By Shervin Belgrave
(Kaieteur News) – Two tragic accidents changed his life, one of them leaving him in a wheelchair but 75-year-old Neville Richards of A-Field Sophia, Greater Georgetown refuses to stop spray painting and restoring cars, a job which he has been doing for decades.
Richards and his youngest daughter Kim
The highlight of his career as an automotive paint technician was when he was called in to surprise Guyana’s former President, Linden Forbes Burnham by restoring his (Burnham’s) crashed Austin Princess, a car Burnham received as gift after becoming Prime Minister in 1964. That car now sits in the Walter Roth Museum in Georgetown.
Since then, Richards has had many highs and lows as a spray painter but none could compare with a tragic accident in 2019 that changed his life forever. Not only did it almost cost him his life and left him in a wheelchair but it almost took away his livelihood.
Richards whips up paint for a coating
Richards however refused to give-up despite his disability and the numerous set-backs.
“Nuff people used to seh Neville yuh foot bad, yuh foot bad but I does tell them is nah ma foot is ma hand a does use to do the job”, Richards told this publication while spray painting a Fielder Wagon for a woman, Marcia Girard, who motivated him to continue his exceptional work when he was at the point of giving-up. He took two weeks to complete the job.
Following his most recent accident in 2019, it was almost over for Richards. He did part-time security work and one morning while he was heading to his work place, tragedy struck.
A truck reportedly struck him down and ran-over his right leg as he was crossing the road in the vicinity of “DSL Turn” located at the junction of Mandela Avenue and the East Bank Public Road.
Richards sprays on a coat of blackRichards sprays on a coat of black
Coincidently that accident occurred only a few kilometers away from the first one in 1977 (in the vicinity of the Well, West Ruimveldt Back-Road) which claimed the life of his reputed wife at the time leaving him to raise three daughters ages 5, 3 and 1 as a single parent. He was 26-years old then and had sustained a severe injury to his right arm. Doctors had to place steel in it for the arm to function properly but he was still able to spray paint cars but in 2019, his injury was much more severe that it threatened his livelihood.
“They de put in steel (in his right leg) but it started getting infected and so they take it out and they wanted to tek a piece of bone from my hip to put there and me ain’t want that because is two problem I will get there so I never go back to get the surgery done”, Richards recounted.
He explained that at first, he began moving around with the use of a walker but then his injured leg became so bent that he could not walk on it anymore.
It was then that his troubles began. Clients stop giving him work because of his condition except for one man, George Union, who still believed in him.
Sadly, George Union passed away in 2025 and so did the spray-painting jobs for Richards.
He was forced to survive on his pension and whatever little his three daughters could “brace him with”.
The wait for new jobs turned into months and Richards was at the point of giving-up his passion for spray painting.
“I seh well I will sell out all my equipment rather than sit down watch dem stay there and rotten”, he related but then he met Marcia Girard who wanted to spray paint her Fielder Wagon.
Speaking with Kaieteur News she said, “After I met him and heard that he is planning to sell his equipment, I told him not to give up because you have an exceptional skill.”
In two weeks, a wheelchair bound Richards restored Marcia Girard’s Fielder Wagon.
Girard gave him the job to restore her car and promised to promote his business free of cost.
She invited the newspaper to witness Richard at work despite being in wheelchair.
When this publication visited his residence, Richards was finishing-up the job with the help of his youngest daughter Kim Richards, 50 and a man he employed to help him.
Richards during his chat with The Waterfalls made it clear that he knows being in a wheelchair limits him physically but not his capability to do the job because he can train youths from his neighbourhood and employ them to assist with his work.
He related that his daughter was one of his first students. He trained her from a very young-age to spray-paint cars and now she is equally good as him.
Following his accident, Kim Richards had to stop spray painting and doing other jobs such as catering, etc. to take care of him and now that he is working again, she has decided to return to spray painting.
She explained that she returned to help him out because, “He tell he-self he doesn’t want to depend on us. He wants to do something to help himself.”
“Although she is my daughter, I don’t mek she work for free, I does mek sure I pay her,” her dad added.
As he mixed up a coating for Girard’s car during, he was asked how long he was doing auto spray painting.
Richards recounted that his love for spray-painting began at the age of 18 when he first started learning the trade under a man he identified as Ronald Seymour.
Richards was employed with a government ministry at the time and ended up working there for 16 years before leaving his post at ministry to work independently.
He said he left because the money was small at the time and raising his three daughters as a single parent after the death of his wife in a tragic accident, was not easy.
As a result, he ventured out to work on his own in order earn a little more.
He fondly recalls the highlight of his career when Kit Nascimento, a former politician approached him to restore Burnham’s car, the Austin Princess after its involvement in an accident.
“He (Burnham) used to live up in Belfield and he come down at the Cuffy Square and then he go in the residence, but when he come down, there was this car and he was so surprised to see this car working and suh” Richards recounted before adding. “He invited us in the residence there and we had a little drink and so and then we go back to work”.
If anyone would like to support, Richard’s spray-painting business, they can call, 671-6069.
Source: Kaieteur News
