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The only thing more outstanding about the late Winston Jordan than his gentle, soft-spoken nature, was his creativity.

As an artist, Winston outshone most when it came to creative, witty, attention-grabbing cartoons, as well as prize-winning costumes during the annual Crop-Over Festival.

In fact, it was not many years ago when one could hardly find a better known representation of the epitome of a genuine Bajan village boy than “Jones”, the fictional star of Winston’s Bajan Belly Laugh cartoons that appeared weekly in the Nation newspapers.

But it was in the area of costume-making the Winston gained his greatest fame. That was probably because it was in his blood. In a 2005 feature article, Nation newspaper journalist Amanda Lynch-Foster wrote: “Long before the first Kadooment Day dawned in 1978, legendary bandleader Winston Jordan was in a band-house, amidst the sequins, glue, camaraderie and 'ole talk'.

From the time he was a child, still in primary school, Jordan learnt the art of costume-making from his stepfather, Trinidadian Emery Lawrence, and his mother Elaine Lawrence, who were award-winning bandleaders before him in the 1950s and 1960s.

This was back in the years between 1957 and 1964 when Crop-Over, as we know it, had not been revived as yet and the festival was run by the Jaycees and called Carnival.

"My story goes so far back. My uncle had a band and my mother and her husband had a band. When we had a Carnival, I was a youngster at primary school and when they were making the costumes for the Carnival band, I used to help.

To me it was a big thing, but to them it was a little help. I remember one year we played Dominoes and I had to paint the eyes of the dominoes and that was a big thing to me. I went to school and told my friends about it," recalls Winston with a nostalgic smile crossing his face.

Years later when Crop-Over came to be, his own children, Tricia, Winston Jr., and son Winslow, grew up as he did, in and around the band-house, as Winston was a bandleader from the first Kadooment until 2003.

At the family home in Collymore Rock, St Michael, which for a long time was also the base of their many Kadooment bands, three generations of the mas'-making family, Elaine, Winston and Winslow, shared the experience of their unique family heritage.

Elaine described how it all began back in the late 1950s, in the early days of 'mas' in Barbados.

"My husband was a Trinidadian and he was always into that, and I would be with him helping him and we won a lot of prizes. We played Jab-Jab one year, we won with that. We played Dominoes, we won with that. And we played a band called Tourists and we won," she says.

At that time, she recalls with a smile, Winston "used to be a little boy jumping in the band".

These experiences sparked Winston's creative spirit and eventually he started designing. In fact, he designed his first costume as a teen, hoping his family would use it for their 1965 band, but unfortunately Carnival was discontinued that very year.

When Crop-Over was revived in the 1970s, Winston took the chance to express his creativity any way he could.”

On Saturday December 22 Winston’s creative walk here on earth ended. His funeral will take place on Thursday January 3, at 9:30 a.m. at St. Michael’s Cathedral.

Prime Minister Owen Arthur and the family of the Barbados Labour Party extend condolences to the Jordan family in this hour of grief.

Click here to see Video of Winston Jordon's Cartoons