H. Dale Anderson (right), C.D. accepts his Silver Pen award from The Gleaner's Editor-in-Chief, Garfield Grandison, at the newspaper's corporate offices, downtown Kingston, yesterday. Mr. Anderson wrote the letter of the month for December 2006. - Winston Sill/Freelance Photographer

It is not that retired Ambassador H. Dale Anderson has nothing better to do with his time than to write letters. The former foreign service officer is now able to express his feelings on issues of national interest.

"I wasn't able to express these views while working in the foreign service," he said, "Views which have welled up during the years."

As such, shortly after retirement he penned his first Letter to the Editor in 2002.

Yesterday, Mr. Anderson, winner of last December's Silver Pen, collected his second such award. Published December 14, Mr. Anderson's winning letter, entitled 'Cockpit Country should be declared a protected reserve', expressed concerns about considerations regarding prospecting by a bauxite company in the region regarded as a national treasure.

"I have a personal and professional interest to what happens in this country," said the retiree.

Mr. Anderson was most recently ambassador to Russia, and before that high commissioner to Canada. He also worked for a number of years at the Foreign Ministry's head office.

Can't resist the urge to write

Mr. Anderson said that he did not have a specific time or mood for penning his letters.

"Just when I'm in the mood and it could come at any time. It could be in the morning when I just wake up. But when the mood hits, I just can't resist the urge to write," said Mr. Anderson, who is an avid lawn tennis player.

He already has many of ideas for his next letter.

"There are so many things to write about; because of the space, I try not only to be brief but to be compact, that each phrase, sentence and paragraph is expansive," said Mr. Anderson.

The ex-envoy, holder of a post-graduate degree in political sociology from McGill University, and his wife have attended several tennis tournaments overseas and he has also met tennis sisters, Venus and Serena Williams.