Tributes flowed for Robert Best yesterday as hundreds said goodbye to the veteran journalist who was remembered as “a noble man; a good man full of faith and an active protector of the Fourth Estate”.
Best, a retired executive editor of the Barbados Advocate, died last week at age 83. The number of people who braved heavy rains to pay final respects at his funeral service at the St Leonard’s Anglican Church yesterday was testimony to his impact on several lives in different spheres.
“A modest, self-effacing gentleman from the old school who always avoided confrontation,” was how former journalist and friend for over 60 years, Carl Moore, described the man who led him to his first job.
Best’s “first order of business was to get the facts,” he added.
His career spanned more than six decades and Moore painted a comprehensive picture of the man who was his mentor and who gave many a journalist their career start.
Roberta Niles shared a daughter’s intimate knowledge of a father who successfully balanced that life with his professional role, juggling the two all the way and managing to meet the demands of constituents on either side.
“Robert was a man of many facets,” Roberta said of her dad, as she recounted some of the family times he shared with her, brothers Charles and Adrian and mother Margaret, Best’s wife and “Princess” of 57 years.
There were also tributes from Best’s former student at the Federal High School, the Rev Errington Massiah, and from retired Dean William Dixon, while current Dean Dr Jeffrey Gibson reflected on his late friend and advisor’s Christian life and involvement in St Leonard’s Anglican Church and the diocesan community.
“Robert’s life reminds us that fighting is necessary” said Rector of St Leonard’s, Dr Sonia Hinds, who based her sermon on the words: “I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith” taken from the Second Book Of Timothy.
The heavy rains forced the traditional Christian ceremony of Committal of the Dead to be held in the church. The interment took place in the St Leonard’s churchyard. (GC)
