The sun may be setting gently on the journalistic career of Alister Hughes. He stood up bravely to two brutal and dictatorial regimes in Grenada; one led by Sir Eric Gairy the other by Maurice Bishop. In this interview with Diana Yohannan Hughes says he would like to be remembered as a Caribbean person who wished passionately for unity in the Caribbean and who loved people.
Despite receiving an honorary doctorate of laws from the University of the West Indies in recognition of this distinguished career in journalism, Alister Hughes wears his mantle of achievement modestly.
When I suggested we meet to talk about his life because he had never been interviewed about himself, he sounded surprised.
"Me? Who'd want to read about me?" - is typical of his unassuming attitude. He is well known and respected throughout the islands and his life-long love of people has earned him a special place in Grenada. On one occasion it saved his life.
Hughes's hybrid ancestry is typical of the Caribbean family tree. His forbears include Negro and Welsh blood on his father's side. His paternal grandmother, Amelia, was the daughter of a French aristocrat Compte Depoulain and Mary, a freed slave. His mother's side, the Lebarrys claimed they were descendants of the illegitimate children of Madam du Barry.
"I think", he smiles, "it was just an effort to create prestige."
He was born in St George's on January 21, 1919. He attended St George's Anglican Boys' Primary School until 1931 when, at the age of 11, he won one of the two scholarships to the Grenada Boys' Secondary School.
"In those days I had an unfair advantage. While my father could pay for lessons for me and I could go home and study, most of those I was competing with didn't have that privilege. They had to go home and cut grass for the cow or see to the animals."
When he left school he wanted to join one of the steamships so he could "see more of the world than I was seeing out of Grenada."
" 'I have other plans for you', " said Dad. "But up to the time he died he hadn't told me what the plans were!"
His commercial career spanned 36 years before his career as a journalist, broadcaster, and correspondent for various international wire services took off. The commercial spectrum included working as a doctor, salesman, auctioneer, sewing machine serviceman and travel agent.
He also ran a bakery, a mattress factory, toilet tissue factory, and for 28 years worked in the family business, A Norris Hughes and Sons. He has given nearly 60 years of public service. In spite of his late entry into journalism, this wealth of experience, he says, gives him a better understanding of what he is writing about.
The turning point in his career came late, at the age of 50. When representing The Grenada Chamber of Commerce on the Incorporated Chambers of Commerce of the Caribbean, (ICCC), he met Ken Gordon, then executive director. Gordon left to become the managing director of the Trinidad Express and asked Hughes to contribute.
"It was the best decision I made in my life because nothing else I have done has given me as much satisfaction," Hughes said. "If he hadn't suggested the column, I don't think I would have got into it".
He pauses for a moment and reflects. "You know those were exciting days in the early 1970s. Everything was new. There was no reporting between the islands before, and those of us who were doing it were pioneers." A friend of his designed a unique piece of equipment to screen out background noise on taped interviews. This involved two tape recorders and a flash bulb that reacted only to voice current when the first tape was copied onto the second.
"Experimenting with equipment was the excitement in those days. It was much more fun - and economical too."
This experimentation, and Hughes's experience as a ham radio operator, gave him his first scoop when George Bush, vice president of the United States, visited Grenada in February 1986. Hughes said, "He held a press conference at Government House. I had a mobile Citizens Band (CB) radio with a base at my home. I hooked the base into the home telephone, left my wife Cynthia there, and I went to Government House with the portable CB. When Bush started to speak I called Cynthia and said, phone Puerto Rico', where Associated Press had their headquarters and where I had to report to them. I held up my portable in front of the loudspeaker and it went from there to the base at my home, into the phone and on to Puerto Rico. We beat the competition by seven hours!"
Today, modern technology and a wide range of training courses are at the disposal of the young journalist, but the principles of journalism remain the same. "A good journalist," advises Hughes, "has to be fair. You have to report both sides of the story and you have to look for the truth. On these small islands you have to be cautious and use your discretion as to when you are a journalist and when you are not. Privacy on social occasions should be respected. I don't think we have the kind of investigative journalism that, for instance, you find in Europe or the US that intrudes on people's privacy. I think there is still respect for that here." Hughes's early days in journalism coincided with the beginning of a turbulent period in Grenada's history. Grenada achieved full internal self-government in 1967 and Eric Gairy's Grenada United Labour Party (GULP) won the General Elections that year. There followed a period of violence and instability that continued from 1979 under Maurice Bishop's self-proclaimed people's Revolutionary Government (PRG), finally culminating in Bishop's assassination on October 19, 1983.
As a journalist, Hughes describes these years as "most uncomfortable, but from different points of view".
"In the Gairy years," he recalls, "when he employed a gang of thugs - the Mongoose Gang, you were physically in danger. But he respected the law in that the law allowed you to hold a person for two days and then release you. He would re-arrest you again on the third or fourth day but it was all according to the Constitution and the law. He was constitutional, but repressive."
Under Bishop it was different.
"He was unconstitutional and repressive." Hughes said. "You had a fear that you could be picked up and put into gaol without trial or charge. I do not care whether Bishop had been able to pave the streets with gold. People talk about the good that he did, the airport and whatever else, but II feel very strongly that if you have just one man in gaol without trial or charge it's not worth having the streets paved with gold. You cannot pay for that."
The years of repression took their toll.
"It was very taxing on one's nerves," Hughes explained. In the late 1960s my wife Cynthia and I were still being very careful in what we said and in whose presence. We were constantly on edge. We then came to a conscious decision that we were going to talk. We found it much easier and much safer when everyone knew exactly where we stood."
This honesty nearly cost him his life on two occasions. In 1973 he was beaten up at Pearl's Airport waiting for Gairy's return from discussions with the British government on Independence. He was dragged from his taxi, beaten by the Mongoose Gang, and kicked out of the airport.
A complaint to the Chief of Police resulted in a search for arms and ammunition at his home the next morning. But the police were not allowed to get away with it. "My wife, Cynthia and I greeted them with a tape recorder and camera and asked them to state what they were there for. But we took pictures of them. They got very embarrassed, hiding their faces and making signs rather than talking. They searched the house. But we didn't allow them to make a cursory search. We demanded that it be properly done."
He was working for 610 Radio in Trinidad and called and told them what was happening. "It came over on the seven o'clock news with the names of the people who were searching the house. They didn't like that kind of thing. I think this was part of the protection we had. If you floundered they would ride you harder."
The other incident occurred on his fifty-fourth birthday and would have ended his fledgling career in journalism were it not for the intervention of a policeman. On January 21, 1974, one of the numerous public protests under the Gairy regime took place outside Otway House, headquarters of the Seamen and Waterfront Workers Union. About 6,000 people were under attack from the Mongoose Gang.
"We had to retreat into Otway House," Hughes recalls. "We were there under rifle fire for about an hour. Finally, they tear-gassed us and I had to run outside. On the way out I had to step over the body of Rupert Bishop, Maurice's father, who'd been shot. As I came out there were six men with cutlasses and sticks. They were about to attack me when a policeman rescued me. He said something which at the time, I thought was complimentary. He said 'You're a good man, I can't let them do that to you'. When I thought about it subsequently I wondered if he hadn't thought I was a good man if he would have left me to the wolves?"
Hughes sports an impressive list of awards for his services to journalism and broadcasting. He received The Maria Moors Cabot prize Award, together with his wife Cynthia, from Columbia University, for "distinguished journalistic service". The two he prizes the most are those he received from the Caribbean Publishers and Broadcasters Association "for outstanding coverage of the disturbances prior to Grenada's independence", and the Doctorate of Laws he received in 1990 from the University of the West Indies, because "they were given to me by Caribbean people, my people", he says quietly.
Although born in Grenada, Hughes regards himself as a Caribbean man. He passionately believes in Caribbean unity and a Caribbean, rather than, an insular identity. It is not surprising to discover he refused the British colonial honour Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) "because it undermined all that I stand for. If I had accepted the CBE, I am not centering myself in the Caribbean, I am centering myself in Britain which is now a foreign country. If they had local honours I would be thrilled to take the lowest of the low of local honours rather than a Knighthood from the Queen."
He believes that, due to a long colonial history, Caribbean people have not yet found their identity. In the case of Grenada, he says they are focused on Britain as the mother country and London as the centre of the universe.
"In fact, until recently, we were much closer to London than we were to Caracas," he says. "Colonial honours, going to see the changing of the guard, the Queen's message at Christmas. All that shows how tightly we were attached to London. Well, we've lost that mother now and we're looking for another mother because we don't feel that we're grown-up children yet. The majority of the people in the Caribbean are black-skinned and many of them are looking for Mother Africa. But what about the Chinese, the Portuguese and the Indians who live on these islands? They also are Caribbean people and they cannot identify with Mother Africa. We have our own very strong culture, but we need to recognize it."
Hughes's interest in all things Caribbean began at an early age. He started to collect his extensive library of books, magazines and clippings on the Caribbean when he was an auctioneer with the family firm. He intends to leave this collection to Marryshow House for future generations to enjoy. His museum pieces, including the first taxi on the island, a 1914 Overland, will find a home in the proposed Museum at Fort Matthew as part of the Cynthia Hughes Collection, in memory of his late wife who died suddenly in 1989.
At 78 Hughes has no intention of slowing down. His much loved 96-year-old Aunt "Kippy" is still alive and shares his mental alertness, so he has good reason to expect several more years for himself. In his own words, "If the good Lord spares my life for a bit longer, I would like to write a history of Grenada from 1950 - 1983. This is a fascinating period and a very vital part of the development of this island", he explains. "But my great love is words."
He is currently preparing material for a book on the non-standard English of Grenada and its relationship with the other islands.
The most important date in his calendar falls on August 29 this year. His eyes light up and he smiles broadly. "I'm going to marry Margaret Murphy. A couple of years ago she was referred to me when she came out here to investigate the export of butter from Ireland to Grenada. I didn't know anything about butter but I have found out a lot about her."
Family and friends from the Caribbean will attend the wedding in Dublin and there will be some extensive "liming" with the Irish during the week-long celebrations.
The sun is setting gently on Hughes's career. It seemed appropriate to ask him how he would like to be remembered. "I think as somebody who was a Caribbean person; somebody who wished passionately for a unity in the Caribbean; and somebody who had a love for people. I hope my book on words will be something of a memorial to me and that it will help Grenadian and Caribbean people understand better the environment they live in. That's how I'd like it to be".
As an expert on words, I asked whether he had thought about an inscription for his headstone. He chuckled and answered without hesitation, "Oh yes. On October 19 1983, the day Maurice Bishop was murdered, I was taken by the Peoples Revolutionary Army from my home. Somebody gave my wife, Cynthia an "eye-witness" account of my execution.
"They had seen me put up against a wall and shot, they said. Cynthia spoke to a neighbour and told the neighbour something she related to me very diffidently afterwards.
"But I thought it was the greatest compliment I've ever been paid. She said: " 'And he was such a useful man!' I'd like those words on my headstone."