KINGSTON, Jamaica — Janet Sinclair, newspaper columnist and promoter of competitions for Jamaican females, ranging from infants to grandmothers, died suddenly today.

According to dub poet Keith Shepherd, who was driving Sinclair to Old Harbour in St Catherine, she died shortly after noon.

“I just heard her saying, ‘me dead, dead, me dead’. Those were her last words,” Shepherd told OBSERVER ONLINE.

He said he turned around her Honda Integra and drove back to the Spanish Town hospital. But, when they reached there, she was pronounced dead.

Sinclair, a former member of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF), started out in journalism as author of the weekly column in the Star, “Advice to Lovelorn”, probably the first of its kind in Jamaica, offering advice to persons suffering lifestyle problems, including broken relationships and family feuds.

The column became so popular she left the police force and focused on writing it which, he admitted, paid her well.

However, in 1980 she launched the Miss Jamaica Grandmother for elderly women who had not lost their zest for life. The success of that contest, which has since folded, led her to create more lucrative ones such as Mini Miss Jamaica and Miss Jamaica Teenager, which later became the Miss Teen Jamaica contest.

Sinclair, who is often referred to as “Auntie Janett” by her contestants, is survived by three daughters -Roxanne, Peta Gaye and Courtney.

Courtney Foster, her youngest daughter, recently graduated as an attorney-at-law from the UWI, after becoming a household name in Jamaica for her fundraising activities as a child which won her numerous awards for her charity work, including: the Prime Minister’s National Youth Award; the Gleaner Honour Award (2001) for Voluntary Service; and the PALS (Peace and Love in Schools) Young Achievers Award (1998).

Balford Henry