Hundreds of people – including friends, family and key players from the journalistic fraternity – descended on East London's Guild Theatre to pay tribute to Gavin Stewart during a memorial service held on Friday 28 February.
Hundreds of people – including friends, family and key players from the journalistic fraternity – descended on East London's Guild Theatre to pay tribute to Gavin Stewart during a memorial service held on Friday 28 February.
Stewart, who was formerly the editor of the Daily Dispatch and head of the Rhodes University Journalism School, was described as a professional with a remarkable work ethic, high principles and strong morals.
Daily Dispatch editor Bongani Siqoko said, “ Gavin used to say when a journalist does good work you [the editor]should praise him or her in front of everyone, even tell the whole world if you have to. But when he/she does wrong, correct them behind closed doors”.
Siqoko further said, “In most newsrooms when a deadline is near emotions often run high and insults are thrown around by editors but not Gavin Stewart. He was never like that”.
According to Siqoko, Gavin’s exceptional leadership skills shone during the difficult transition period of 1994.
In the then-white dominated Dispatch newsroom, Siqoko said Stewart managed to calm tensions which were fuelled by race.
"If it wasn’t for Gavin Stewart the school of journalism could’ve easily slipped off during those early years," said Reg Rumney, a journalism lecturer at Rhodes University.
Peter Vale, Stewart's long-time friend and professor of the Humanities at the University of Johannesburg, described his friend as loyal, stressing Stewart's undying love for Rhodes and Grahamstown.
“He defended Rhodes University long after he had left it," Vale said.
Vale spoke of how he and his wife Lousie would look forward to hosting the Stewart family during the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown after the Stewarts had moved to Cape Town.
While most speakers talked about Stewart's professional life, Vale captivated the audience with funny anecdotes about their friendship.
“Gavin Stewart and I met early on a sunny Sunday morning running up Grahamstown Mountain Drive. It was an instantaneous friendship that was fuelled – certainly in its earliest days – by Castle beer and red wine”.
“In the very first week of our friendship, Gavin convinced me to join a now, alas, defunct running club called the Drosdty Harriers whose informal motto was: “We are a drinking club with a running problem”.
Other speakers included Walter Sisulu University's Aniela Batschari and Denise Fielding from the University of the Third Age, who read a moving Japanese poem.
Stewart’s wife Sue was presented with a framed front page of the Daily Dispatch from 2 November 1993 – Stewart’s first edition at the helm of the Dispatch.
Gavin Morkel Stewart was born in 1942 and died on the night of Monday 17 February from stomach cancer.
He was one of the longest serving editors of the Daily Dispatch, having started in 1993 and left in 2005.
The Daily Dispatch announcedthat their editorial floor would now be called the Garvin Morkel Stewart Floor. Siqoko said it is the floor where Stewart spent most of his time at the Dispatch.
Times Media group in association with Rhodes University have established the Gavin Morkel Stewart bursary. The bursary will be for an outstanding fourth year Rhodes journalism student from the Eastern Cape, said Siqoko.
