In the second issue of the now-defunct Jamaica Record, my first-ever weekly column for a fee appeared on July 26, 1988, exactly 30 years ago. It was taken from my own newsletter that I did for Roman Catholics who do not and did not attend Roman Catholic schools. It was headlined ‘Priestly celibacy in the Roman Catholic Church’. The article sought to explain why Roman Catholic priests are celibate.

I was very surprised when the article appeared. I had applied to be a columnist and was not getting anywhere. However, I did leave a copy of my newsletter ( The Fisherman) with a sub-editor and it was published without my name, but it was later acknowledged in a subsequent publication.

Having made its debut on Sunday, July 24, 1988, the Jamaica Record was unable to publish its second paper the following day. So they had to make sure that the paper was published on the third day (July 26, 1988), no matter what. This was where my article came in handy to fill out the pages.

As a Roman Catholic who is also a Jamaican, I would never have thought of writing an article on celibacy in a secular publication in Jamaica where there is so much hostility towards the Roman Catholic Church.

I started writing columns before Hurricane Gilbert. In the days before e-mail columnists would bring their written work to the office. I did two articles per week; one on current affairs and one on religion. One day the chief editor told me that the readers had less interest in religious columns so I should write two current affairs columns per week. Then the articles were not published at regular times. Later, I was told to do just one weekly article to appear on Tuesdays, but eventually they came out on Mondays.

Jamaica Record was grossly under-financed and so the staff and the freelance writers like me had great difficulty being paid. On more than one occasion we would hear that finally money is in the bank to honour the cheques. We would literally run up the road to the Workers Bank on Barry Street in downtown Kingston only to hear over the intercom: “May I have your attention, please, Jamaica Record staff need not stand in line.” In other words there were no funds to pay us.

Despite that, I stuck it out and brought in my weekly piece through the years. I even applied to write a second column on the ‘Against All Odds’ page, which highlighted disabled individuals. I wrote on that page until the Jamaica Record folded in April 1992.

I am grateful that I could make a debut into opinion journalism which has helped me in other projects. For example, I was a news analyst on Irie FM for nearly 19 years. It would not have been possible if I had not been known by my articles.

While at the Jamaica Record and at the Jamaica Herald, I wrote on topics ranging from current affairs, politics, religion, environment, co-operatives, recycling wastes, education, family life, and so on. While today Deacon Peter Espeut is more associated with writing on environmental topics, I had the following experience.

In 1991, the late Father Kenneth Ramsay (deceased November 2017), said to me that he had been selected to attend an ecumenical clergy conference in Holland that would be focusing on the environment. He asked me if I had anything on the environment. I did not think that my columns on the environment were of a high standard and, quite frankly, was feeling a bit ashamed that anyone could think of using my humble contributions on the environment as research. I suggested to Father Ramsay that he go to the Scientific Research Council (SRC) library, just above what used to be the main entrance to Hope Gardens.

He came back from the SRC library and told me that he asked at the front desk for some information on the environment and all that they gave him were clippings of my articles on the environment. Please understand that this was two years before Deacon Espeut started writing for The Gleaner. I was humbled because I got low marks in all science subjects while at Jamaica College.

And to think that my work would constitute research in any science library, let alone what should be the main science library in Jamaica, where university students are sent to do research on the various sub-disciplines in science, I still get goose pimples.

The Jamaica Herald was established shortly after the Jamaica Record closed. I switched to the Jamaica Herald in July 1992. And, just as I had done in the Jamaica Record, I wrote on current affairs, giving my opinion on all sorts of topics.

Jamaica Herald became the Sunday Herald, which was published once per week. I was told that I would be published once per month. This was when I applied at the Jamaica Observer and my first column in this paper appeared on April 23, 1998 — 20 years ago.

It has always been my opinion that whenever one either speaks or writes about history the context of the historical times under review should be explained. I had never seen so many computers in my life as what I saw at the Jamaica Record in 1988, and I was then in my mid-thirties. But that was the reality of 1988. Today, very few people under 35 years of age have ever seen a typewriter.

But I was a columnist for all of eight years before I ever heard of e-mail. True, e-mail was already around, but I was not paying attention to technological advancements, so it took me by surprise in 1996.

It was common place to send telegrams before the advent of cellphones. I recall sending a telegram to someone in Lucea, Hanover, in December 1988. My point here is that the last telegrams that I sent or received were since I became a newspaper columnist. And one could always say in amazement how things and times have changed.

Michael Burke is a research consultant, historian and current affairs analyst. Send comments to the Observer or ekrubm765@yahoo.com.