Neville James | Remembering Anthony Johnson

I would like to recount some aspects of the life and times of a truly outstanding Jamaican who, to paraphrase Kipling, literally walked with kings and queens, but never lost the common touch.

Anthony Smith Rowe (‘Tony’) Johnson was born in St Andrew and at an early age went to Petersfield and attended elementary school in that Westmoreland community.

He often told the story of coming to Kingston to spend the holidays with his grandmother. Buying ice was a regular feature of urban life in those days before household refrigeration, and Tony was given the chore to purchase ice from the ice truck.

As he tells it, he made so much noise in carrying out the task that grandma decided then and there that he should remain in Kingston to acquire the refinements of an urban upbringing.

The truth is that she didn’t quite succeed in removing him from rural Jamaica for, despite a multifaceted career which included journalist, economist, corporate executive, politician, businessman, author, diplomat and university lecturer, rural Jamaica and a concern for the betterment of the lot of rural Jamaicans was a lifelong concern of Tony’s.

As a part of his transformation, he was sent to Blake Preparatory and then to Kingston College (KC). His gratitude for what KC did for him and how it moulded the man that he became was expressed throughout his life. It was demonstrated in many ways, including his mentoring of several students from KC, the central role that he played in the school’s 75th anniversary celebrations, and his authorship of a book on the history of the institution.

After graduating from sixth form, Tony joined The Gleaner as a trainee reporter and had what must count as a meteoric rise in that venerable bastion of journalism, which then boasted a more than century-old history and was not known for rushing anything. He quickly rose to the position of assistant editor of the Farmers Weekly, then a regular part of the Saturday edition. This provided a platform for his concerns for rural Jamaica as the travails of the farming community were constants in its pages, whether it dealt with the ravages of the Panama disease on the banana industry, the export quotas of the sugar industry, the devastating effects of drought, or the difficulties in marketing agricultural produce.

His advancement at The Gleaner attracted attention and Tony was recruited to join the start-up of the Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation (JBC) in 1959 as a news editor, becoming one of the few to be hired by the corporation before it went on air and who, therefore, had the opportunity to shape what the JBC was to become. There he pioneered the programme, Rural Report, which, as the name suggests, was a weekly compilation of rural happenings and developments which he obtained by weekly visits to the rural areas of Jamaica.

Here, if I may introduce some levity, in typical Tony fashion, he acquired an Austin Cambridge motor car to carry out his travels across Jamaica. The only problem was that he didn’t have a driver’s licence. I assumed the role of driving instructor.

After not having much success, I explained the challenges to a relative, now deceased, who was a motor vehicle examiner and he suggested that I bring him to be examined with a view to getting his licence.

Failed driving test

As the examiner explained to me after, Tony failed the test, but the examiner in his wisdom, reasoned that he was mature and sober enough not to kill himself or others on the roads and gave him a licence.

Tony’s stay at the JBC was brief but significant, as he not only developed as a radio journalist, but landed a role in a popular radio drama.

While at the JBC he was awarded a scholarship by the Inter-American Press Association (IAPA), for the Western Hemisphere to study at the University of California. At the time, he was one of two Jamaicans to have received IAPA scholarships.

University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), honed his academic credentials and he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in economics and a Master of Arts in international trade and finance. While at UCLA, he worked as a research assistant in the Institute of Government and Public Affairs and found the time to author two books, which included one on the California water systems.

Africa and things African were always foremost among his interests, and while I would not go as far as to describe him as a pan-Africanist, he considered the Motherland and its development as central to our own development. To get a first-hand understanding, he accepted a post as a lecturer in economics at the University of Ghana.

In letters from Ghana he gave the impression of being very much a part of the small West Indian community, while he set out to learn as much as he could about all aspects of the country.

The pull of home was irresistible, and he returned to join the Ministry of Finance as a senior economist and shortly after the Central Planning Unit as a senior planner.

The 1960s were heady days in the Planning Unit and Tony joined a cadre of young economists who were passionate about Jamaica and its development potential. Their focus was on what the country could achieve, and it is significant that while there, because of his abiding interest in agriculture and rural development, Tony was appointed a director of the Banana Board. This required him to make several trips to the United Kingdom to argue for quotas for Jamaican bananas under the Lome Treaty.

During this period, 1969, Tony married the love of his life, Pam, and became a father to her daughter Charmaine. The family grew with the addition of son, Isa Alexander, daughters Kamina and Olivia.

The late Robert Lightbourne, who was minister of industry, was said to have had an eye for spotting talent and was also renowned for his drive to industrialise Jamaica. One of his creations was Jamaica Frozen Foods. The concept was to prepare and freeze popular Jamaican meals which a growing middle class would purchase in preference to having to prepare meals at the end of a busy workday.

Lightbourne wooed Tony from The Planning Unit to head the enterprise. He worked hard to make a go of it, but Jamaica Frozen Foods was plagued by outdated and unreliable equipment and rampant trade unionism. He tried, with his usual energy and enthusiasm, but in the end had to call it quits.

Read the continuation of Neville James’ remembrance of Ambassador Anthony Johnson in tomorrow’s Gleaner

Neville Garth James is a journalist/entrepreneur and a close friend of Ambassador Johnson for in excess of 70 years.