable.
Upon my return from university studies in the United States, I was initially recruited as a Bank Examiner at the Central Bank of The Gambia. However, I made the pivotal decision to join the National Investment Board (NIB), a choice that would prove transformative. At the NIB, A.A. Faal served as an Ex-Officio Director, and it was here that I came to appreciate, more deeply, the depth of his wisdom and the strength of his character.
In 1988, at the age of 36, I was entrusted with the responsibility of serving as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the NIB following the elevation of my esteemed boss, Mr. Abdou Sara Janha, to Secretary General and Head of the Civil Service. During this critical period, A.A. Faal became a guiding light—offering counsel, encouragement, and moral clarity. His influence was not loud or imposing, but steady, principled, and profoundly impactful. He constantly inspired us to strive for excellence, grounded in humility, humanity, and selflessness.
The remarkable pedigree of NIB professionals who later emerged as trailblazers across leading international institutions—including the African Development Bank, Shelter Afrique, the International Monetary Fund, and the Commonwealth Secretariat—owes, in no small measure, to the intellectual discipline, scholarship, and spiritual grounding that A.A. Faal nurtured within us.
Indeed, it is often said that the apple does not fall far from the tree. His legacy is vividly reflected in his distinguished son, Mr. Ebrima A. Faal, himself an alumnus of the NIB. Educated at the prestigious McGill University in Canada, Ebrima became one of the first Gambian professionals to be recruited by the International Monetary Fund, where he served with distinction as Adviser to Ministers of Finance and Economic Affairs across several countries. He was later headhunted by the African Development Bank, where he rose to serve as Senior Director and Resident Representative in two of the Bank’s most significant economies—South Africa and Nigeria—leaving an indelible mark of excellence and leadership.
I also had the privilege of serving alongside A.A. Faal as a young economist on the Standing Commission on Salaries and Allowances at the Office of the President. His contributions in that role were marked by intellectual rigor, fairness, and a deep sense of national duty.
His mentorship extended to many others, including my former Deputy at the NIB, the late Alhaji Alieun Tamu Njie, who transitioned to Continent Bank under A.A. Faal’s guidance. This is but one example of the many lives he shaped through his quiet but powerful mentorship.
Alhaji A.A. Faal was a man of rare qualities—well-read, articulate, dignified in appearance, widely respected, impeccably mannered, and above all, deeply selfless. He was a devout servant of Almighty Allah, whose life was guided by faith, discipline, and a commitment to the greater good.
His legacy is not only in the institutions he helped strengthen or the individuals he mentored, but in the values, he embodied—values that will continue to inspire generations to come.
May his noble soul rest in perfect peace.
May his memory remain a blessing to his family, friends, community, country, and indeed, the world at large.
Ambassador Abdoulie Bax Touray
My dad, in my view and countless many others, is an extraordinary example of human decency. Papa and Pabi to the wider family, as we fondly call him, is the rarest of human beings, that truly live and embodies to its core the virtues of dignity, selflessness, service to others, caring and giving. He was not consumed in vain pursuance of the artificial things in life that many of us seem to clamor for. Yes, he was an intellectual, religious scholar, one of the finest bankers, civil and public servants the homeland has ever produced. In short, a "Renaissance man". All these are worthwhile accomplishments, but they do not define him. What defined him was his affinity for family, friends, and legacy of etching a reputable family name existence. After all, life as we know it is nothing but ephemeral. It's therefore the lasting effect you have on people and lives you touched that matter. I fondly remember one of his favorites saying to me was (Alaboy) my pet name, “nit amute tous, ludut mokam, ak harit tam and their legacies." To this I say mission accomplished, it fills my heart with joy whenever I meet someone new and through conversation they learned I am the son of A. A Faal, the admiration and reference they spoke of him is pure gold to me’
We miss you dearly Papa! You will forever be indelible in our hearts and minds. Continue to live in eternal peace. Hope the good lord will continue to guide and protect your loved ones!!
With each passing day you are dearly missed.
Thanks for everything you’ve done and instilled in us!
Rest in peace till we meet again!!!
Love always!
Moe
You were the anchor of our family, the conscience of every room you entered, and the most complete man I have ever known. Banker, scholar, civic leader, man of faith, husband, father, grandfather — and yet through all of it, you remained simply Dad. Pabi to the wider family. The man who modelled his latest outfit and asked if he was looking good. The man who could never get enough of Mum's cooking. The man who sat at the beach watching the sea and thought about what mattered.
Tomorrow is going to be a great day. You told my sister that the evening before you left us, and you were right as you almost always were. You are celebrating that birthday now, and our gift to you is to smile through our tears and follow in your footsteps.
Rest in perfect peace, Dad. Al-Fatiha.
Ebrima, your first son — named after the brother who raised you, carrying your name and your values forward
Family tree
Favorites
His first act every morning without exception was to read the Quran. His faith was not ceremony but daily sustenance, the foundation on which everything else in his life was built. He began each day in the presence of Allah before the world made its demands.
Books and Reading
A member of a United Kingdom book club throughout his life, he received three new books every month — read with the same seriousness and discipline he brought to everything else. He mastered the English language as a precision instrument and never stopped learning. His shelves were a testament to a mind that remained curious and open to its last days.
Cricket
He loved cricket with a loyalty that never wavered, supporting the West Indies through every difficult decade of their decline with the same steadfastness he brought to every other commitment in his life.
He played with joy and taught his son to play, taking more pleasure in the game itself than in winning — even on the many occasions his son eventually got the better of him.
Traditional Music
He loved the traditional music of The Gambia, rooted in the culture and heritage he carried proudly throughout his life.
Style and Dress
He dressed with great care and took quiet, genuine pleasure in looking his best. He would model his latest outfit for whoever was nearby and ask, with complete seriousness, for their verdict. He was looking good. He usually was.
Food — especially Mum's cooking and baking
He had a lifelong weakness for good food, and no food was better than that of his wife, Aji Yam Jallow. Her cooking and baking were, by his own reckoning, beyond comparison — and no matter how much was prepared, it was never quite enough. It was one of the great pleasure
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