Latest update November 26th, 2024 1:00 AM
Basil Bradshaw is a special person
From national sprinter to broadcaster
By Edison Jefford
His voice was known before his personality. Basil Bradshaw did not know that he was setting himself up for a rewarding career in the fourth estate. He was to transition from his tenure in Radio-Broadcasting to Television.
Basil Bradshaw
In fact, Bradshaw, now 47, never ideally wanted to become a broadcaster, but the covert attempts of his secondary school teacher landed him an attachment at the renowned and respected Guyana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) around 1981.
“I was just out of school at 18 years old when I went into radio in ’81 and was a member of the GBC staff behind the merger with Radio Demerara,” Bradshaw told Kaieteur News in an interview for this week’s edition of Special Person.
He said that the genesis of his career was very clandestine; Mrs Carr, a Senior Mistress at his Bladen Hall Secondary School at the time, secretly orchestrated what would become a livelihood derived from the Broadcasting industry.
“She always thought that I had the ability to become a Broadcaster but I didn’t think so at all. She was so certain that I would become a good Broadcaster; she felt that I had a good command of English Language,” he indicated.
“She went ‘behind my back’, so to speak, and asked that I get an attachment at GBC and all I was told afterward is that I should turn up on Monday morning for work,” Bradshaw continued. He followed the advice.
The then 18-year-old broadcasting apprentice was embarking on a new journey following his early success as a national junior and senior sprint champion. As it turned out, he was destined to live his life in the public domain.
Basil Bradshaw (left) at work in the studios at GBC with Dennis Chabrol.
His attraction for sports received national recognition when he established an 11.0 record in the Under-17 100 metres category of the schools’ athletic championships. The mark was set aside when the age group was changed from Under-17 to Under-16.
It would have been one of the longest standing records of the championships if it was not for that change since the new mark only stands at 11.1 for the Under-16. Bradshaw was a sure force for Georgetown at the senior levels as well.
“I went on an attachment period that lasted until 1983 when I was employed on January 1 and was placed in the Sports Department,” Bradshaw recalled, adding that he was always fortunate to find the right mentors to channel him.
“The General Manager (of GBC) was Terry Holder, at that time, and I give him a lot of credit. I joined that department after B.L. Crombie, perhaps the best Sports-caster we ever had in local radio, passed away. I was the person to fill that vacancy because of my sporting background,” he continued in his recollection of history.
Bradshaw, who formally had his training in radio in Jamaica in 1988, said that one of the highest points of his career was when he interviewed world renowned Guyanese sprinter, James Wren Gilkes when the latter came to Guyana.
Gilkes, who won the Pan American Games’ gold medal in 1975 and silver in 1979 and a Commonwealth Games silver medal in 1978 over 200m, had visited Guyana for schools’ championships at Bourda some time around 1982-83.
Basil Bradshaw (right) interviews world renowned Guyanese Sprinter, James Wren Gilkes at Bourda.
“I spoke with him and I was really pleased to have spoken to the great man at that time,” Bradshaw said, adding, “He would have been around ’78, ’79 the fastest man over 200m in the entire world, so I was really pleased at meeting him”.
Bradshaw’s career as a radio broadcaster came to an end in 1992 and he was transitioned into television where he experienced new successes and challenges that ranged from being the host at Calypso finals to gunmen visiting his home.
“Had it been the same situation in terms of leadership and interaction, I may have stayed on at GBC. Politics played its part as well but I would not go too much into that, but I’ve moved on,” the multifaceted personality indicated.
“It wasn’t a difficult transition because I felt that after 14 years, I had to move on because things began to change. General Managers changed: you move from Terry Holder to James Sydney to Ave Brewster to Fazil Azeez and as managers changed policies and relationships changed and it wasn’t all of that encouraging at the time,” Bradshaw said without divulging details of his bureaucratic difficulties.
He said that his transition to television forced his listeners to connect with a personality that was already established on the radio. He noted that it was a mere case of people being in a position to put a face to the popular radio voice.
Bradshaw went into television with RBM Productions (Richard Bishun Mahase), who had already started some programmes of his own and felt that Basil Bradshaw and Roger Moore would be an asset to his company.
He spent two years with RBM before individually producing the popular morning show, ‘Wake Up Guyana’, which airs on HBTV Channel 9. He said that his successes with the show were both immediate and overwhelming at the time.
“I was able to immediately weave myself into the viewership because there were a lot of people who knew what Basil Bradshaw sound like but not what he looks like. They knew the radio personality but they wanted to have a picture,” he believes.
Initially, Bradshaw’s Show appealed to the housewives, who would be the ones at home at the time. He said that they are the ones that the advertising appealed to in the home and the content was fitting for them in the early stages.
However, Guyana went through a torrid crime spree theorist say between 2002 and 2006 and Bradshaw was forced to adjust his content. He exposed a lot of the perils of society in an attempt to find the right balance for his audience.
“What people get mixed up with is when you talk about the ills of the society. When you make mention of these ills, they get upset because they feel that you are talking to them. I have done that for a number of years on my show,” he noted.
“Negative things have a following too but I try to create a balance on my shows. Both for and against, but that has become difficult because a lot of people might know of the bad experience I had with gunmen in 2006,” Bradshaw continued.
Gunmen had reportedly visited the home of the famed local broadcaster in 2006 and as a course of action; he was forced to leave the country for a brief period. However, as a true martyr, Bradshaw returned to continue the programme.
He changed the content and has maintained his popularity and viewership.
“I have done no one any wrong and I relate to people very well. You have to live with the cognisance that these things do exist, fortunately my career has been a good, clean one so far and I am still doing the show,” he said.
Asked if he is satisfied with the evolution of the programme, Bradshaw said that he is lots more comfortable now than before but feels that too often sponsorship and standard of living is attached to political connections.
“I am comfortable. I have been complaining of not getting enough sponsorship but that is again because of the political climate that now exists,” he succinctly said, adding that he believes that he can live better with those bars raised.
“I am a little disappointed because I believe that I have the ability to live at a better standard at a higher level but it is very frustrating to note that this has happened because of the political climate that exists in Guyana,” he reiterated.
Bradshaw believes that all Guyanese professionals, regardless of race or political affiliation, should be able to live a standard life in Guyana. He said he has done so against the grain but his case is truly unique.
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