Perkins: the priesthood's loss was journalism's gain

A not widely known fact about Wilmot ('Motty') Perkins, who died last Friday, aged 80, was that he spent a year at the now-defunct St Peter's College studying to become an Anglican priest. There, he was contrarian and argumentative, often butting intellectual heads with his principal, Canon D.S. Curry.

Perkins' loss to heavenly pursuits was journalism's gain. As a reporter, editor and, later, columnist for this newspaper, and as a host of radio talk shows, Perkins paraded the same intellectual independence and iconoclasm that so often irritated Canon Curry.

He was definitely on the right, of the uncensored Adam Smith variety. So, in the 1970s, he was among this newspaper's quartet of columnists - John Hearne, David DaCosta, Dawn Ritch - who thundered incisively and eloquently against the perceived scientific socialist march of the People's National Party and its leader, Michael Manley.

Perkins' politics, disputatious traits and, at times, irritation with the less intellectually inclined did not endear him to everyone. But respect for his mind, and the execution of his craft, was universal.

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