Latest update December 23rd, 2024 3:40 AM
Final chapter closes on Guyana’s media icon Hugh Cholmondeley
By Lin-Jay Harry Voglezon
All chapters of the meaningful life of Mr. Hugh Neville James Cholmondeley, one of Guyana’s most outstanding media personalities, have come to an end by death on August 10th, at the age of 72. As a measure of his significance, last Friday afternoon, August 17th, his family, current and former diplomats, colleagues, friends, admirers, members of the media fraternity and others, assembled at The Tillman Chapel, Church Centre of the United Nations, New York, in final celebration of his life. Particularly obvious was the wide and solid cross-section of the Guyanese professional and intellectual classes who travelled from Guyana for the event.
Cholmondeley, an old graduate of Queen’s College, which to date is arguably the most highly rated Caribbean secondary school, entered the media profession in 1958 at the then British Guiana Broadcasting Service as an announcer under the mentorship of Rafiq Khan. There, he probably became “the first Disc jockey in the Caribbean”. As the operator with responsibility for playing music was constantly late, Cholmondeley’s radio survival depended on learning and applying both announcing and operating skills, which classified him as “the first and original DJ” according to his eulogist Nigel Hughes.
From 1966-1968 he served as Director of News and Current Affairs at Radio Demerara but in 1968, established the Guyana Broadcasting Service (GBS).
In 1972 Hugh was appointed Project Manager of UNESCO where he designed and established the Caribbean News Agency (CANA ) and the Caribbean Institute of Mass Communications (CARIMAC) at Mona, UWI.
Chaplain Holly A. Gaudette delivering the urn containing the ashes of the late Hugh Cholmondeley to Mrs. Marieanne Cholmondeley (in front) and the rest of his family.
In 1977 he was transferred to UNESCO – Paris as a Program Specialist where he designed and administered communications and development projects for the establishment and expansion of news agencies in developing countries.
In 1979 he became UNESCO’S representative to the Caribbean, and established his office in Jamaica where he functioned until 1985, when he was instrumental in forming the Consortium Graduate School in the Social Sciences in the Caribbean, a multi-university enterprise comprising University of the West Indies, University of Guyana and University of Suriname. This was also located at Mona.
In the words of Eddie Greene “ Hugh, who reveled in the realm of ideas and their application to improving the human and social conditions, quickly grasped the importance of full time graduate training that exposed young scholars to an interdisciplinary program in development policy study and research. The passion and dedication with which he piloted the process through the diplomatic and multilateral channels and then advocated at meetings of the CARICOM and UN Councils were masterful displays of the craft of negotiation and talents of creative leadership.”
Between the offices of UNESCO and UNDP, Cholmondeley was charged with many responsibilities such as peace and reconciliation, development initiatives etc. in places such as Rwanda and Sierra Leone, Haiti, Afghanistan, Liberia and Somalia where he earned the respect and trust of General Aidid, who would attend secret meetings with him in a coffin at the funeral of fallen fighters.
In Guyana, while he succeeded in realizing the negotiations leading up to the Herdmanston Accord and subsequently the St Lucia Statement, and even became adviser to the Chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission where he designed the media center, he remained discontented with the progress in Guyana.
Hugh Cholmondeley, whom many saw as a gentle giant among men, capable of riveting presentations to an audience, was also described as incisive in mind, colourful and varied in vocabulary. But a former broadcast colleague, award winning journalist Angella Massiah, remarked that “surprisingly, he was a shy man”. This she noticed in 1992, when the North American-based Caribbean media personnel, officially established its alumni in honour of Cholmondeley for his pioneering efforts in both print and broadcast journalism.
Section of the mourners: Cholmondeley’s immediate family in front row, followed by current and former Guyanese and other diplomats, friends, colleagues, etc. singing the hymn “How great thou art”.
Cholmondeley left to mourn his widow Marieanne, five children from two marriages, and two grandchildren.
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