AS the years go by, the obituary sections of the newspapers have a strange magnetic attraction. Lives Remembered on these pages and Other Lives elsewhere are addictive – particularly when they feature ordinary people who were extraordinary and packed so much into their years.
Last Word is the radio version of the obituary and one recent episode had a particular poignancy because among those featured was journalist Olga Craig who died at the young age of 67.
This Last Word described her as a talented writer and a fearless reporter. She was also very kind to this junior reporter on the Sunday News.
Olga lived life to the full. She began her career in the Derry Journal and went on to the News Letter and Sunday News.
Then she went off to London to work for the leading newspapers.
Read more: Remembering Olga Craig: Farewell my fearless, talented, caring little sister
A friend and colleague spoke to Last Word about seeing her in the newspaper office in London – a small person in a bright red suit, never in awe of anyone.
She had her share of hairy moments in the Iraq war.
There was a story about how writer John le Carré never had people to his house in Cornwall but Olga was invited. They sat up drinking whiskey and she missed the last train back so Mrs le Carré made up a bed for her.
She would party with Johnny Rotten and still write a fine interview, we heard.
The tragic death of ballerina Michaela Mabinty dePrince featured in the same episode.
She was just 29 years old and this was a double tragedy for her family as her adoptive mother Elaine dePrince died very shortly afterwards.
Michaela Mabinty dePrince defied all the odds,
Last Word featured an interview with her where she described her traumatic childhood in Sierra Leone. Her father was shot dead in the civil war when she was just three and her mother starved to death.
She grew up in an orphanage where she was considered the devil’s child because she had a skin condition, she said.
But she was adopted by an American couple and her adoptive mother saw her passion for ballet and supported her to a future dancing with the Boston ballet and Beyonce too.
“I’m living my dream every single day,” she said.
Sadly her flame burned bright and died far too soon.
