Desmond Allen who received the Order of Distinction for sterling contribution to journalism in the 2014 National Honours and Awards, won the Jamaica Broilers Award for his 2005 Sunday Observer series ‘The Desmond Allen Interviews. Here are excerpts of some of his most popular stories:

Lindy Delapenha: Jamaica’s greatest footballer is a man ahead of his time

Indulge me a bit, if you will, in some joyful speculation. If Jamaicans, mere mortals though we be, could turn back the hands of time, who would dare to deny it that Lindy Delapenha would be crowned Jamaica’s greatest footballer? Or put another way, if Lindy Delapenha had chosen professional boxing instead of football, and punched as hard he kicked, even Mike Tyson might not have found the cojones to face him in the ring.

Delapenha could have been great in any of almost a dozen sports — add to football and boxing games such as cricket, tennis, athletics, hockey, gymnastics, golfing, swimming and diving. But he belonged to a different era and the Master of Time might have purposed it for him to have been the man, if a thorough search of history is undertaken, to have set the stage for large numbers of black British players to go into professional football in that cradle of world class soccer.

After a phenomenal performance as a schoolboy athlete — and Delapenha tells it with surprising modesty — he was sent to England with the hope of being signed to an English football club. He took with him the unbelievable feat of participating in 16 events over a day-and-a-half in Boys’ Championships here, forcing the authorities to change the rules to say that no single athlete should take part in more than four events in any one championships.

While Delapenha was serving with the British armed forces in the Middle East after the Second World War, an English football scout saw his soccer artistry and powerhouse kick that was later to dominate newspaper headlines in a country not yet at the time ready to hand out accolades to blackness. If the records are to be believed, and they are not yet challenged, Delapenha is not only the first Jamaican to play pro football in England; he is the first black overseas player and only the second black man to play League football in England.

And in the way fate makes a mockery of men, he would savour the sweet taste of revenge against Arsenal, the mighty Gunners who had refused to sign him and then felt the sting of his boots when he engineered their defeat at Middlesborough some years later.

Choosing to stay with football, he turned down an invitation to run for Britain in the 1948 Olympics and otherwise might have etched his name alongside Arthur Wint and Herb McKenley in the annals of Jamaican sports history. When he hung up his boots and returned to Jamaica in the 1960s, it was to become one of the legendary sports commentators of the Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation (JBC), the radio and television complex that was established by Norman Manley to reflect the national image to the young nation.

With Roy Lawrence, he would take credit for bringing international football to the JBC screens, even if the audience complained bitterly that they did not want it. Put in there too the fact that he organised the JBC coverage of the biggest games to be hosted by Jamaica up to that time — the Commonwealth Games of 1966. And he had only been three weeks at the station.

Lloyd Lindberg Delapenha was unquestionably a man before his time. Men who are mere spectators to sport should know their limitations, and the interviewer admits to a paucity of qualification to tell adequately the story of this incredible man. Sports aficionados might one day forgive this uninvited intrusion. But it is a story that begs…excruciatingly so…to be told and told now.

Senator Floyd Morris: Hope and courage in a world of darkness

In a world of constant darkness, where hope is a rare commodity and cynicism always just inches below the surface, how deep must one reach into life’s entrails to extract the courage to become a leader among sighted men? Or, what manner of man is this Floyd Morris that he can so overwhelmingly overcome the horrible sentence of blindness and turn his life into the ultimate inspiration to a generation of people made disabled by unkind accidents of fate?

These are questions, it seems, that are best directed at the Creator of life Himself. And Floyd Morris lives by the genius of that creation, his existence incontrovertible evidence of the goodness of man and an indisputable fact that in the hearts of many Jamaicans flow copiously the fabled milk of human kindness.

Blind at 17 on the brink of emerging manhood, Morris would have to overcome dreadful anger, depression, postponed ambitions, the ignorance of people who knew not how to deal with blindness and the threat of yielding to the doubting voice that whispered ‘it’s over for you, give up!’ But once he had found the courage in his heart to go on, he blazed a trail that is one for the annals of Jamaican and disabled community history.

He’ll speak forever about the Mico College years, transforming the naysayers into believers; the challenges of being a student leader and later lecturer at the University of the West Indies where his intellect was nurtured, and where he grilled Prime Minister PJ Patterson at a student meeting, not knowing that that fiery encounter would set him on a path to national leadership. In time, Patterson himself would name him as senator and junior minister for social security.

Not long after going blind from unyielding glaucoma, it was to the land that Morris turned to regain his sense of worth, becoming a poultry farmer of no mean order and recalling how he learnt to walk among the young chicks without crushing them underfoot. He’d learn to adopt in many other areas too, as the twists and turns of his life moved relentlessly towards greatness.

Mutabaruka: And a poet shall rise up from among the people…

Whenever the despairing cry of the masses go unheeded, a poet will rise up in the land to articulate their suffering and champion their cause. Mutabaruka, less known as Allan Hope, the name he was born with, is the undisputable poet of the people. He speaks, jarringly, annoyingly but relentlessly, of their longings, their deprivations and their human rights, and they love him for it.

Traversing the globe barefooted, not caring whether the sun shines or the snow falls, because it is his enduring statement, Mutabaruka still waves the original message: “A me one jus’ a travel de land wid me likkle butter pan, dem nuh understand…” It is the anthem of the lonely and downtrodden.

From the sprawling ghettos of downtown Kingston, through the remote uncompromising terrain of the dark hills of inner St James that he once called home, Mutabaruka proclaims Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X, Patrice Lumumba and Rastafari. His name spells trouble for the establishment but hero for the suffering masses, or ‘massive’, if you will.

The world will thank or blame Jimmy Cliff and his drummer, Earl ‘Chinna’ Smith for taking Mutabaruka’s then unpolished, if scorching art beyond the shores of a tiny island where it could not be contained. From the first trip to Varadero, Cuba, defying the jangling cords of diplomatic relations freshly severed between Jamaica and its communist neighbour in the early 1980s, Mutabaruka was always going to challenge the status quo.

It started before that, in the slums of Rae Town where shanty dwellings peeped out from behind secretive zinc fences at the maximum security prison nearby, ominous reminder of the tenuous distance between detention and poverty. Not far away was the Bellevue mental hospital. As a child he often witnessed gang warfare in his neighbourhood and the sinful activities of sailors and prostitutes in their nocturnal pursuits at the Hanover Street bars and brothels.

Over time the journeys would create memories of black power radicalism at school, coming under the influence of the wife and son of national hero, Marcus Mosiah Garvey, physical blows and virtual ex-communication at the height of a quarrel among Rastafarian factions, and much later the time when he and a group of fellow artistes were stranded in Africa, of all places, duped by an unscrupulous promoter.

Mike Fennell: A man who represents the best ideals of the Order of Jamaica

Even had he not received the vaunted Order of Jamaica (OJ) for his contribution to sports, this past Heroes Day, it could hardly have made a difference to Mike Fennell. So many times before had he been honoured by his compatriots who had afforded him a ringside seat, as they created history on the track. How often had he stood to erect attention at major world games as they played his country’s national anthem and raised the national emblem, his head ‘swelling’ and his heart bursting with patriotic pride.

But this OJ — the nation’s fourth highest honour — had a particularly sweet taste to it. For it was being conferred upon a man who truly represents the highest ideals the national awards were meant to serve, a man who had excelled in a voluntary activity that brought untold glory to his nation and people. And what does it say of Mike Fennell that in 1984 he had already received the Commander of the Order of Distinction (CD) and the Caribbean Community (Caricom) 25th Anniversary Award in 1998 for his work in industry?

The lives of great men are signposts to future generations, that they may use these powerful examples for prosperity in their times, if only they will avail themselves of it. Michael Sanford Fennell, Mike Fennell to everyone, is one of these men whose genius has enriched their nations and whose story it is our privilege to share. It is a story with a now familiar plot: a modest beginning in a rural setting, a relentless rise to the pinnacle of his chosen endeavours, creating history along the way and finally to service of the highest order — the betterment of his fellowmen. Indeed, this OJ is a bonus.

Next week: Rev Dr Aaron ‘Dear Pastor’ Dumas; A J Nicholson; Jean Anderson and Fay Tortello; and Gary Allen