By OSWALD T. BROWN
WASHINGTON, D.C., May 2, 2022 — Photographer Derek Smith, who worked with me when I was Editor of The Nassau Guardian (1998—2002), sent me a photo of me and Perry Christie engaged in discussion outside the House of Assembly that unlocked a treasure chest of fond memories.
Derek says it was taken in 2001, which means that Mr. Christie had not yet served as first term as Prime Minister from 2002 to 2007. He was also Prime Minister from 2012 to 2017.
Mr. Christie and I knew each other from I was a young sports reporter at The Tribune in the early 1960s and he was an outstanding athlete, specializing in the triple jump. We became very good friends during the year (1968-1969) that I spent in London receiving advanced training in journalism on the staff of the London Evening Standard and he was a law student at the University of Birmingham, located in the West Midlands, approximately 100 miles northwest of London.
Perry and many other Bahamian students studying in the United Kingdom at the time often visited my flat at 3 Seagrave Road, S.W., London, for the parties that I hosted. Of course, I was not hamstrung by the usual financial constraints of some Bahamian students because I was paid the normal salary for beginning reporters at The Evening Standard and my salary as Assistant Editor at Bahamian Times, where I was employed when I went to London, was deposited in my bank account at the Bank of Nova Scotia.
Perry had a friend whose parents were very wealthy and he occasionally went sailing on their yacht off the South Coast of England some weekends. Because his university was quite a distance from London, Perry would sometimes spend a day or two at my flat before heading back to Birmingham.
Back then, we were both strong supporters of the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP), and the consensus among political pundits was that we both had very bright futures in Bahamian politics.
I received my early training as a journalist at The Tribune after joining the staff as a cub reporter in May of 1960 under the tutelage of Sir Etienne Dupuch, the then Publisher and Editor of The Tribune, and Arthur A. Foulkes, who at the time was the Tribune’s News Editor.
I also give a great deal of credit for my training during my tenure at The Tribune to Nicki Kelly, who was a senior reporter at The Tribune primarily responsible for covering the House of Assembly and other matters of a political nature.
When Mr. Foulkes ran for a seat in the House of Assembly in the Far East in the 1962 general election and lost, he resigned from The Tribune and along with other members of the National Committee for Positive Action (NCPA), a young activist group in the PLP, they established The Bahamian Times, a weekly newspaper to promote and publicize the activities of the PLP.
I joined Mr. Foulkes at Bahamian Times in 1965, and after the PLP won the historic January 10, 1967, general election, PLP Leader Lynden Pindling arranged for me to go to London for one year’s training in journalism at the London Evening Standard, a sister newspaper of the London Daily Express.
The Editor of the London Evening Standard, Sir Charles Wintour, personally picked me up from the airport and I was guest in his home for two weeks before I found my apartment at 3 Seagrave Road S.W. London. I thought I was a good journalist before I went to London, but my training at the Evening Standard was first-class and made me a better journalist.
When I returned from London in November of 1969, the political tranquility that existed among the leadership of the new PLP government when I went to London had been shattered, and I was very angry over the fact that Premier Pindling, who sent me to London, had a month earlier fired my journalistic mentor Arthur A. Foulkes as Minister of Tourism.
In keeping with the radical approach I used as a Black Power advocate to deal with issues that offended me, I confronted Premier Pindling about his decision and admittedly was very disrespectful to him.
I took my commitment to the Black Power Movement seriously, and to this day, I am still convinced that the sage advice I received from Sir Arthur Foulkes when I worked with him at Bahamian Times is the reason why I did not end up in prison; hence, the reason why I was naturally angry that he was fired as Minister of Tourism.
Nonetheless, I became Editor of Bahamian Times, but was fired by the Board of Directors three months later, in March 1970, presumably at the insistence of Sir Lynden.
Clearly, whatever future I had in politics by now was no longer aligned with Perry’s. When he returned from London, he almost instantly became a “rising star” in the PLP, although in later years he also had a disagreement with Sir Lynden; however, he rebounded strongly and became Sir Lyden’s heir apparent.
Meanwhile, I became a founding member of the Free National Movement (FNM) and editor of FNM’s newspaper, The Torch of Freedom, after the Dissident Eight – Sir Cecil Wallace Whitfield, Arthur A. Foulkes, Warren Levarity, Maurice Moore, Dr. Curtis McMillan, James Shepherd, Dr. Elwood Donaldson and George Thompson – broke away from the PLP and joined forces with moderate members of the disbanded United Bahamian Party (UBP) to establish the FNM.
