CHARLES KONG SOO

Herb Jones swims 20 laps not pac­ing him­self, but at full in­ten­si­ty, four days a week at the Diego Mar­tin Com­mu­ni­ty Swim­ming Pool, Wendy Fitzwilliam Boule­vard, Di­a­mond Vale.

His fig­ure is lean with no body fat and the vas­cu­lar­i­ty in his arms is no­tice­able. Jones is al­so 84 years old and still dri­ves him­self.

His doc­tor did not see him for two years, when he went for a check-up, the doc­tor checked his blood pres­sure on three dif­fer­ent ma­chines and asked him what he was do­ing and eat­ing and told him his blood pres­sure was that of a teenag­er. Jones, how­ev­er, is hard of hear­ing in his left ear af­ter an ear in­fec­tion.

The for­mer vet­er­an Guardian pho­tog­ra­ph­er and head of Li­cens­ing Of­fice pho­tog­ra­ph­er has a wealth of ad­ven­tures and sto­ries to tell. Jones' mem­o­ry hasn't dimmed, his eyes light up when retelling some of his hair-rais­ing ex­pe­ri­ences, but af­ter liv­ing more than 80 years, he can't re­call some dates of events.

In his job at the Trinidad Guardian, Jones has met roy­al­ty such as Queen Eliz­a­beth and Prince Phillip, world lead­ers Ethiopi­an Em­per­or Haile Se­lassie, Cuban Pres­i­dent Fi­del Cas­tro, for­mer prime min­is­ter Er­ic Williams, Miss Uni­verse Janelle "Pen­ny" Com­mis­siong, rich men, poor men. On one spec­trum of the law, for­mer com­mis­sion­er of po­lice Ran­dolph Bur­roughs to guer­ril­la fight­ers and crim­i­nals.

He has saved at least five peo­ple from drown­ing in­clud­ing his son, and stress­es wa­ter safe­ty and for par­ents to be vig­i­lant with their chil­dren

Bur­roughs' biggest ar­rests

Speak­ing to the Sun­day Guardian at his house in St James, Jones told sto­ries of long ago: "Ran­dolph Bur­roughs was a sergeant in those days. I was stand­ing out­side the Fred­er­ick Street Jail wait­ing to take pic­tures of an Eng­lish­man, an es­caped con­vict from Eng­land and this was a big sto­ry.

"The Eng­lish­man was be­ing es­cort­ed by no less­er per­son than Sergeant Bur­roughs and a Supt on their way to at­tend court.

"Scot­land Yard of­fi­cers had tracked him to Trinidad and were wait­ing to take him back to Lon­don.

"This start­ed a bond be­tween Bur­roughs and my­self which led to some ex­clu­sive pic­tures."

He said the biggest sto­ry was Bur­roughs ap­pre­hend­ing two of the men re­spon­si­ble for bomb­ing the Cubana Flight 455 from Bar­ba­dos to Ja­maica on Oc­to­ber 6, 1976, that killed all 68 pas­sen­gers and five crew mem­bers aboard the Dou­glas DC-8 air­craft.

Jones said Bur­roughs, now As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice went to the Hol­i­day Inn one day af­ter the bomb­ing dressed as a bell boy, and ar­rest­ed the sus­pects, Fred­dy Lu­go and Her­nan Ri­car­do Lozano, who flew back to Trinidad en route to Venezuela to re­unite with mas­ter­minds of the bomb­ing Or­lan­do Bosch and Luis Posa­da Car­riles.

Jones said Bur­roughs called him and he went to Pi­ar­co Air­port and got ex­clu­sive pic­tures of him lead­ing them out to an air­plane.

He said the sto­ry made in­ter­na­tion­al news and was still in the news some time ago as Venezuela and Cu­ba were try­ing to get them to ex­tra­dite one of the ac­cused to Cu­ba.

Liv­ing on ba­nanas and co­conut wa­ter dur­ing Hur­ri­cane Flo­ra, To­ba­go

An­oth­er un­for­get­table ex­pe­ri­ence seared in­to his mem­o­ry was the morn­ing af­ter Hur­ri­cane Flo­ra rav­ished To­ba­go on Sep­tem­ber 30, 1963. He was told to trav­el by boat be­cause the air­port in To­ba­go was closed. Jones said the sea con­di­tions were so rough that the boat could not dock at the To­ba­go jet­ty that they had to an­chor off shore.

He said the next prob­lem was get­ting in­to the lifeboats as they were be­ing buf­fet­ed by the tur­bu­lent wa­ters.

Jones said they had to time the swells and jump in­to the lifeboats be­fore they were hit by an­oth­er wave.

He said he and the per­son­nel he came with, po­lice­men, doc­tors, nurs­es,

Red Cross, St John's Am­bu­lance, and oth­er of­fi­cials sub­sist­ed on ba­nanas, co­conut wa­ter, hot co­la drinks, and Oval­tine bis­cuits which al­though wrapped in cel­lo­phane was damp and lost their crispy flavour.

Dan­ger­ous as­sign­ments

Jones said the job did have its dan­gers such as dur­ing the emer­gence of the Black Pow­er move­ment in the 70s and tag­ging along with po­lice of­fi­cers hunt­ing gueril­las.

He said when he was tak­ing pic­tures of a po­lice in­spec­tor fight­ing with a mem­ber of the Black Pow­er group in­side Roy­al Bank, In­de­pen­dence Square, Port-of-Spain, a po­lice pho­tog­ra­ph­er was al­so at­tacked, a Spe­cial Branch of­fi­cer then drew his gun as he too was at­tacked.

Jones said ten­sions were high, a friend who he had known for many a year shout­ed at him "you hid­ing be­hind the po­lice, when we start to share licks we go beat you and the po­lice!"

He said when he and a re­porter were ac­com­pa­ny­ing two par­ties of po­lice­men in search of gueril­las in the St Joseph hills, he want­ed to turn back.

Jones said as he and the re­porter start­ed back, the in­spec­tor told his men "I am warn­ing these gen­tle­men to stick with the group. If the gueril­las take them for the po­lice and shoot them, or the po­lice mis­take them for the gueril­las and shoot them, we are not re­spon­si­ble!"

He laughed and said they im­me­di­ate­ly re­joined the group on the hike up the hill.

Jones said there were many oth­er fun­ny sto­ries and ad­ven­ture-filled ex­pe­ri­ences since he start­ed work at the Trinidad Guardian on Car­ni­val Mon­day in 1956. He al­so met many on the beat and in the news­room such as pho­tog­ra­ph­er Rudy Tay­lor, chief pho­tog­ra­ph­er Con­rad Ben­nett, man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Courte­nay Hitchins, and ed­i­tor Jack Bark­er. He said the Trinidad Guardian made his fu­ture for him. Jones said what he had learned from the news­pa­per, no uni­ver­si­ty could have taught him. He said Tay­lor was there at the Guardian be­fore him and taught him pho­tog­ra­phy. Jones said Bark­er was like his men­tor and pushed him for­ward, dou­bled his salary, and got him in­to pho­tog­ra­phy. It was in pho­tog­ra­phy he would spend the rest of his work­ing life.