Theatre boycott hero Kingsley Tweed last night called on the Progressive Labour Party ) to go into every constituency and listen more closely and with humility to what people are saying.

And he criticised this newspaper for reporting that his long years in exile were voluntary.

“I say to the PLP go down by the riverside, brother (Alex) Scott... Brother (Ewart) Brown go down by the riverside.

“Some of the things I've heard from Somerset to St. George's have been a little disturbing to me. And if they are disturbing to me, then they ought to concern yourselves,” he said.

“Go down there. Don't take your swords, don't take your arrogance, don't take your shields.

“But go down by the riverside and study war no more.”

The comments were made towards the end of a wide ranging speech at St. Paul's centennial hall last night.

“There are some people down there waiting to hear from you,” he continued. “Don't go down there all arrogant because you might just let the UBP back in.”

Mr. Tweed, now an AME Minister living in London, returned to Bermuda after 40 years in exile.

“Tell The Royal Gazette to stop that jazz about voluntary exile,” he said. An audience of about 130 people showed up to hear him speak publicly for the last time before he leaves the Island tomorrow.

His speech was peppered with anger, humour and memories of his life and struggles in Bermuda.

He offered some of his observations on Bermuda's education system, saying that no one should believe that it is in shambles.

“I believe your educational system is par excellence,” he said. “Do not believe in that because it makes you feel inferior and your children inferior.”

But he said the problem was that there were too many white teachers who did not understand black people's culture.

“I'm not saying they are stupid. I'm saying they simply do not understand how to teach black people - they never have done.”

And he went on to urge the audience to support schoolteachers and ask government to “make adequate provision” for them.

Earlier he had held up a copy of a dossier prepared on him prepared by the then Bermuda Police Force's Special Branch, a document which he said proved that he was forced to flee the Island.

But Mr. Tweed said he was no longer angry. “I've settled all my devils. I've buried all my scores. I'm not angry with nobody - I'm not even angry with The Royal Gazette,” he said.

“All I want for them is to just take their poison pens and lay them down.”

He called on the audience to do what they can to prevent young people from abusing drugs.

“It makes you less than a person, less than a human being. And that's the message we have got to take to our children. Transform their dark points of non potential. Transform it. You've got to do it and if you want me to help you, I'll come back down here and work.”

He added: “Your son is my son, my son has got to be your son. If not we are all lost. OK? No matter what we do in politics. No matter who our political leader is - Gibbons or Scott. It (society) cannot change until we retrieve our children from this degradation, from this poison,” he said to applause.

He called for reform of the justice system, saying that he knew from experience that prison was an “awful place to be if you know you are going to be in there a while”.

“We need to find new ways and means to approach those who have gone through the judicial process,” he said. “I believe that Bermuda can show the rest of the world how to treat people once they run afoul of that which we call the law.”

He added: “The issues are still on the table - black people, and brown people, and Negroes. High yellows and dark skins will have to get together on this Island. We are going to have to approach the issues that affect us in our own land...”

The only way to be rid of our social problems is “to sit down and study them very quietly without our swords and shields. Go down by the riverside and study war no more,” he said.

“Let's walk together children, let's talk together children... Let's sing together, let's keep the message alive in our Island of freedom, in our Island of hope. And give all our people the economic possibilities in an egalitarian society, where hatred and bitterness - I know I'm describing perhaps a utopia, but it's possible - where all men can walk together in human bond or in human bondage.”