![]() The melodic piano playing of Randolf Profitt on Friday nights, and Harry Mayers Militia Band on Monday nights, sponsored by Bookers Crown Rum. on weekdays, and Music from Mackenzie at midday. Popular radio programs in Guyana included the soap opera, Portia Faces Life, at 10 a.m. Olga Lopes-Seales went on to work at Rediffusion in Barbados and gave sterling service there until her retirement in the 1980s. Crombie, Lilian Fraser, Pat Cameron, Gerard De Freitas, Eleanor D’Aguiar, and Sarah Lou Carter, Merle Ibbott, to name a few. Budding stars such as Guyana’s answer to Elvis Presley, Andy Nicholls, singing Parting is Hard, found a spot on the Radio Demerara also featured a number of other talented broadcasters, household names, such as Ulric Gouveia, Rafiq Khan, B.L. Wander-sponsored Ovaltine Kiddies Talent program, with their theme song, “We are the Ovalteenies, Happy girls and boys” on Saturdays. Who can forget Olga Lopes-Seales and the popular birthday request program on Radio Demerara, daily, at 4.30 p.m.? Or Olga and the A. The Windward Islands on the 90 metre band, and their popular request program in the evenings, was one of my favourites.īut my best memories of radio are those of Guyana radio, when I was growing up. In Barbados, Rediffusion and Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation showcased the broadcaster and comedian, Alfred Pragnell. In Jamaica, Radio Jamaica broke new ground by putting creole programs on the air. Comedian John Agitation and a number of East Indian Programs were also very popular there. All these stations played a significant part in the lives of the populace.įor example, in Trinidad, Auntie Kay’s Children Programme on Radio Trinidad ran for almost 40 years. Previously, Barbados had, and I still believe, still has a Rediffusion service. Guyana was ahead of sister stations in the Caribbean, Radio Trinidad having started during World War II, Radio Jamaica in 1950, Windward Islands, 1955, and the Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation (Barbados) in 1963. Incidentally, ZFY, which was located by the Main Post Office in Georgetown, burned to the ground in the great fire of February 1945, the week when I was born. ZFY was accompanied by stations VB3BG and VP3MR, followed by Radio Demerara in the 1940s and BGBS in the 1950s. Guyana had its first radio station, ZFY on the air as early as 1935, even before the CBC in Canada in 1936, and not long after the BBC in England, 1922. In the days before television, videos and the like, radio was the people’s main source of news and entertainment. Broadcasting House, Georgetown, British Guiana 1964Ĭaribbean radio has a long, illustrious history.
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