Veteran St Lucian journalist Earl Bousquet, in this heartfelt piece, remembers Rickey Singh as a true Caribbean man and journalist. Following is his tribute:

I came to know of Rickey Singh in the mid-1970s through his writings, when the fledgling Caribbean Community (Caricom) was still grappling with charting a new and independent 20th century future.

The region was divided between big and small, independent and non-independent territories: Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago were ‘The Big Four’, and the rest were ‘Lesser Antilles’, and the region was (as now) the world’s last-remaining bastion of European colonies.

Rickey always had a problem with the region’s failure to integrate, and his entire career was dedicated to ensuring Caribbean people (and the world) truly understood the truth of the age-old saying: ‘The pen is mightier than the sword.’

He saw one region, and aptly named his weekly column Our Caribbean, which was syndicated over decades in the region’s major newspapers in Barbados, Guyana, Trinidad & Tobago and Jamaica, including this newspaper, the Jamaica Observer.

Rickey didn’t write to wash dirty laundry, instead he addressed weekly the regional issues that defined the wider Caribbean — cultures, religions, values, history and politics — always underlying the need to build its youthful sovereignty.

He spent his lifetime encouraging the region’s journalists to see ourselves as chroniclers of ages and agents of progressive changes.

We worked with other regional media stalwarts to establish national media workers’ associations — instead of exclusive groupings of professional journalists — to highlight the equally important role of every other professional whose input is necessary to bring the work of journalists to the public’s eyes and ears.

The Caribbean Association of Media Workers (CAMWORK), which he headed for many years, was therefore established as a regional umbrella body for national associations. Rickey had by then become known and appreciated across the region as a formidable writer and advocate for journalists.

Indeed, Ricky fought for his absolute right to write from his first days as a reporter at the British-owned Guiana Graphic in the early 1960s, where his coverage of local political events so troubled the colonial hierarchy, and the local politicians who sought to replace them, that he was exiled to London — to cover court cases.

His native Guyana was always a rough ride. Having to survive writing his truth under the then Forbes Burnham Administration resulted in his early decision in the 1970s to relocate with his family to Trinidad & Tobago, from where the Caribbean Conference of Churches (CCC) established the Caribbean Contact as a monthly journal to serve the entire region.

Rickey’s editorship of the Contact didn’t go down well with the governments of at least two of the Caricom nations. First, the discomfort of the then Eric Williams Administration in Trinidad led to him and his family again relocating, this time to Barbados under a more receptive Errol Barrow Administration.

But political change in Bridgetown would usher in the JMG “Tom” Adams Administration, which eventually declared Rickey persona-non-grata, virtually forcing him to have to leave Barbados every month — and return the next day — only to be humiliatingly granted the minimum number of ‘days’ any ‘visitor’ was allowed.

His battles with the Williams and Burnham administrations fortified Rickey’s determination not to be forced to compromise, and he and his family finally settled in Barbados.

Rickey’s life forever revolved around his wife Dolly and their two sons and four daughters — Ramon and Raul, Allison, Debbie, Donna and Wendy.

His marriage to an Afro-Guyanese was a badge of honour Rickey always proudly wore as the glue that bound and bonded them in a permanent reflection of their mutual human love for life, living and family.

It was to my unimaginable discomfort that Dolly closed her eyes for the last time a few years ago while Rickey was in Saint Lucia for medical attention — and it was my job to prevent him from getting that deadly news about her while away from home.

I had to collude with other ‘conspirators’ and claim his phone was ‘misplaced’ (lest someone called to offer him ‘condolence’).

I attended Rickey’s 80th birthday celebration in Barbados and his 85th in Trinidad & Tobago — and on both occasions his regional and international colleagues wished him well in reluctant retirement.

In his last years he missed the daily professional grind of writing, typing and fingering keyboards, and up to his last days would insist on having the daily newspapers delivered every morning, inevitably complaining: ‘There’s no news in the newspaper today…’

Rickey was my greatest inspiration, truly my most important mentor.

Covering Caricom summits was Rickey’s one ultimate annual assignment, distilling the usually-long final communiques in ways that readers could easily understand how the issues affected them.

As fate would have it, on Saturday (July 5) I was sitting at Wendy’s Place (my favourite watering hole at Vigie, near the GFL Charles airport) when I got that call no one ever wants — this time from a fellow veteran Caribbean colleague.

The Rickey I knew had ensured his last waking moment on planet earth was Caricom Day, July 4, and departed to the great beyond on July 5, Venezuela’s Independence Day.

Rickey it was who inspired me to make journalism my life’s job over the past 49 years, and I named my twice-weekly regional column Chronicles of a Chronic Caribbean Chronicler in tribute to our shared love for our common mission.

I never, ever thought that the day would come when I’d have to write about my mentor in that infernal past tense!