INVARIABLY you will get your most fulsome praise and accolades only after you are gone. This certainly seems to hold true of the late Tourism Minister David Allen.

I am sure even he would have been surprised at the outpouring of grief and widespread recognition of the contributions he made to the country as a political leader and the Progressive Labour Party Government's first Tourism Minister.

The fact remains that it is hard to be a political leader in Bermuda and, looking back over our history, it appears that this has always been the case - especially if you are a political leader who has been at the forefront of attempting to bring political change to this country.

It is also clear that such leaders have had to have a special kind of courage, for it was not always clear that the country and the people on whose behalf you were struggling - often at great personal sacrifice - really appreciated what you were trying to do on their behalf.

Why else would the late PLP Leader Frederick Wade make the statement that after he was gone the people of Bermuda would say: "Freddie Wade? You know that guy? Wasn't he that fellow in the PLP? Freddie who?"

David Henry John Allen was born in Paget in 1943. One of two children, he and his sister grew up in Pembroke and later attended Warwick Academy.

He was a white Bermudian and in other circumstances, perhaps, his race may not have counted for all that much as regards his political career. But given Bermuda's racial reality, it counted for a whole lot, especially in 1967 during a time that Bermuda was still undergoing its own racial and civil rights struggle.

David Allen joined the PLP in 1967. Back then you could count the number of white Bermudians who would openly declare their support for a predominately black PLP on the fingers of one hand.

In my era not many white people joined the PLP and you certainly did not see too many who were prepared to run for the party in Parliamentary elections.

In fact, there were only three: Dr. Barbara Ball, Dorothy Thompson and David Allen. Bermuda has made some progress in the area of race relations since then. But in other respects we seem not to have moved in this area at all.

What made David Allen, a white Bermudian, join and openly support the Progressive Labour Party, an extraordinary thing for a white person to do given the racially divisive context of the times? In fact, some of us in the PLP youth wing were convinced that he was not really a white man at all. For how could a white man have so much knowledge about not only the black struggle in Bermuda but also in apartheid-era South Africa?

Pretty soon his race didn't matter at all among black folks he dealt with. He was given the same respect that Dr. Ball enjoyed among black people. But he would have been ever mindful of the fate that befell Dr. Ball when she openly took up the cause of a largely black Bermudian labour movement - namely, being ostracised by the white community. However, if this was a concern he never discussed it, nor did he allow it to interfere with his political acumen.

I am convinced that a major factor in David Allen's courage and his developing political and world view must have been that around-the-world trip he embarked on as a young man, a trip that not only whetted his interest in travel and travel writing but which also forged his sense of colour-blind justice. That trip no doubt opened his eyes not only to the larger world outside of Bermuda but, crucially, it opened his eyes to some of the political struggles going on in the countries he visited.

It was during this world wide trip that he developed his skills as a travel writer and he became a freelance contributor to all of Bermuda's major newspapers as well as international publications. Later he would publish his own travel trade magazine, Bermuda Dateline.

His involvement with the Progressive Labour Party saw him playing a number of roles, serving as the party's public relations officer and in the 1980s as a Senator and Opposition Leader in the Senate, the spokesman for Tourism, Finance, Housing & Works, Legislative, Labour & Home Affairs.

These were roles he played for the party at a crucial time: the PLP's Parliamentary presence had been reduced to just six in the House of Assembly in the aftermath of a disastrous 1984/5 party split. So a strong showing in the Senate was necessary to bolster the then-Opposition's bona fides as a still viable political movement.

At the time of the split and dissident revolt that led to the creation of the National Liberal Party, it was even suggested that David Allen should be made party leader. It was reasoned that the PLP was not winning General Elections because Alaska Hall was drawing very little white stupport, so why not go with a white leader?

If David Allen had any leadership aspirations, he hid them well, serving as a loyal supporter to a number of the PLP leaders right up to the time of Premier Jennifer Smith.

AS I recall after the PLP won the election in 1998, new Minister of Tourism Allen was off and running. In fact, out of all the PLP Cabinet Ministers he seemed to be the one who got stuck in right away. He said he intended to turn around Bermuda's tourism woes in 100 days. He ended up taking a lot of stick for that statement when things did not, in fact, turn around. But that was just rhetoric; David Allen really believed that he was going to accomplish his goal. But the woeful state of Bermuda's tourism meant it was going to take more than just David Allen's enthusiasm to fix it.

No one can deny that Tourism Minister Allen grappled with Bermuda's tourism woes and struggled to turn things around from day one, when he assumed the Cabinet portfolio.

And I think that respect for his energy and dedication is what we saw reflected in the many expressions of regret and sorrow that came from a great cross-section of the community in the wake of his untimely passing.

What will be his legacy? Well, I think some of the initiatives he put into place to turn Bermuda's tourism ills around will soon begin to bear fruit. That will be a tremendous legacy indeed.

But failing that, in the short term, I think his greatest legacy will be his courage, a Bermudian who did not give up even when faced with overwhelming odds. Bermudians could do worse than to emulate the example David Allen set for this country, one which was built more on give than take.