Michelle A Eng Leang

In his 70-plus years, the late Roy Boyke left be­hind a lega­cy in the me­dia in­dus­try in Trinidad and To­ba­go through pho­tog­ra­phy, cre­ative writ­ing and ul­ti­mate­ly po­lit­i­cal ad­ver­tis­ing. Boyke played a piv­otal role in the cre­ation of the Ex­press news­pa­per, af­ter the demise of the Dai­ly Mir­ror in the 1960's.

Hav­ing worked with many of the top names in the me­dia and com­mu­ni­ca­tions in­dus­try over the years, he "rev­o­lu­tionised po­lit­i­cal ad­ver­tis­ing as we know it in this coun­try," in the words of Steven Valdez, head of the lo­cal ad­ver­tis­ing agency Valdez and Tor­ry. "Roy def­i­nite­ly paved the way to the style and tone of po­lit­i­cal ad­ver­tis­ing we see to­day," Valdez said.

"Trinidad had nev­er seen po­lit­i­cal ad­ver­tis­ing the way Boyke did it for the NAR gov­ern­ment." That elec­tion cam­paign, in 1986, con­tributed to the vic­to­ry of the Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion (NAR) by a land­slide, de­feat­ing the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment, with around 66 per cent of the na­tion­al vote.

Valdez worked di­rect­ly with Boyke when he was con­tract­ed by the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), a client of Valdez and Tor­ry, as a strate­gist for an elec­tion cam­paign. Then he act­ed as a li­ai­son be­tween the par­ty and the agency dur­ing the con­cep­tu­al­i­sa­tion of the cre­ative cam­paign for the elec­tion.

In that pe­ri­od, which Valdez de­scribed as very fast-paced, high-pres­sured and de­mand­ing, he re­mem­bered Boyke al­ways re­main­ing pro­fes­sion­al, nev­er once los­ing his cool, nor rais­ing his voice. He com­mend­ed Boyke for hav­ing an ex­cep­tion­al eye for se­lect­ing im­ages aimed at cap­tur­ing peo­ple's at­ten­tion. Valdez re­called the fa­mous print ad used in the NAR elec­tion cam­paign the day be­fore vot­ing.

This ad fea­tured a young child with one tear falling from his or her eye with a head­line en­cour­ag­ing the pub­lic to vote for his or her sake. "This is what Boyke was known for." Chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of Gov­ern­ment In­for­ma­tion Ser­vices, Andy John­son, said he rel­ished the mo­ments he spent with Boyke across the Caribbean, trad­ing sto­ries.

John­son first en­coun­tered Boyke when he was a po­lit­i­cal re­porter, es­pe­cial­ly be­tween 1986 and 1991, when Boyke worked with ANR Robin­son and sub­se­quent­ly Bas­deo Pan­day. "I was al­ways hum­bled when he would call me to dis­cuss things about my work. Then he was al­ready a leg­end in Trinidad and To­ba­go."

Over the years, John­son said he learned to ap­pre­ci­ate Boyke's mind and his way of think­ing about the busi­ness of po­lit­i­cal con­sul­tan­cy and com­mu­ni­ca­tions. Boyke was laid to rest yes­ter­day af­ter a low-key fu­ner­al ser­vice at­tend­ed by fam­i­ly and close friends.