By Alaa Abdel-Ghani Maurice Guindi did not need much coaxing when he was asked to come out of retirement to join Al-Ahram Weekly. News ink coursed through the veins of the veteran journalist as much as did blood, only thicker. News was Mr Guindi's life and in the Weekly he found renewed life. Mr Guindi, who died on 15 December at age 85, did not make a name for himself in the Weekly ; that was taken care of many years earlier. Having headed the Cairo bureau of first UPI, then AP, Mr Guindi's over 40-year career with the famed American news agencies allowed him to cover Egypt's most important times which included a king, three presidents and three wars. The unprecedented stretch bestowed on Mr Guindi international standing, however, it was in the local Al-Ahram Weekly that Mr Guindi got to know us and we him. After Mr Guindi hung up his pen, his services were sought by Hosny Guindy (no relation), the founding editor-in-chief of the Weekly. Mr Maurice Guindi took up the challenge and in the process, turned from reporter to editor. In the Weekly the tall, lean and silver-haired Mr Guindi quickly became Ustaz Maurice and the title stuck forever after. Ustaz Maurice was appointed head of the Central Desk, meaning he was in charge of all the sub-editors who were mainly Americans and Britons and a handful of Egyptians, including the writer. The role of the Central Desk cannot be overstated. Just about all who wrote for the Weekly were non-English speakers whose mother tongue was Arabic, and so needed help in writing their stories. Without question, the importance of the Central Desk to the Weekly was infinitely greater than that of an English newspaper published in an English- speaking land. As such, not a single word could be published in the Weekly without first being checked by a sub-editor in the Central Desk. Ustaz Maurice would parcel out the reporters' stories. Our job was to clean up the English, ensure the newspaper was mistake-free, for we, along with the proofreaders, were the last line of defence that separated the newspaper from calamity. We would then hand over what we did to Ustaz Maurice who with his hawk eye would inevitably catch oodles of mistakes we failed to spot. Some of our errors were embarrassing but our Ustaz never embarrassed us -- which made us even more embarrassed. Ustaz Maurice was the prototype of the consummate professional and possessed all the adjectives that go with the accolade: punctual, precise, organised and a stickler for detail. He brought professionalism to the Weekly, to many reporters and editors who didn't quite know what the word meant. His exacting standards and no-nonsense approach would at times upset bewildered novices but in time they would unanimously come to know they had been made better journalists and in fact better people by the elderly grand man. Example: a college senior seeking an internship in AP in order to graduate was 90 minutes late for the required interview. Ustaz Maurice politely showed him to the door. And that was the end of that. The young man never forgot the experience. To this day, he sets two alarm clocks near his bed for fear of being late. Ustaz Maurice was the Weekly 's walking encyclopaedia. There was no Internet at the time and without the instant information age, staffers who wanted to know a date, a name, any historical fact came to the Central Desk's spout of knowledge. Ustaz Maurice had a light side. He was a huge fan of the legendary Egyptian singer Umm Kolthoum whose performances would enthrall the Arab world. He went to every one of her concerts. A mutual friend once told the great singer that if you threw a pebble somewhere in Row Three, "it will probably fall on Maurice Guindi's head." It was Ustaz Maurice who, for an interview, brought together Umm Kolthoum and the nation's most renowned composer-singer, Mohamed Abdel-Wahab, the first time the two giants had come together in what was dubbed the "artistic summit". When Ustaz Maurice left the Weekly, the Central Desk, either by coincidence or fitting fate, was dismantled, never to return to the way it was. With the advent of e-mails, sub-editors began sending in their stories from their homes in Cairo or even outside Egypt. Over the years, this writer had kept in touch over the phone with Ustaz Maurice, who would call to mark every Islamic holiday. That the Ustaz did not phone during the Greater Bairam was odd, but it was soon to be known why: his health was failing. Ustaz Maurice died of heart and kidney complications that began a little over a month before his passing. His health did not prevent him from making one final trip to Canada this past summer with his wife Mary Guirguis for a visit to see their son Midhat, an auto executive, daughter Maha, a doctor of pathology, and their grandchildren. In his eulogy on Friday at the funeral in Zamalek, the priest recounted the last time he spoke to Ustaz Maurice. "He said he had not paid his church dues for several months." "I told him 'you're ill. Is this the time to talk about dues?'" "Yes," Ustaz Maurice replied. "It is."
