Excerpts from an interview with the late Michael Pryce in February 2008. Reprinted with permission from masscommagazine.com.

In 1997, British-born journalist Michael Pryce made his entry into the Jamaican media landscape and has not looked back since. He has reported through several elections, hurricanes, strikes, protests and the rest of what makes life in Jamaica so interesting.

Life was good until 2006 when cancer threatened to cut short his life and forced him to return to Britain for a lifesaving operation and follow-up treatment. After a tough recuperation period, he is back in front of the cameras and telling his remarkable story to MassComMagazine.com.

Michael Pryce is all smiles as he greets the MC Magazine team in the lobby of CVM TV. It is difficult to believe by just looking at him, that less than two years ago, he laid at death's door in a hospital bed in England, numerous IV needles strapped on to him as he battled multiple myeloma - a rare form of bone cancer.

Having won that seemingly impossible battle, he returned to Jamaica to resume his job as a broadcast journalist with CVM TV, but only a few months back on the job and this reporter - fondly called 'BBC' by some colleagues - was attacked and stuck in the eye while covering Nomination Day activities in August 2007.

Luckily, the damage missed his cornea.

An enigma

To some persons, Pryce is an enigma. In fact, many persons would never even guess that he spent three years in the British Army, an experience he says was good for discipline, but vows he'd never do again, "for love nor money", particularly because of the Northern Ireland experience. But having lived and worked in Jamaica in the public eye, he knows only too well that people have very active imaginations, especially when it comes to the private lives of public personalities whom they know little about.

"The perception about me is that I am a serious person and probably have no sense of humour, and a lot of other strange things people think and say about me, such as I'm living with a white woman in Jacks Hill and stuff like that. And I've heard that a lot, believe me."

Pryce is in fact married and the father of two girls, but he tries to keep his private life private.

Born in Handsworth, Birmingham, England, 47 years ago, he is the third of four children for his Jamaican-born mother, Omelda Pryce, who earned her living as a machinist in a textile factory.

At nine years old, young Pryce came from England to live in Spanish Town, Jamaica, his family's roots. He attended Crescent Primary School then moved on to Kingston College (KC). But England soon beckoned again and, after graduating from KC, he went back to England, completed his A' levels and moved on to University College London, where he studied government, politics and law, but eventually made his decision to pursue journalism.

"I had two options when I graduated from university. I was going to go into law," he confesses to MC Magazine. "I was going to be a barrister, but I always wanted to be a journalist. The barrister was really a second option ... plan B in case the journalism thing didn't work out."

Why Journalism?

" I remember I was in fourth form in school one day and I heard the end of the Vietnam War and it was being broadcast from the BBC and somebody said, 'This is the BBC in London. The war in Vietnam is over. Now we go to our correspondents in Saigon.' And, for me, it was fascinating that someone is miles away on the radio talking about the end of this war, and how America's going back wondering whether it was a worthy effort - the same questions they're asking in Iraq today. And I thought, 'You know, that is what I want to do', because I knew I was good at English and good at poetry and did all the drama classes in school and stuff. So that's what I want to do and I've always held on to that dream. So the chance came. In fact, three choices came to me. I could have gone into investment banking, could have gone into law, but I chose broadcasting because it's following a dream and I've been more than amply rewarded.

Career plans

"I imagine myself being involved in mainstream broadcasting. If not with CVM, then elsewhere. At the moment, I have no intention of leaving CVM. I am aware of the value that I bring to the company, the company is also aware of the value that I have with them, and it's a mutually beneficial relationship and whatever it takes to get CVM to the next level, I always am, for the foreseeable future, going to be a part of it.

"I may sit down one day and decide to try CNN and see what that experience is like. But my future is wrapped up in Jamaica because it's my country, although I wasn't born here, I grew up here and it taught me a lot of what I know. It made me the person I am, and whatever knowledge I have I would like to impart, because, for me, it's not about leaving a legacy behind, it's about hoping children are watching me and saying 'I want to be better than Michael Pryce'. I grew up wanting to be like Dennis Hall."

That is Michael Pryce's world - a world in which he runs his own show, takes life one day at a time and refuses to let the negatives dominate. In fact, he turns them into positives, jokes that is, something he is well known for at CVM TV.