Dear Sir,

The year was 1976. Clarence Hill was then a strapping man, in his early twenties, and the alpha boxer who was selected to represent Bermuda at the Montreal Olympics. Clarence shocked the Bermuda world. This land ran wild in jubilation when the news broke that he had won the bronze medal in the heavyweight division — unbelievable, Bermuda’s first Olympic medal!

Hill returned to Bermuda and, as time went by, the elation died away. The powers that be did absolutely nothing to mark his achievement or elevate him from his humble station in life. His only skills were in his fists. Without the means to earn bread, Hill gradually slid down the slippery path and foul of the law. Still nothing was done to redeem him.

In the eyes of some, he became pariah — a social outcast — to be embarrassingly turned away from a Hamilton City Hall function by none other than United Bermuda Party minister Quinton Edness.

As the years rolled by, Hill has become but a nonentity, struggling to survive. How tragic!

Some of us remember the proclamation, made a few years ago, by a very prominent Progressive Labour Party minister — still in the House of Assembly — that provision was being made for a gym to be set up in recognition of Hill’s Olympic achievement. To this day, neither G, Y nor M has materialised.

Sadly, Mr Hill is now a senior citizen, with not much left in the way of time or health. What a blot on Bermuda’s report card!

Flora Duffy has had not only the National Stadium and Corkscrew Hill renamed in her honour by the PLP government, but a Dame to top it off.

EDWARD I. KING

Retired magistrate

Hamilton Parish