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Mervyn Crichlow

We celebrate the life and pay tribute for the many achievements of John Babb.
Fifty years ago, when there were horizons to explore, I met the venerable John Babb.
John worked at the Trinidad Mirror newspaper, which was shut down after a couple years.
The paper ceased operations following a deal made by expatriate publishers, Lord Thompson of the Guardian group and Cecil King of the London Mirror newspapers, who did not wish to compete in the same geographic region. I was one of six teenagers who began training as newspaper reporters at that fledging newspaper.
Originally from San Fernando, I travelled with John in his Renault each morning from my aunt’s home in Arouca to the Trinidad Mirror in Port of Spain. As a trainee at that newspaper, and more particularly a few years later at the "D" Guardian, John and I were among the few on the press table capable of taking notes in Pitman’s shorthand, and, like John, typing our story straight from shorthand notes.
At that time "D Guardian" included lots of manual typewriters, noisy teletype machines, piles of old newspapers and, when the "paper went to bed," some of us who worked in the newsroom gathered at the nearby watering holes for levity and the settling of newsroom arguments over strong drinks. John, as the elder statesman in the newsroom, was never short of life stories and laughter.
I operated from the South bureau of the Guardian and was always fascinated whenever I had cause to visit the head office on St Vincent Street. One could not miss the clanging of Linotype machines, noisy typesetters and the loud talking of those who injected molten lead into printing plates that were used to print the newspaper. In those days – the 60s – there were no memory writers, computers, electronic mail, mobile telephones, fax machines, digital cameras, internet, online formats or social media. Without today’s technology, the newspapers – the Evening News and the Trinidad Guardian – with few grammatical and production errors, were printed and delivered daily before daybreak.
As political reporter John witnessed newspaper journalism moving from manual typewriters, noisy teletype machines to electric typewriters, the formation of the Caribbean News Agency (CANA) replacing Reuters, colour television, the Internet, spell check, Google and the beauty and ills of social media,
A decade later we reunited, me as press officer in the Prime Minister’s Office and John as political reporter for the Trinidad Guardian.
John remained in newspaper journalism, but I moved on into other aspects of corporate communications at the Industrial Development Corporation, Trintoc/Petrotrin, the Ministry of Education and at the Integrity Commission. I provided John with hundreds of interesting newsworthy things to write over the years. He went on to earn national awards for his contribution to journalism. We lost touch when John left Newsday, and I retired in 2018.
We shared lots of stories over the decades. A few months ago, as I began to document my years in this communication business, I tried desperately, and without success, to locate John.
There comes a time when we lose colleagues and need to say farewell. Over the years I have come to this place and elsewhere to say farewell to too many colleagues from the Evening News, Trinidad Guardian, the Express Newspapers and even from the Newsday, which my good friend Norris Solomon, like John, joined in retirement.
One evening while at the Newsday, Norris, who like me began as a news reporter in the 60s, and John both confessed that the job of a rewrite journalist was tedious and frustrating, and both explained the reason. I believe that everyone who knew John very well would agree it was his passion to get the news story and to get it right.
This is not the time for us to grieve John’s death... it's our time to celebrate his life and legacy. As it turns out John has gone to meet many colleagues who are under the grass – Owen Baptiste, George John, David Renwick, John Alleyne, John Myers, Ric Mentus, Keith Smith, Chester Morong, Harry Sharma, Patrick Chookolingo, Milton Bartley, Hammond Koylass, Mikey Mahabir, Jeff Hackett, Norris and scores of subeditors and news reporters with whom we worked.
You never know how much time you have left on this earth. John made it to 91, after a glorious career in newspaper journalism. He had written thousands of news stories on life and developments in this nation. We shared many private stories.
Amidst life, its joys and challenges, we are confronted with goodbyes that can never be said or explained. Like yesterday’s newspaper, people are gone from sight, but never from our hearts. Death is a hiding place for weary men and women. It is not the end but a waiting place for Christ’s return.
May John’s soul rest in eternal peace. I extend heartfelt sympathy to his family, friends and the surviving readers of his newspaper articles.
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