Remembering John Maxwell

Ian Boyne, Contributor

I was enjoying the early Saturday afternoon ride when I was jolted by a headline glimpsed on a newspaper rack: 'John Maxwell is dead'. "Maxwell dead!" I exclaimed to my wife. As she continued driving, I felt as though I had left a whole chunk of my life behind.

John Maxwell is dead? I had been expecting it - but it hit me no less. I did not sleep well that Saturday night. The memories kept waking me up. Memories of sitting in the foyer of the Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation (JBC), waiting for John to finish his Public Eye show so we could leave together to go to our favourite drinking haunt at Devon House where, inevitably, John would order his vodka and tonic and I my unlaced fruit punch.

Memories of our riding old Morris Oxford and Austin Cambridge taxis together to make it to Devon House, John puffing the ever-present cigarette, with the trade-mark bush-jacket, slippers and unruly hair. Memories of his Stony Hill home on many a Sunday afternoon where, for Open House, one could sit in on some of the most intellectually enthralling and politically intense discussions taking place anywhere in Jamaica.

Memories of the diverse group of individuals of all ethnic groups and political stripes who would converge at John's, downing liquor, eating great food and reigning fire on all injustices, while pontificating on solutions. It was all very heady stuff for a teenager. I met John when I was nearly 18. I had profiled him as part of a trilogy (the others being Rex Nettleford and Peter Abrahams) for the Jamaica Daily News' Sunday magazine Xaymaca during my very first year as a journalist, winning a journalism award from the Press Association of Jamaica in the process. John became like a father to me.

It was he who opened the door for me to begin my career in public media at the then Agency for Public Information (now Jamaica Information Service) in 1976. And when during my first year on the job I suffered a major injustice which could have adversely affected my career, John was so incensed that he went to then prime minister, Michael Manley, who ordered that justice be done in the case. Nothing would rile John more than injustice or unfairness. John's influence on my life has been incalculable.

My obsession with books and my cultic devotion to reading was deepened immeasurably by my contact with John Maxwell. When I went to his home as a teenager, it was the first time I knew that an individual's library could be so large. But it was not just the books. It was the amazing breadth of his knowledge. It was a knowledge about everything!

Knew everything

I have interviewed many brilliant and highly informed people in my almost 24 years of doing Profile on television and in my 35-year career as a writer but, never, never, have I ever met anyone - no exceptions - who knew as much about every darn thing imaginable.

I don't have words to describe Maxwell's range. And not just about intellectual matters. If you started a conversation about wood, Maxwell could regale you with the various types of wood. If you started a conversation about paper, he could go into the history and manufacture of paper. If you broached the subject of cloth, he could give you expert knowledge on it. Ewart 'Fats' Walters, another legend in the profession, did not exaggerate when he wrote in The Gleaner on Wednesday about 'The Peerless John Maxwell' that, "I am satisfied that he, an inveterate reader, was at once the best-informed journalist in the Western Hemisphere, perhaps in the world." I don't think we will ever see another one like him in journalism in terms of breadth and range of knowledge.

From I met him in 1975 I determined to attempt the feat of becoming a fraction as informed as he was.

Parentage and patronage

The New York Times best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell, in his much-quoted book Outliers, slams the view that successful people are self-made, pull-yourself-by-your-own-bootstraps kind of people. He explains his thesis: "In Outliers, I want to convince you that these kinds of personal explanations of success don't work. People don't rise from nothing. We owe something to parentage and patronage. The people who stand before kings may look like they did it all. But, in fact, they are the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways that others cannot. We pretend that success is exclusively a matter of individual merit."

I am the beneficiary of extraordinary amounts of investment made in me by John Maxwell. Being in his very presence inspired me. That he could take me under his wings and deemed me worthy of his time and attention gave me tremendous shots of confidence. I cannot adequately describe what it was like to drive or walk around with John Maxwell in the 1970s. John was Jamaica's first truly celebrity journalist. His Public Eye radio show had an impact you could never imagine if you were not around at that time. And his Firing Line and other monopoly television appearances made him a rock star in the 1970s.

Even those who disagreed with him vehemently were awed by his presence and would melt when they saw him, his disarming, gracious smile creasing his face, hands waving or reaching for a handshake. Every man was 'my brother' , John's customary greeting.

He had an acerbic tongue and pen, was cantankerousness incarnated and had an irascibility that was legendary. But all that merely masked a gentle, child-like spirit, a warm, endearing heart and a love of people that was almost divine.

But even John's friends were not spared his wrath if he felt you were talking damn nonsense. John was particularly outraged when I - well taught by him to put journalistic principles before friendships - lashed him in one column over his contradictions over Cuba. John was theological and fundamentalist when it came to Cuba and in one column I pointed out how his passionate defence of the free press at home contrasted gnawingly with his reflexive defence of the Cuban dictoarship's suppression of press freedom. John was angry and wrote me a very caustic email that should have offended me deeply and cause me to write an equally harsh one.

I could not. I thought about all that John meant to me and my career, all the inspiration and motivation he provided and what a pivotal role he had played in my life and I wrote him back to say how hard it was for me to criticise him but that I had committed in my professional life never to put friendship and personal relations above personal convictions. I apologised for any hurt and told John that what he has meant to me ensured that there was no word too harsh that I would not overlook, as my love for him could not be washed away by an ocean.

Very touched

I reminded him he was like a father to me and that I feared he would disinherit me because of my public criticism. John was very touched. He wrote back on December 5, 2006: "Let me first apologise for being so harsh. I was angry and my anger impelled me to try to wound - which is unworthy. I am writing this in a bit of a rush. But be assured I did not mean to 'disinherit' you". But in classic John style he said, "right now I am a bit overwhelmed by Cockpit Country and a libel suit, among other matters". John was the consummate story-teller. Some of his favourites were about Seaga - most of which are unprintable.

John and I were opposites in many ways. He did not believe in God and was scathing in his scorn for the Bible and conventional Christianity. In his writings, he ridiculed Christians and bashed them for bashing homosexuals. He drank and smoked heavily but expressed delight to me when I was a teenager that I never did. John also practised a journalism radically different from my kind of Popperian, neutral, detached, 'objective' journalism. John had little patience for all that insipid stuff, which he would see as a form of cowardice and gutlessness masquerading as fairness and balance. John was The Activist, the Reformer of the World, a Prometheus on a mission. Although I am religious, my temperament is more like Diogenes the Cynic philosopher, while John was more of a dogmatist like Marx. He kicked butt and mastered gladiator journalism. Encountering John Maxwell was like encountering a whirlwind - one never emerged unruffled.

Main influence

A few days before the University of the West Indies awarded the honorary doctorate to this polymath who never graduated from Jamaica College, I wrote him the following: "A few days from your well-deserved doctorate from the UWI, may I again say congratulations on this high honour. You were a main influence on this path of ceaseless, omnivorous learning and reading (but share no part in the blame for which I am being attacked in the press!).Your encyclopaedic knowledge, your astounding grasp of EVERYTHING was as staggering as it was inspiring to me as a teenager. As I have said so often, I can never repay you for all your kindnesses and facilitation. Your influence on my life has been profound, though you bear no guilt for how I have turned out! We will never agree on Cuba and a number of other matters but your love makes all that inconsequential. Bravo, John. To your health and continued happiness. A luta continua".

John wrote back: "I go to my 'graduation' buoyed and invigorated by your letter that is more than generous and gracious. You know I can never take credit for anything more, perhaps, than helping you find the direction best suited for you.

"I believe that whatever I did, however I might have helped, has impelled you to pass on the inspiration and example to another generation. For that I am truly grateful and I assure you, as you assured me, A luta continua". A luta continua (the struggle continues) John.

Ian Boyne is a veteran journalist who may be reached at ianboyne1@yahoo.com or columns@gleanerjm.com