AFTER 40 years of dedicated service to his beloved weekly newspaper, Impartial Reporter stalwart, Brian Donaldson, has stepped down from his full-time role with the newspaper.


Whilst moving on to pastures new, the avid farmer will still maintain links with the newspaper, under a more flexible working arrangement.
“I look at it, not so much as ‘retiring’ but a restructuring of my life really,” he explains.


In a career that has spanned four decades, Brian’s role with the Impartial Reporter has taken him to various corners of the globe, including Japan, America and Europe as a member of The Guild of Agricultural Journalists of Ireland.


“If I had to relive my life again I would do it all just the same,” he insists, describing journalism as a “fascinating job”.


Recounting how he came to join the Impartial Reporter team, back in 1976, Brian says he owes it all to an “excellent careers officer” and the former Impartial Reporter editor, the late Mervyn Dane.


“I decided not to go on to university, but I had a very good careers advisor at the time, Ita Vesey,” he explains, “After I got my A-level results, I told her I wanted to stay about home. So she handed me a piece of paper with a job advertisement on it and told me the Impartial Reporter were looking for compositors and reporters.


“’Why not give them a ring?’, she said. 
“So I did.”


Initially Brian began his career at the paper as a compositor, but this was shortlived.


Only three weeks into his new job he was approached by the then editor, Mr. Mervyn Dane, who had a keen eye for journalistic potential.
“He said to me: ‘Would you not consider joining us as a reporter?’. 
“That was it, I never looked back.”


As a journalist, seeing your byline for the first time is a great personal achievement.


But when Brian saw his name in print for the first time, he was hoping things could only get better: “Mervyn had asked me to find out the price of turkeys for Christmas that year. That was how I got my name in the paper for the first time!” he recalls.


Brian took over the role of producing the farming news for the Impartial Reporter. It was a role that he soon made his own and has become synonymous with over the years.


“The paper started out as a champion for the local farmer, and it is great to see that that aspect of it is still continuing to this day,” he says proudly.


As a journalist working in the 70s and 80s in Fermanagh, Brian had his fair share of difficult stories to cover. 
He says, however, that he has always maintained a great relationship with the public.


“As a journalist there is a unique trust between you and the person you are talking to. Virtually everyone I have spoken to over the years has been welcoming and genuinely open and honest.”
He cites the Enniskillen Bomb in 1987 as a particularly difficult period in his journalistic career.


“The nature of journalism is that you always appear to be able to do your job. It is only when the story appears in the paper, or you have completed your work, that reality sinks in. And that week, the enormity of what had happened really didn’t sink in with me until the paper had gone out.”


Brian pays particular tribute to the late Mr. Dane.
“He was a fabulous mentor and inspiration, especially to a young journalist like me back then.


“And when Denzil succeeded him, he certainly took it to another level, for the era he was in. “And again, his successor, Sarah is doing the same.


“The Impartial Reporter always felt part of a big family, led by Joanna McVey and her mother Joan Gant.
“That atmosphere has continued over the years. You don’t just come in to do a 9 to 5 job -- it is far more than that.”


Already settling into his ‘retirement’, Brian has just returned from a two-week trip to New Zealand with his wife, Diane, to visit his youngest son, Connor, who is working on a dairy farm there for six months.


“New Zealand is a beautiful country, full of opportunity,” he says, “I would recommend it to any young person thinking of going.”
Now ready to embrace a new chapter in his life with Diane, his sons, Adam and Connor and daughter, Emily, Brian says he will miss the camaraderie with his colleagues the most.


“It’s been a great experience working for the Impartial,” he says, “One of the best experiences has been working with the staff themselves. I have worked with some of the best staff of any newspaper. And that is testament to the people who have been at the helm -- Mervyn, Denzil and Sarah -- because that work ethos and atmosphere comes from the top down.”