From a boyhood in Carriacou to a globe-spanning career in medicine, Alfred Fitzgerald Brathwaite’s life is a story of resilience, culture, and family. Tune in, then read about it in his book The Also-Ran But a Champion: The Travels of a Kayak from Carriacou to Oahu.

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Welcome to this edition of Newsgram! 

Every time I visit a tropical location I swear that someday I’m going to live there.  I realize that this typical of the vacation mindset and I dismiss it as fantasy but I do love a good ocean breeze in the morning and so today let’s live vicariously through someone who actually did it, Alfred Fitzgerald Brathwaite. 

Alfred – Well, I thank you very much for having me.

Alfred’s life is full of enough stories to fill several books so he’s the perfect author for Newsgram — fascinating people living their lives in interesting ways.  

Alfred’s story begins on the Caribbean island of Carriacou, a place where the culture of the islanders was passed down through generations, a heritage rooted in Africa and preserved despite the hardships of the plantations. 

Life there was full of community, tradition, and small adventures that shaped him from boyhood and it’s that culture that he is now trying to preserve. Over time, that little boy from Carriacou would go on to travel the world — from Jamaica to New York, Hawaii, Canada, and South America — while following what would eventually become his true calling: medicine.

All of this is captured in his new autobiography, The Also-ran but a Champion: The Travels of a Kayak: from Carriacou to Oahu, which tells the story of a life filled with adventure, resilience, and family.

Alfred – The title of the book, I would say originated from my alma mater, my school song, but with inputs, so to speak, from my mother. My mother was the driving force behind whatever I did up to my age as a man, and she always hinted that I would not be a champion because I did foolish things at times, and she would say, oh, you will get 95, but you will never get 100, and I wanted to prove her wrong on that. 

That title perfectly captures his life — sometimes overlooked, sometimes celebrated, always striving.

So how does a boy from a small Caribbean island become a doctor, a pathologist, and a lecturer who has seen the world? Alfred admits he didn’t know at first.

Alfred – Even without knowing how, but having a desire to accomplish something, must remain with someone, because when I said I was going to be a doctor, I had no idea how one was going to become a doctor. I knew nothing, except that maybe a doctor in Carioca, the only doctor, there was only one, might have impressed me, but I honestly do not know why I decided that I wanted to be a doctor. I don’t know if it’s because I wanted to help people, I don’t know if it’s because it was maybe a means of making money, I just wanted to be a doctor. For me to say to you, Well, it was this reason or that reason, I would be dishonest if I said anything like that, but once it was implanted in my brain, and with that determination, not only from myself, but what was instilled in me by that lady I called my mother, that propelled me along the way towards success in a sense.

That determination took him to Jamaica on a scholarship. And because he has a lust for   life, he found time to raft the rivers, dance to reggae, and soak in the island culture.

Alfred – I received a scholarship to study medicine in Jamaica, but the funds from the scholarship were not sufficient for the entire course. The government of Grenada at that time provided the rest of the funds, but always with the understanding, not only by them, but by me, that it was a commitment to return to Grenada. Having finished my medical school, I made the decision that I should see as much of the world as possible towards my specialization in medicine, in a branch of medicine, before returning to Grenada. It was because of that that I went to Nassau to do my internship.

So it was off to Nassau to take in the colorful pageantry of Junkanoo; then New York where he became a fan of the Knicks; Hawaii and Ottawa where he got to experience the cold winds of Canada. 

Alfred – And then I returned to Grenada

Ready to serve, story over. Oh come on. You know better than that. Life always has other plans.

Alfred – hings just did not work out over two or three years in Grenada. Fortunately, in a conference, someone came to me and said, Hey, are you a pathologist?I said, Yes. He said, My country needs a pathologist right now and that was Suriname. I didn’t know where Suriname was, so my first question to him was, Where is Suriname?

That chance encounter then took him to South America for three years, practicing forensic pathology and teaching medical students. Along the way, he even found time for football in Brazil, tango in Argentina, and sampling rums in Guyana. Later adventures took him to Dominica, the “Nature Island,” Trinidad for Carnival, and the yachting capital of the Antilles, the British Virgin Islands. Eventually, he and his family settled in Freeport, Bahamas, where they  enjoy a simple life full of culture and love.

Alfred – Each one can but do his best. The winner’s display depends on the effort of all the rest. To be in the van is not all, for each has to play his role. The team wins the match at football, though one man must kick the goal, and that was a stanza in my school song, and it has stayed with me since then.

Teamwork, community, and doing your part. These lessons shaped Alfred’s life. He say’s being a champion isn’t about medals or fame; it’s about contributing, learning, and making a difference and those lessons are woven throughout his book.

Alfred – Well, the initial purpose was to preserve what I had experienced as a child from the age of knowledge, so to speak, to about 11 years. And the impression gained by me in later years that what I was exposed to as a child was being lost, and I did not wish for that to happen. So the book actually started with adventures, so to speak, but within a village of a small unknown island, and it involved not only the events that were taking place, which at the time didn’t make much of a difference to me, and the culture that was a part of the events, and of course the people that I was exposed to. And I felt within myself that somehow, if I can play a part in preserving these things, at least I would have felt pleased with myself.

All of Alfred’s remarkable stories are now preserved in The Also-ran but a Champion: The Travels of a Kayak: from Carriacou to Oahu. It’s a journey of culture, adventure, medicine, and resilience. From a barefoot boy in Carriacou to a world-traveling doctor, teacher, and storyteller, Alfred’s life shows how determination, curiosity, and the courage to take a leap can carry you farther than you ever imagined.

His story reminds us that anyone can achieve with focus and effort, that positive influences can shape our path, and that there is wisdom to be gained from the past. The book is available now on Amazon or wherever you buy books.

And that will do it for this edition of news gram from webtalkradio.com.

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