Hartley NeitaTHESE PAST two weeks, the world's attention has been centred on Paris where the best athletes have been competing in what is regarded as a prelude to the Olympic Games to be held in Athens next year. And seated in our living rooms or offices we have been able to see Brigitte Foster and Lorraine Fenton winning silver medals, live and direct. And in colour.
Fifty years ago was our first glory when Herb McKenley, Arthur Wint, George Rhoden and Les Laing gave the world their first introduction to the speed and strength of our athletes. We never saw the image of this victory until some three weeks later when the Carib in Cross Roads, presented the premiere of a movie documentary of the victory. It was a big thing. For ten minutes, an audience headed by the Governor Sir Hugh Foot, and including Hyacinth Walters and Kathleen Russell, two members of the Jamaica team to those Olympics, saw a ten-minute long Gaumont British newsreel in black and white of this historic event. It was so special that gentlemen of society wore dinner jackets and the ladies wore gowns and gloves.
It was not, of course, only Jamaicans who saw these events at the cinema. There was also a premiere of the crowning of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II a year or so later, and as teenagers we packed the movie theatres to see similar newsreels of the Joe Louis heavyweight boxing fights, and little bits and pieces of the Test matches the West Indies played in England and Australia. We had to wait for three weeks to see these newsreels, and they were in black and white.
It was the same with our Independence celebrations in 1962. There was no television in Jamaica as yet. The over 1.5 million Jamaicans who were not invited to the Independence ceremony at the National Stadium had to wait, also, for over one month to see it through the lens of the cameras of the Film Unit of the then Government Public Relations Department (now JIS).
We heard these events taking place live on radio. But the reception was uncertain and scratchy and with the background hissing behind the voices of the announcers we were hard put to hear what happened as it took place. But what a miracle it was, this marvel of technology.
When the first space ships were hurled into the sky during the 1950s it was an adventure to search the sky at nights to see the light of these ships as they crossed the Jamaican sky. Little did we know that this was the beginning of the live television broadcasts, in colour, of world events.
Television came to Jamaica in 1963. For the next 20 years the broadcasts were in black and white. From time to time, we did see live broadcasts of the Budget debates in Parliament, and of course cricket. Michael Manley's visit to Cuba during the 1970s was also broadcast live, even though the reception was not very clear.
Then came the early 1980s. The JBC converted its equipment and began to broadcast in colour. And what a magic it was. We began to see news from all over the world as it happened in the colours of Spring and Summer and the white of snow during winter. Jamaicans who could afford it invested in satellite dishes, some larger than some houses. Until the 1990s when cable came.
So today, we can see the long, purple, fingernails of Gail Devers filling the television screen and we wonder if she will ever be able to use a computer or peel a tangerine. And can she pluck her eyebrows, apply mascara and perform other personal ablutions?
