Syd Burke (1938 – 30 July 2010), was a broadcaster, photographer and journalist, who moved to the UK from Jamaica to study photography in 1960, after having studied engineering, and later hosted London Broadcasting Corporation's (LBC) ''Rice ‘n’ Peas'', a popular magazine programme. He was the brother of psychiatrist and academic

Aggrey Burke Aggrey Washington Burke (FRCPsych, born 1943) is a British retired psychiatrist and academic, born in Jamaica, who spent the majority of his medical career at St George's Hospital in London, UK, specialising in transcultural psychiatry and writin ...

Early life and education

Edmund "Syd" Burke was born in Jamaica, the eldest of six children. Syd attended at first

Cornwall College The Cornwall College Group (TCCG; kw, Kolji Kernow) is a further education college situated on eight sites throughout Cornwall and Devon, England, United Kingdom, with its head office in St Austell. Campuses There are eight campuses within ...

Montego Bay Montego Bay is the capital of the parish of St. James in Jamaica. The city is the fourth-largest urban area in the country by population, after Kingston, Spanish Town, and Portmore, all of which form the Greater Kingston Metropolitan Area, ho ...

, and then Excelsior High School, where he was head boy.

Career

He moved to the UK in 1960 to study photography at the

North London Polytechnic The University of North London (UNL) was a university in London, England, formed from the Polytechnic of North London (PNL) in 1992 when that institution was granted university status. PNL, in turn, had been formed by the amalgamation of the No ...

, after having studied engineering in Jamaica. Burke was soon working as a professional photographer, while also starting a career as a broadcaster. During the 1970s and 1980s he became well-known in the UK as one of the first black journalists and the host of London Broadcasting Corporation's (LBC) ''Rice ‘n’ Peas'', a popular magazine programme, which he presented for seven years, and which he described was from "a black point of view". Burke's contribution to community programming is sometimes cited alongside that of Mike Phillips and

Alex Pascall Alex Pascall, OBE (born November 1936), is a British broadcaster, journalist, musician, composer, oral historian and educator. Based in Britain for more than 50 years, he was one of the developers of the Notting Hill Carnival, is a political cam ...

, who presented

BBC Radio London BBC Radio London is the BBC's local radio station serving Greater London and its surrounding areas. The station broadcasts across the area and beyond, on the 94.9 FM frequency, DAB, Virgin Media channel 937, Sky channel 0152 (in the London ...

's ''Black Londoners''. Burke also wrote as a journalist. Following a career at LBC, he ran a training programme for young broadcasters. In early February 1983 Burke joined the newly established independent television network

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...

as a

continuity announcer In broadcasting, continuity or presentation (or station break in the U.S. and Canada) is announcements, messages and graphics played by the broadcaster between specific programmes. It typically includes programme schedules, announcement of t ...

. Other television work that Burke was involved with in the 1980s included appearing on

BBC Two BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream ...

's programme ''Ebony'', reviewing the British press. A photograph by Burke appeared in the catalogue of the 1997 exhibition ''Transforming the Crown: African, Asian and Caribbean Artists in Britain 1966 – 1996''. He was a recipient of a

Hansib Arif Ali (born 13 March 1935)Asher & Martin Hoyles, ''Caribbean Publishing in Britain: A Tribute to Arif Ali'', Hansib Publications (2011), 2015, p. 97. is a Guyanese-born publisher and newspaper proprietor who migrated to London in 1957. The com ...

award.

Personal and family

Burke married Veronica and they had three sons. One of his younger brothers is psychiatrist and specialist in

transcultural psychiatry ''Transcultural Psychiatry'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes papers in the fields of cultural psychiatry, psychology and anthropology. The journal's editor-in-chief is Laurence J. Kirmayer (McGill University). The Associate Edi ...

Death

On 30 July 2010, Burke died of

cancer of the colon Colorectal cancer (CRC), also known as bowel cancer, colon cancer, or rectal cancer, is the development of cancer from the colon or rectum (parts of the large intestine). Signs and symptoms may include blood in the stool, a change in bowel mo ...

at the

Charing Cross Hospital Charing Cross Hospital is an acute general teaching hospital located in Hammersmith, London, United Kingdom. The present hospital was opened in 1973, although it was originally established in 1818, approximately five miles east, in central Lond ...

, Hammersmith.

References

External links

"C4 / Channel 4 in-vision continuity & closedown - 1983"
YouTube video featuring in-vision closedown with Syd Burke. {{DEFAULTSORT:Burke, Syd 1938 births 2010 deaths British radio journalists Black British radio presenters British radio personalities British male journalists Radio and television announcers Jamaican photographers Black British photographers