File photos
Lindy Delaphena (left) and Sandrea Falconer

Andre Jebbinson, Staff Reporter

After hours of chaos, disarray and sometimes good news, television viewers turn to their most trusted news anchors for a recap of the day's events.

Before 1993, the only source of television news was the Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation (JBC). Those were the days when Helene Coley-Nicholson, Charles Lewin, Sandrea Falconer, Fae Ellington, Lindy Delapenha, Tony Patel, Pat Lazarus and others presented the news during prime time.

The most dynamic duo was probably Tony Patel and Pat Lazarus, who exhibited passion. "You can't appear to be reading a script. It has to be like a one-on-one dialogue with your viewers," Lazarus said.

This is why she believes viewers connected to her and Patel so well, even in an era before teleprompters were being used in Jamaica. This made eye, or rather camera, contact more tedious, yet they managed.

News anchors must have chemistry with their co-anchors and audience. Patel almost grew up in the public eye, making it easy for Jamaicans to relate to him. In his prep school days he entered speech festivals and other competitions that showcased his voice and diction, yet could still be classified as the boy next door.

Sandrea Falconer was his female equivalent. She had a persona that Jamaica easily welcomed in their living rooms nightly. "Jamaicans were so generous and they thought of me as their child. I grew up in television," Falconer said.

Charm and vitality

She left Hampton High School in St. Elizabeth with her eyes set on TV land. Her charm and vitality won over the interviewers and Falconer started as production assistant, becoming a reporter in less than a year. She quickly climbed the ranks at JBC to became one of the station faces on the news.

But, while Falconer had to start from the bottom up, Lindy Delapenha had hands-on experience that made him a suitable sport reporter and presenter.

The Munro College old boy was involved in sports long before he became a sports anchor. Delapenha left Jamaica in 1964 to play club football in England. During his football career he was a member of the first team for Portsmouth, Middlesborough and Mans Town.

However, the time would come when Delapenha would return to Jamaica and needed work. As fate would have it, Delapenha returned to Jamaica in 1966 in time for the Commonwealth Games, hosted in Jamaica that year. He sold insurance briefly until Roy Lawrence interested Delapenha in a job at JBC radio and television. It was a move that paid off and Delapenha left television in 1995. "Roy Lawrence thought it came naturally for me and it turns out I was successful at it. I was familiar with lot of sport and that made it easier for me," Delapenha said. "It was the greatest thing in the world to be talking about something I love. It made me happy."

Show business

But all good things must come to an end. "After 25 years you just need a break. One of the key things in show business, you must know when to leave that stage," Patel said.

He said he did not want to be told when to leave, but go while he was at the top of his game. He also wanted to start his own video production company. Today he is chief newscaster at KLAS radio station and a public relations consultant.

Both Falconer and Delapenha left television around the time when Radio Jamaica bought JBC and turned it into Television Jamaica (TVJ). They might have not left on the best terms, but Falconer said, "going to JBC was the perfect fit. There is nothing else that I wanted to do. My years in there were the most fulfilling period of my life".

Falconer now heads the communications department at Air Jamaica, while Delapenha has sporting duties at KLAS.

Lazarus' strong will and no-nonsense attitude was a mismatch at JBC. She complained that political figures had too much say about what made it to the air. "When you omit a piece of news, you are editorialising the news," Lazarus said. "If you don't let the leader of the country know what's wrong, how will he know what's going on? This will not help but hurt the leader."

Currently a lecturer in media studies at the University of the West Indies, Lazarus said her stance resulted in her being shifted to other departments. Her final shift would also mark the end of her tenure at JBC, as that department was cut.

Today, many former viewers still reminisce about those presenters who entered their lives each day, and became very much like family members.