Barbara Gloudon: 10 things to know about the cultural icon
Veteran broadcaster and theatre legend Barbara Gloudon has died.
Gloudon died in hospital on Wednesday night. She was a former Jamaica Observer columnist. Here are ten things about the veteran journalist and broadcaster that you may not know.
1. Her birth name is Barbara Joy Goodison. She was born in Malvern, Saint Elizabeth Parish, Jamaica, to Doris (née Harvey) and Vivian M. Goodison. Her father worked as a chauffeur and mechanic and Barbara grew up in a middle-class family.
2. She is the sister of the first female Poet Laureate of Jamaica, Lorna Goodison.
3. Gloudon began her career at The Gleaner newspaper in 1953, working as a reporter. Simultaneously, she also worked as a columnist, using the pseudonym “Stella” at the Jamaica Star.
4. Gloudon began working in 1969 as a scriptwriter for Jamaica’s Little Theatre Movement (LTM) and also wrote radio drama.
5. On 23 April 1960, Goodison married the chemist and food technologist, Ancile Gloudon a native of Port of Spain, Trinidad. The couple would subsequently have three children, Lisa, Jason and Anya and work together to build their first home. Her husband Ancile predeceased her.
6. In 1969, Gloudon was invited by Greta Fowler, who with her husband Henry had founded Jamaica’s Little Theatre Movement (LTM), to write a script for the annual pantomime production. Gloudon wrote Moonshine Anancy – a nod to the American’s successful moon landing. She would eventually write 29 scripts, the last being Dapper Dan in 2017. In the 1980s, she wrote the radio serial drama, Wrong Move.
7. From the late 1980s, she hosted a radio talk-show, Hotline, broadcast by Radio Jamaica Rediffusion (RJR 94 FM). Gloudon, in her trademark raspy voice, provided brilliant thought-provoking commentary on cultural and social issues until 2015.
8. Gloudon was bestowed as an officer in the Order of Distinction in 1975 for her journalistic career, and with the Order of Jamaica in 1992.
9. Leaving journalism in 1978, Gloudon worked until 1981 as the director of the Jamaica Tourist Board.
10. Gloudon was inducted into the Jamaican Press Association Hall of Fame in 2013.
