From national sprinter to broadcasterBy Edison Jefford?His voice was known before his personality. Basil Bradshaw did not know that he was setting himself up for a rewarding career in the fourth estate. He was to transition from his tenure in Radio-Broadcasting to Television.Basil BradshawIn fact, Bradshaw,Wholesale Jerseys, now 47, never ideally wanted to become a broadcaster, but the covert attempts of his secondary school teacher landed him an attachment at the renowned and respected Guyana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) around 1981.“I was just out of school at 18 years old when I went into radio in ’81 and was a member of the GBC staff behind the merger with Radio Demerara,” Bradshaw told Kaieteur News in an interview for this week’s edition of Special Person.He said that the genesis of his career was very clandestine; Mrs Carr, a Senior Mistress at his Bladen Hall Secondary School at the time, secretly orchestrated what would become a livelihood derived from the Broadcasting industry.“She always thought that I had the ability to become a Broadcaster but I didn’t think so at all. She was so certain that I would become a good Broadcaster; she felt that I had a good command of English Language,” he indicated.“She went ‘behind my back’, so to speak, and asked that I get an attachment at GBC and all I was told afterward is that I should turn up on Monday morning for work,” Bradshaw continued. He followed the advice.The then 18-year-old broadcasting apprentice was embarking on a new journey following his early success as a national junior and senior sprint champion. As it turned out, he was destined to live his life in the public domain.Basil Bradshaw (left) at work in the studios at GBC with Dennis Chabrol.His attraction for sports received national recognition when he established an 11.0 record in the Under-17 100 metres category of the schools’ athletic championships. The mark was set aside when the age group was changed from Under-17 to Under-16.It would have been one of the longest standing records of the championships if it was not for that change since the new mark only stands at 11.1 for the Under-16. Bradshaw was a sure force for Georgetown at the senior levels as well.“I went on an attachment period that lasted until 1983 when I was employed on January 1 and was placed in the Sports Department,” Bradshaw recalled, adding that he was always fortunate to find the right mentors to channel him.“The General Manager (of GBC) was Terry Holder, at that time, and I give him a lot of credit. I joined that department after B.L. Crombie, perhaps the best Sports-caster we ever had in local radio, passed away. I was the person to fill that vacancy because of my sporting background,” he continued in his recollection of history.Bradshaw, who formally had his training in radio in Jamaica in 1988,Cheap NHL Adidas Jerseys, said that one of the highest points of his career was when he interviewed world renowned Guyanese sprinter,Cheap Jerseys From China, James Wren Gilkes when the latter came to Guyana.Gilkes, who won the Pan American Games’ gold medal in 1975 and silver in 1979 and a Commonwealth Games silver medal in 1978 over 200m, had visited Guyana for schools’ championships at Bourda some time around 1982-83.Basil Bradshaw (right) interviews world renowned Guyanese Sprinter, James Wren Gilkes at Bourda.“I spoke with him and I was really pleased to have spoken to the great man at that time,Cheap NHL Jerseys,” Bradshaw said,China NFL Jerseys, adding, “He would have been around ’78, ’79 the fastest man over 200m in the entire world, so I was really pleased at meeting him”.Bradshaw’s career as a radio broadcaster came to an end in 1992 and he was transitioned into television where he experienced new successes and challenges that ranged from being the host at Calypso finals to gunmen visiting his home.“Had it been the same situation in terms of leadership and interaction, I may have stayed on at GBC. Politics played its part as well but I would not go too much into that, but I’ve moved on,” the multifaceted personality indicated.“It wasn’t a difficult transition because I felt that after 14 years, I had to move on because things began to change. General Managers changed: you move from Terry Holder to James Sydney to Ave Brewster to Fazil Azeez and as managers changed policies and relationships changed and it wasn’t all of that encouraging at the time,” Bradshaw said without divulging details of his bureaucratic difficulties.He said that his transition to television forced his listeners to connect with a personality that was already established on the radi