Last week Colin Campbell, an old Etonian and quintessentially English, died at his home in Blackhorse Lane, South Mimms, in Hertfordshire at the age of 86. This death will have gone almost completely unnoticed in Guyana yet he was someone who changed more lives for the better here in Guyana and the West Indies than most even important Guyanese and West Indians ever get to do.
Colin Campbell was the younger brother of Jock Campbell, Chairman of Bookers in the 1950s and 1960s. It was Jock who reorganized the chaotic shambles of the sprawling Booker empire, put in train a revolution in the whole ethos of how Bookers was run and transformed the sugar industry from a run-down, unprofitable, inhuman, paternalistic and plutocratic expatriate family concern into a rehabilitated, forward-looking, productive and dynamic enterprise basically run by Guyanese for the much improved good of Guyana and Guyanese. He also played a key role in negotiating the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement which established the basis for much better prices for Caribbean (and Commonwealth) sugar and this was later converted into the Sugar Protocol between the European Union and African, Pacific and Caribbean countries which agreement provided remunerative prices for our sugar for decades until the Protocol was unilaterally abrogated by the European Union a few years ago.
Colin, almost completely anonymous compared with his larger-than-life and charismatic brother, was one of the team put together by Jock to provide advice, technical assistance and backroom expertise in
