Robert Clarke, the author of the Trinidad and Tobago Guardian’s “A Century of Excellence”, speaks about the labour of love in documenting the newspaper's 100-year milestone. The book, written by Clarke, a former journalist at the Guardian, is currently being sold in leading book stores nationwide. The T&T Guardian has witnessed much of this country’s history, including our Independence, hurricane Flora ravaging Tobago in 1963 and the 1990 attempted coup to name a few. Clarke told us exactly what the process entailed in condensing that century into 228 pages, and why people should bother to buy this book.
Q: What was the process like condensing 100 years of history into 228 pages?
A: It was definitely a painstaking process because first of all, the Guardian fire of April 1980 destroyed what was supposed to have been the best newspaper library in the Caribbean. There was information at that library dating back to 1917 but with that fire everything was gone. Now, all the Guardian newspapers before 1980 are essentially housed at the National Archives and they are bound in big folders and you have to go in there with latex gloves and go through them carefully, especially the early newspapers which are kind of falling apart. Some of them are crumbling and some of them are in such a bad condition they don’t want to lend them to you. There is also the Guardian library where there is a lot of the photography, where some of the great Guardian photographers like Rudy Taylor and Noel Saldenha were shooting with film. So that part was nice, finding some of those images. It was definitely an interesting process.
How did you decide on the structure for the book?
The book could have been written a half dozen different ways. Obviously people would have taken it from different angles. I have to say thank you to Lucio Mesquita, the managing director, because he had some idea about the form it should take. He wanted a section on plus ça change, how things changed over time but have remained the same. And it was interesting to look for those things as I was going along. So back in the 1940s people were complaining about the lack of creativity in Carnival, and it’s the same thing now with pretty mas and bikini and beads. So that was interesting. The book naturally evolved to a thematic structure and also a newspaper section structure rather than a chronological structure, so we did it by Sports, and Crime, and Politics. It evolved into a thematic structure as the material was coming across and we realised that the most interesting way to present it would be thematically rather than chronologically.
What stood out to you most as you sifted through all of this information?
There were a lot of stories that stood out to me in terms of the Guardian being connected to memorable national events. In sports for example, Mannie Dookie the barefoot runner was being sent off to the Empire Games by boat. This was back in the days when obviously our athletes were not travelling the world regularly, it was a serious endeavour to cross the Atlantic so the Guardian said it would sponsor Mannie Dookie and sent him off. So that was Guardian being connected to our national history very directly. I always knew him as the barefoot runner, what was interesting was when they got him to the Empire Games he did run without shoes one day but that was because he had corns on his feet not because it was his preference.
Then there was the story of aviator Mikey (Michael) Cipriani taking the first planeload of Guardian newspapers ever to Tobago. Obviously at the time Tobagonians had to wait for the newspaper to come by sea which would have taken a while. So for the first time ever Tobagonians were going to read the newspaper on the same day that it was printed, so Cipriani and his navigator got into their aircraft, they flew toward the Northern Range and they crashed (and died). The plane was found days later, the Guardian sent out a search party to look for him, and it was a huge national event. Cipriani was a popular person so the search for Cipriani was a huge event, but it was also intimately tied to the Guardian’s own history in its desire to expand its distribution and to make things more immediate.
A newspaper is a product that comes out daily, were there any days that the paper could not be printed?
There was the fire that knocked them down for months because they could not print for five or six months and they tried to broadcast a weekly news programme to keep, first of all, the reporters employed and also keep people interested in the product. There was also a walkout and a strike just prior to that in 1979 which kept them down for a while. Then there was the coup. The coup happened in Port-of-Spain, and for a couple days the papers did not come out.
Why should someone get this book?
I think they should pick it up as a historical document. This is a newspaper that has survived much longer than many institutions. As a company it is still here, it went through times when it could have been gone, in the 1920s and the 1930s financially they struggled greatly, so the newspaper has had its ups and downs.
The fact is there was a real, tangible product that was put out daily and was much anticipated by many people because it was at times their sole source of news, not that they did not have competitors but because the Guardian had survived and been around. I think it was looked to for what it provided. I think it is a very interesting document, it is a slice of Trinidad and Tobago’s history, if you knew nothing about Trinidad and Tobago it will be a very interesting place for you to start with newspapers being the first draft of history.
I think it was looked to for what it provided. I think it is a very interesting document, it is a slice of Trinidad and Tobago’s history, if you knew nothing about Trinidad and Tobago it will be a very interesting place for you to start with newspapers being the first draft of history.