Olga Craig, fearless journalist and my beloved little sister, was born in January 1957 in the Tyrone County Hospital and spent her first eight years living in the village of Gortin.
We used to trek up to the Gortin Glens during the summer to bring our dad Ernie his lunch when he was cutting the turf. Many’s a day was spent playing in the unspoilt beauty of the glens before the roads were put through it.
After moving to Omagh, Olga sailed through her 11-plus and spent seven enjoyable years at the Omagh Academy, where she loved language and literature. There were only two years between us so she was allowed to go to dances in the Royal Arms and Knock-Na-Moe as long as I made sure she got home safely. This usually meant I had to kick my heels at the end of the night as she kissed her boy “goodnight”.
She did a secretarial course at Belfast College of Business Studies followed by journalism, and her first job was as a junior reporter for the Londonderry Sentinel. As a Derry man, this made our father very proud. She also claimed that Feargal Sharkey once delivered her TV, but this has never been proved.
Olga was soon snapped up by the News Letter and Sunday News and made a name for herself as a writer who brought a warmth and humanity to stories during the Troubles.
This in turn brought her to the attention of the London press and this humanity remained a feature of her work for the Daily Mail, the now-defunct Today, the Sunday Times, Sunday Telegraph and Mail on Sunday.
Olga was always proud of her Irish roots and managed to keep her accent intact while mixing with the Fleet Street glitterati. This also kept her well-grounded – despite a glittering career, she maintained she was “just an old hack”.
Another facet of her personality was her confidence in herself. Colleagues used words like “stubborn” and “feisty” but were probably being polite. As we say here, she could be “thran”. One editor in London had three rules for the office and one was “Don’t cross Olga Craig, it’s not worth it”.
She was never overawed by her interviewees and always managed to draw previously unknown details from them. One morning in London, I asked her what her plans were for the day. “I’m meeting Michael Parkinson at his home,” she said casually. That evening, she told us she had spent the day at his palatial home and had a wonderful time. It was one of her proudest achievements.
Olga was also fearless in covering stories in war zones. She reported on both Gulf wars and the Balkans campaign, often working independently from the Allied forces.
She got shrapnel in her eye when the bridge in Mostar was destroyed and had to be rescued by an SAS officer. She was flown back to London for surgery and, when recovered, she went straight back to the conflict.
In the second Gulf War, she was not embedded with the troops like most journalists. She, her photographer and a driver/interpreter roamed around the Iraqi desert looking for the real stories. She often rang me using their portable satellite dish while cooking under the open sky.
She was a great believer in equality and was always ready to fight for workers’ rights, especially women’s rights. While in England, she classed herself as “old Labour” and had little time for Tony Blair’s neo-conservatism.
Apart from her drive to get the great story, there was a caring side to her work. In her pieces there was always the human angle, whether reporting on the disappearance of Madeleine McCann or the plight of civilians caught up in conflict.
The Omagh bombing was one of her hardest stories to write. Despite her experiences of the horrors of war, it was a very different thing to write about the carnage in her home town.
Olga died peacefully aged 67 on August 21 in London. She had been diagnosed with a rare and aggressive cancer and passed away in the company of family and friends.
Survived by her mother Jean and brother Tom, there will be a celebration of her life in Omagh Golf Club on Monday September 23 at noon.
Tom Craig