A TRIBUTE TO ED BETHEL IN VERSE BY EARLIN WILLIAMS
Poet Earlin Williams
EDITOR:
“Silence! Silence? In this house”,
Mama said.
Her little transistor radio pressed to her head,
Ed Bethel demanded attention
To an about to be born new nation.
We were teenagers;
In love with James Brown, Little Eddie, Diana and the Supremes,
Tony McKay, Priscilla, Elton and Barry White.
Ed was intermission at the 7am, 12 noon, 1pm and 7pm hour;
Our first current events lesson,
Our first international tongue twister,
How Ed sang Valery Giscard d’Estaing,
Ho Chi Min City,
Washington Dee See,
Nyerere, Kaunda, Manley,
Biko, Billie Jean King, Muhammad Ali
And Sidney with the pot in the hay.
‘Mama’s lil transistor’
Made our world smaller
With Ed at the controls;
Taking on us on this journey;
From colony to country
From British Subject to Citizen free
From Hail Britannia to March on Bahama land
We all grew up to comprehend
Our place on the planet
Our dignity and identity
Un-foretold;
Looking back at Ed’s hurdles:
The nastiness of a hate campaign
Against his staff and crew,
The off years when his boldness
In an editorial on Parliamentary conduct
Suspended his voice
But strengthened his bounce back.
He is gone now
As one writer says,
“He belongs to the ages”
Yet we aged with him
And we all the better
As a people,
As a nation,
As a culture;
Because Ed from West End
Once led us from 3rd Terrace Centreville Hill;
A rite of passage,
‘Only the sun covers the Bahamas better than…’
Ed poured into Mama’s ‘lil transistor’ every day
He will always be on air.
“Good morning. I’m Ed Bethel.”
James E Williams
14 March 2023