Al­most to the end of his life, Hol­ly B con­tin­ued to pro­mote T&T's di­verse cul­tur­al ex­pres­sions, via a week­ly ra­dio pro­gramme, Toute Bagai. He has left be­hind an im­pres­sive body of work and ac­com­plish­ments that will live on.

In a re­mark­able life that spanned just over nine decades, Hol­ly Be­taudi­er ex­celled in so many ar­eas it would be im­pos­si­ble to de­fine him in just a few short words. Tele­vi­sion and ra­dio per­son­al­i­ty, pro­duc­er and im­pre­sario were just a small part of who he was and what he did to in­flu­ence and in­spire so many across this coun­try.

Call him Hol­ly B, or the Ari­ma Kid if you pre­fer, but there is no deny­ing that he was a true T&T icon, a na­tion­al trea­sure and any cel­e­bra­tion of his life and lega­cy will ex­tend well be­yond his fu­ner­al ser­vice to be held in his birth­place, Ari­ma, at the San­ta Rosa RC Church.

From all ac­counts, Hol­ly B's love for lo­cal cul­ture be­gan in his child­hood days in Ari­ma and be­gan to bear fruit in the 1940s when he start­ed his me­dia ca­reer with the US Armed Forces ra­dio ser­vice net­work, WV­DI, in Fort Reid, Trinidad. There, in 1946, he launched a pop­u­lar pro­gramme, Hol­ly's Hap­py Mo­ments.

From there, he moved to Ra­dio Trinidad–the fre­quen­cy that even­tu­al­ly be­came the flag­ship sta­tion of the Trinidad Broad­cast­ing Com­pa­ny (TBC) Ra­dio Net­work now part of Guardian Me­dia Lim­it­ed (GML)–leav­ing an in­deli­ble mark.

How­ev­er, Hol­ly B's most pi­o­neer­ing, ground­break­ing work be­gan in 1962 when TTT, this coun­try's first tele­vi­sion sta­tion, went on air. As an on-screen per­son­al­i­ty, as well as be­hind the scenes as a sales rep­re­sen­ta­tive, he in­tro­duced sev­er­al in­no­va­tions in pro­gram­ming, ad­ver­tis­ing and spon­sor­ship that con­tributed sig­nif­i­cant­ly to the sta­tion's ear­ly suc­cess­es.

As con­tin­ues to be the case now, there was then a pub­lic out­cry for more lo­cal pro­gram­ming. Hol­ly B re­spond­ed with a pro­gramme called Va­ri­ety which, dur­ing a suc­cess­ful one-year run, fea­tured lo­cal artistes such as the Choy Am­ing Or­ches­tra, Ca­lyp­so King of the World the Mighty Spar­row and the Ju­lia Ed­wards Dancers and many oth­ers.

Then there was Scout­ing for Tal­ent. Long be­fore X Fac­tor, Amer­i­ca's Got Tal­ent and oth­er tal­ent shows that now draw au­di­ences in the mil­lions around the world, Hol­ly B had a vi­sion for a tal­ent show, in­flu­enced by his Boy Scout days when he won var­i­ous badges for his mu­si­cal per­for­mances. Aired live once a week on TTT with Hol­ly as host, Scout­ing for Tal­ent quick­ly be­came a launch­ing pad for the ca­reers of many tal­ent­ed and as­pir­ing singers, dancers, mu­si­cians and oth­er per­form­ers.

In ad­di­tion to more con­ven­tion­al acts, the pro­gramme fea­tured many unique per­form­ers, in­clud­ing a man who played a saw, an­oth­er who husked dry co­conuts with his teeth and many a melod­ic whistler. Sev­er­al who have gone on to be­come suc­cess­ful en­ter­tain­ers, in­clud­ing Sug­ar Aloes, the Unit­ed Sis­ters, Chalk­dust, dancer De­bra Bernard, the late ac­tor Sul­li­van Walk­er, got their start on Scout­ing for Tal­ent.

Oth­er lo­cal tal­ent shows, all of which en­joyed ex­tend­ed runs over many years on TTT, were spawned from that pi­o­neer­ing pro­gramme, in­clud­ing In­di­an Va­ri­ety with the late Pat Mathu­ra, Mas­tana Ba­har with the late Sham Mo­ham­mad and pop­u­lar chil­dren's tal­ent shows Twelve and Un­der and Teen Tal­ent, host­ed by the late Hazel Ward-Red­man.

Hol­ly B al­so pro­mot­ed T&T's na­tion­al in­stru­ment with his week­ly Steel­band Con­cert pro­gramme and his Parang with Hol­ly B dur­ing the Christ­mas sea­son was an­oth­er long stand­ing fix­ture on lo­cal tele­vi­sion.

Al­most to the end of his life, Hol­ly B con­tin­ued to pro­mote T&T's di­verse cul­tur­al ex­pres­sions, via a week­ly ra­dio pro­gramme, Toute Bagai. He has left be­hind an im­pres­sive body of work and ac­com­plish­ments that will live on.