Born into a family of political and civic activists in the parish of Saint Lucy, he became a WWII aviator, combat veteran, lawyer, politician, gourmet cook and author.

Although he found a home for his values in the AME Church, his theological freedom made him all the more dangerous in the eyes of the island's authorities, and in 1922 he was deported by order of the Governor as an "undesirable".

Unfortunately, he never reunited with his wife and it was thus that Errol Barrow spent the first six years of his life in St Croix and began his education at the Danish Preparatory School there.

Ruth Barrow returned to Barbados to raise her five children with the help of her extended family, living with their grandmother Catherine O’Neal in Bridgetown.

In December 1940, Errol Barrow, along with 11 other of his countrymen who became known as "The Second Barbadian Contingent", enlisted in the Royal Air Force to serve duringWorld War II.

[7] At this point Barrow was united with the men whose lives would become mutually dependent on each other if they were to survive the war: RAF pilot Andrew Leslie Cole and RAAF Wireless/Air gunners Leo Leslie J. Schultz and Robert Allen Stewart and RAF Navigator and Bomber Errol Walton Barrow spent four months training for operational missions in Nova Scotia, graduating on 7 April 1944.

[9] The newly formed crew returned to England on 20 September 1944 and joined 88 Squadron, part of the 2nd Tactical Air Force (TAF), flying Douglas Boston light bombers (aka DB-7s and A-20s by the Americans).

Barrow saw active service supporting the Allied ground forces, bombing German communication infrastructure positions and airfields over the European theatre.

[1] During that time, Barrow also served as Chairman of the Council of Colonial Students where his contemporaries included Forbes Burnham, Michael Manley, Pierre Trudeau, and Lee Kwan Yew, all destined to become political leaders in their home countries.

Feeling the fever of anti-colonialism he had inculcated during his student days in London, he quickly became dissatisfied by general failure of the incremental approach to change advocated by the party stalwarts and their continued support of imperialist powers.

"[10] :72 In April 1955, Barrow and 21 other like-minded politicians and activists adopted the Constitution of the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) as a progressive alternative to the BLP.

[11] After another landslide victory in 1971, the DLP returned to the electorate in 1976 for a mandate after two years of bitter controversy over constitutional amendments put forth by the government.

Barrow, who had invited public comment on the amendments verbally lashed out at those who had been critical of what he viewed as a minor procedural change in the appointment of judges.

A general economic downturn that affected most countries in the hemisphere contributed to a shift in public sentiment resulting in the party's election defeat.

In it, Barrow rhetorically asked Barbadians what kind of a future they saw for themselves when they looked in the mirror; contrasting a life of menial labour as an émigré in the developed world, or staying and building a strong and independent Barbados to rival other small states like Singapore.

Errol Barrow married Carolyn Marie Plaskett, the daughter of a prominent American Baptist minister in Orange, NJ, on 18 November 1945.

[13] In her autobiography, the American singer Nina Simone claimed to have had an affair with Barrow (whose first name she misspells) during the brief period that she lived in Barbados.

[citation needed] The Errol Barrow Centre for Creative Imagination, at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill campus, promotes the making, study and appreciation of the arts.