Em­manuel An­tho­ny Har­ford was an un­com­pro­mis­ing fam­i­ly man and the cun­sum­mate pro­fes­sion­al whose life was char­ac­terised by the qual­i­ties of hon­esty, a lov­ing spir­it, help­ful, car­ing and im­pact­ful to many he came in­to con­tact with.

These qual­i­ties were echoed loud­ly and clear­ly at his fu­ner­al ser­vice on Mon­day morn­ing at the Church of As­sump­tion in Mar­aval be­fore a crowd that suit­ed the COVID-19 pro­to­cols.

Many oth­ers who joined via an on­line link al­so had their say in em­brac­ing a man who helped many through sports, the me­dia, busi­ness and via the ra­dio where he was de­scribed as the sweet­est voice on the air.

NBS ra­dio/(Trinidad and To­ba­go Tele­vi­sion (TTT) be­fore the con­clu­sion of the cer­e­mo­ny gave the au­di­ence a snip­pet of Har­ford on air dur­ing his hey­days, which was re­ceived with thun­der­ous ado­ra­tion. High Court Judge Patrick Jages­sar, read­ing on be­half of for­mer Head of News at TTT's Jones P. Madeira, com­mend­ed Har­ford for his con­tri­bu­tion and called for him (Har­ford) to be an ex­am­ple to many up­com­ing broad­cast­ers.

Jages­sar him­self who over­came the chal­lenges of in­car­cer­a­tion to be­com­ing a ser­vant for God, de­liv­ered Madeira's glow­ing trib­ute which said that Har­ford ex­e­cut­ed news-read­ing flaw­less­ly, whether it was live or record­ed, and quick­ly be­came the voice of ra­dio (NBS) and at TTT.

"He was a dap­per pre­sen­ter and he looked good on tele­vi­sion. He was most re­li­able, al­ways on time for his stuff, very re­spect­ful to all lev­els of staff and nev­er scuff­ing at any sug­ges­tion no mat­ter the source, and in­ter­pret­ed them right al­ways.

This made me re­in­state him as one of the prime news read­ers that I worked with as Head of News and Cur­rent Af­fairs at TTT. Over the many years we knew each oth­er, Tony and I spoke quite of­ten about the broad­cast pro­fes­sion and where it seemed to be head­ing.

He spoke with au­thor­i­ty be­cause he was one of those per­son­al­i­ties who could eas­i­ly trans­form from stu­dio an­nounc­er to out­side broad­cast pre­sen­ter to mas­ter of cer­e­monies as part of an event, to be­ing the pro­duc­er of the event and so on. He man­aged a mul­ti­fac­eted char­ac­ter­is­tics of broad­cast­ing with ex­cel­lence.

As he ven­tured in­to sports and be­came more in­volved in the evo­lu­tion of that plat­form na­tion­al­ly, I al­ways re­mind­ed him of how de­bil­i­tat­ing, pun­ish­ing and even crit­i­cal ad­min­is­tra­tion can be," Jages­sar ex­plained on be­half of Madeira.

Har­ford's mul­ti­tal­ent­ed abil­i­ty in­stilled in many the con­fi­dence to use him for the up­grade and de­vel­op­ment of sports, as he as­sumed the roles of pres­i­dent of the North­ern Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (NFA), pres­i­dent of the then Na­tion­al Su­per League, ad­min­is­tra­tor at Cli­co Preysal, All Sport Pro­mo­tions own­er, and a key ad­vis­er to the T&T Crick­et Board of con­trol.

He had a tremen­dous pas­sion for help­ing peo­ple which made him and his com­pa­ny All Sport Pro­mo­tions the ide­al choice to man­age the Re­pub­lic Bank Youth Cup as well as oth­er grass­root tour­na­ments. As a fam­i­ly man he was a pro­tec­tor, nur­tur­er and in­spi­ra­tion to his sib­lings- An­cil, Eve and Ertha Har­ford, his son Jarred and his many nephews and nieces, in­clud­ing Danielle Har­ford who de­liv­ered the eu­lo­gy.

"Tony lived an in­spired life and made oth­er peo­ple's dreams come through al­so," Danielle said.

Wayne Le Blanc, close friend and col­league at NBN con­firmed Har­ford's im­pact on the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty, say­ing he helped raise over $500, 000 for char­i­ty from the bin­go.

Say­ing there were things about Tony that many may not have known, and he list­ed go­ing to the den­tist and go­ing to fu­ner­als as para­mount of them all.

A tear­ful Le Blanc de­cribed him as the best friend and fa­ther to his fam­i­ly.

Mean­while Fa­ther Gre­go­ry Au­gus­tine who is cur­rent­ly the prin­ci­pal of Har­ford's al­ma mater Fa­ti­ma Col­lege, said Har­ford lived a full and un­tar­nished life, while his com­mit­ment would grant him full­ness of life and re­demp­tion.

Har­ford died last Fri­day at his home in Cas­cade. He was 68 years and leaves to mourn his son Jarred, sib­lings An­cil, Eve and Ertha and his broth­er-in-law Kei­th Cadet. His body was cre­mat­ed at a pri­vate cer­e­mo­ny fol­low­ing the church ser­vice.