By Orin Gordon
“You’ll never believe this,” I said to Ken Richards as he walked into the Caribbean Service’s small office at Bush House, the grand post-Edwardian building in London that was the headquarters of the BBC World Service.
It was the beginning of our news shift on Friday, March 7, 1997. He and I were the producer/presenter team that week for the flagship BBC Caribbean Report, which went out live every evening across the Caribbean.
“What happen now, Orin man,” Ken smiled as he settled into his seat.
“Michael Manley has died,” I told him. The thing about the death of the former prime minister of Jamaica was its timing, not its occurrence. The death of Guyana’s president Dr. Cheddi Jagan had been announced the day before.