Yvonne Ba­boolal

Vet­er­an T&T?Guardian jour­nal­ist/ed­i­tor, Nor­ris Solomon, passed away yes­ter­day morn­ing at his La Hor­quet­ta home. Solomon, 73, suc­cumbed to Parkin­son's Dis­ease and prostate can­cer, from which he had been suf­fer­ing for sev­er­al years. His wife of 29 years, El­sa, said al­though he was ill he didn't com­plain. Solomon leaves be­hind two sons, Dex­ter and Dirk.

She said fu­ner­al arrange­ments were still be­ing fi­nalised but the fam­i­ly was plan­ning to have the ser­vice ei­ther Thurs­day or Fri­day at the Ro­man Catholic's Our La­dy of Per­pet­u­al Church, Har­ris Prom­e­nade, San Fer­nan­do, Solomon's home­town. He start­ed his jour­nal­is­tic ca­reer in 1963 at the Dai­ly Mir­ror. He spent most of his work­ing life at the T&T?Guardian as a po­lit­i­cal and busi­ness re­porter re­tir­ing as news ed­i­tor in 1999.

His po­lit­i­cal com­men­tary, Sat­ur­day Fo­rum, was well known. Copy ed­i­tor of the T&T Guardian Kelvin Choy, who worked as a sub-ed­i­tor with Solomon at the T&T Guardian for many years, said he and Solomon start­ed at the Dai­ly Mir­ror to­geth­er in 1963. Choy de­scribed him as a stick­ler for de­tails on the job but al­so a fun-lov­ing per­son.

Solomon worked for a short while at News­day as as­sign­ment ed­i­tor af­ter he left the T&T Guardian. Andy John­son,?CEO of the Gov­ern­ment In­for­ma­tion Ser­vices Ltd (GISL), said he may have been the last me­dia per­son to vis­it Solomon. John­son said he knew Solomon for the bet­ter part of the last 30 years and worked with him for sev­er­al years at the T&T Guardian.

John­son said he would vis­it him every few months af­ter he fell ill. He said he "had a hunch" and went to see Solomon last Sat­ur­day. "It was the worst I had ever seen him. He was go­ing through a lot of pain and dis­com­fort. His son called me yes­ter­day morn­ing and told me he passed away."

Er­rol Pil­grim, an­oth­er vet­er­an jour­nal­ist, who worked with Solomon at the Guardian was shocked to hear of his pass­ing. "It is cer­tain­ly the end of an era," Pil­grim said. He said Solomon worked his way up to be­come a well-re­spect­ed jour­nal­ist. "He was some­one whose in­tegri­ty you could boast about."

Pil­grim said Solomon start­ed his ca­reer as a jour­nal­ist from the South bu­reau and re­calls: "In 1978, I got a schol­ar­ship to go to Ger­many and it was Nor­ris who fi­nanced every­thing for me. He was re­al­ly a close friend." Pil­grim said he lived in Brazil, close to Solomon's home, and vis­it­ed him of­ten.