Former Barbadian journalist George Hall has died.
The 85-year-old stalwart died yesterday morning after a brief period of hospitalisation. Hall’s widow Joyce to whom he had been married for 27 years, said her husband passed away at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital yesterday morning after being hospitalised for about one week.
An alumnus of Combermere School, Hall joined the Barbados Advocate as a linotype operator after leaving school and was later promoted to that newspaper’s Editorial Department as a news reporter.
He segued into public relations, taking up the position as a Public Affairs Officer with the United States Embassy, a position he held for several years before returning to journalism as director of News and Current Affairs at the Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) where he made some input into the training of noted journalists such as David Ellis.
“A brilliant light has gone out but his glow remains because George impacted so many younger aspiring journalists with his knowledge, his conduct and his yearning for truth and balance,” said Harry Mayers, a retired journalism veteran and close friend of Hall. Mayers spoke of the man with whom he shared many professional engagements and social encounters when they both worked at the Barbados Advocate then located at No. 34 Broad Street. The close relationship continued throughout the years even though they each went on to pursue diverse professional paths.
Mayers summed up his late friend as a man who “kept it real.”
Retired former CBC newscaster, news executive and a former News Editor at the defunct Caribbean News Agency, Trevor Simpson, who worked as deputy News Editor with Hall at CBC described his former colleague as “a reporter of the highest integrity.”
“He was not cowed by politicians and he lived his life in that format with those convictions,” Simpson said.
Married twice, Hall was pre-deceased by his first wife Norma who was Barbados’ first Independence Queen and the mother of his only son Kevin, who together with Hall’s widow Joyce, is mourning the loss of a devoted father and a husband.
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