Compass: A 60-Year Legacy

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For 60 years, we’ve told Cayman’s story — now we’re telling our own. To celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Cayman Compass, this documentary chronicles the newspaper’s history through the voices of those who lived it and those carrying its legacy into the future.

30 October 2025 | 00:24:27

Cayman Compass

A window into the past with the Compass photo archives

A photograph of two men standing on a small motorboat, laying some of the last tree logs for a large bonfire near the reef in East End, sparks childhood memories for Graham Rankin of a decades-long tradition.

Rankin started down memory lane after seeing an old photograph from the Cayman Compass archives. It’s one of 300,000 being revived and digitised by Compass Media and Dart as part of a project to bring the islands’ past back to life.

As he stared at the black-and-white image with slightly squinted eyes and a tilted head, Rankin told the Cayman Compass, “I still remember like it was yesterday.”

Rankin recalled that the tradition started in the early 1950s, before his time, by the community men in East End.