Dispatches From a Dilettante by Paul Rowson Read Free Book Online Page A

materialised. As non Bahamians we were caught in the middle but felt that we ought to support the strike even if we knew that it would be organised with tragic inefficiency, which proved to be the case. There was a lacklustre picket group of staff outside the school entrance on the first day of strike action. They had sandwich boards with written slogans, complete with spelling errors, and marched round in a circle so that the few onlookers could read them.
    It was a desultory affair and by day three at a school of sixty staff there were just eight left on the line. A dramatic meeting took place for all high school teachers on the island and the Prime Minister harangued the nation on radio about the shortcomings of the ‘evil educationalists’. I listened to the broadcast at home, which was in turn vaguely menacing and totally hilarious. Prime Minister Pindling invoked God, likened teachers to Nazis and threatened to cut off pay. As his corrupt ministry had already accomplished this for him, thus precipitating the strike, he was a little behind the action. There was genuine hardship for Bahamian teachers and many expats on remote Bahamian islands but we were relatively unscathed. When the strike ended with a pay rise promised, things returned to what passed for normality.
    Communication with friends and relatives in England was difficult. Phone calls were out because of the trouble and expense. My in laws sent us short tape cassettes but never quite mastered the technology. On receipt of the first one we sat down and excitedly switched on. After half a minute of hissing, a couple of tapping sounds followed by several hesitant “is it on…do I start now?” mumbles from my mother in law they were off and running. I could feel my father in law’s impatience before he spoke. There was then a detailed description as to the progress of the tomatoes growing in the greenhouse, which ended with an abrupt ‘click’ as the tape ended without them saying goodbye.
    We did listen to them all which was a good job as right at the end of one edition my father in law casually mentioned that the first commercial radio station was soon to start broadcasting in Leeds. I immediately sent a telegram demanding that the job of Sports Editor be held saying that I would be arriving in Leeds in a week’s time.

4.
RADIO GAGA 1981-1984
     
    I was somewhat stunned when the telegram was sent, in that I had never been a journalist and had never worked in radio. Employing a heat infused logic I thought that a telegram from the Bahamas might give my application, for a job I didn’t even know existed, a little extra caché. In truth we had already decided that the Bahamian dream was not for us and were going to leave before our three year contract was up.
    We had recently taken in a teaching colleague as a lodger at our duplex. He had worked in college radio and did the application for me. I feigned illness, took time off school, kissed my wife and kids goodbye and flew to England for the interview that I had invited myself to attend. Of course I didn’t get the job, but was taken on as a part time stringer in the sports department of what was to become Radio Aire. They weren’t going live for three months so back in Freeport we made the decision to leave the island permanently.
    Local radio is mostly mundane low key action and I quickly rose to an acceptable level of incompetence. I say that but in the early days Radio Aire had ambitions to break the mould. Their initial staff list, all unknown at the time, included DJ Andy Kershaw, Guardian sports journalist Martin Kelner, Mark Mardell - now political correspondent for the BBC in Washington, Mark Easton Channel Four News and Helen Boaden currently Director of BBC News. They all quickly moved onto better things and, equally quickly, output dumbed down to the sports, news and ‘human interest’ stories pumped out by every other local station across the country.
    At the beginning there was a week