Scotland Today and Yesterday E-Book

John Mackay

• Herausgeber: Luath Press
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 970

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

This book is the story of a changing Scotland as it was heard and seen by the people of Scotland. We all may have our ideas about where we are headed as nation and a society, but none of us knows. That makes what lies ahead so fascinating. Just like what's gone before. JOHN MacKAY John MacKay is one of Scotland's best known broadcasters. His career as a reporter, anchor and presenter has spanned from the Thatcher Years to the Independence Referendum and beyond. MacKay has been witness to the major stories in the country's recent past. There have been the tragedies of Lockerbie, Dunblane and Clutha; sporting triumphs and tears; the opening of the new Scottish Parliament; the drama of parliamentary elections and referendums; interviews with Prime Ministers and First Ministers; and the death of Donald Dewar. From being in a room with a grizzly bear to trying to calm an irate – and topless – Alex Salmond, MacKay's career has been nothing if not varied. Using archive scripts, interview transcripts, recollections and personal diaries, he tells the story of one of the most tumultuous periods in Scotland's peacetime history.

Leseprobe

JOHN MACKAY is one of Scotland’s best known broadcasters. He is the face of the country’s most watched news programme, the STVNews at Six, and the current affairs programme Scotland Tonight. His career spans from the last days of the old newspaper era to the instant news of social media. MacKay was born in Glasgow, but his Hebridean heritage inspired him to write four successful novels, all based on the Isle of Lewis: The Road Dance, Heartland, Last of the Line and Home. An award-winning film adaptation of The Road Dance was released to critical acclaim in 2021.

By the same author

Fiction

The Road Dance, Luath Press, 2002

Heartland, Luath Press, 2004

Last of the Line, Luath Press, 2006

Home, Luath Press, 2021

Non-Fiction

Notes of a Newsman, Luath Press, 2015

First published 2015

New updated and extended edition 2024

ISBN: 978-1-80425-197-3

The author’s right to be identified as author of this work under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 has been asserted.

© John MacKay 2015, 2024

For Jo, Kenny & Ross who’ve heard it all before.

Contents

Acknowledgements

Preface

Introduction

1986

Hercules the Bear

Women get legal right to claim housekeeping

Concerns over Chernobyl explosion

Gartcosh closure

1987

Barlinnie riot

General Election 1987

AIDS threat

Demolition of Apollo Theatre

Sunday opening of shops

1988

Orkney tales

Refugee concerns

Glasgow Garden Festival

Piper Alpha

Jim Sillars wins Govan by-election

David Murray buys Rangers

Lockerbie bombing

1989

NHS restructuring proposals

Bellgrove train crash

Annual Scotland England football rivalry under threat

Rangers sign first Catholic

House of Commons televised

Channel Tunnel concerns for Scotland

1990

Eastwood helicopter crash

Rangers invited to join European Super League

Ten die in plane crash on Harris

Neil Kinnock – Scottish Assembly free to raise taxes

Genetic fingerprinting

Offside rule changed

1991

First Gulf War

Downing Street mortar attack

Orkney child abuse allegations

Council Tax replaces Poll Tax

Newton rail crash

1992

Ravenscraig closure

General Election 1992

Scottish Super League

Changes to goalkeeper passback rules

Barcelona Olympics

ERM crisis

1993

Braer disaster

‘Not Proven’ campaign

Rangers in new Champions League

British football’s most expensive signing

Nelson Mandela in Glasgow

1994

Celtic takeover by Fergus McCann

Frederick West’s Scottish victims

John Smith’s death

Trident submarines on the Clyde

Gordon Brown steps aside for Tony Blair

First T-in-the-Park

Girl Guide bus crash

National Lottery launch

Catholic Church sex abuse scandal

1995

Ecstasy deaths

M77 motorway

Local Government reorganisation

Death of Davie Cooper

Rising poverty

Skin cancer increasing

Braveheart premiere

Quebec Referendum

Big freeze

1996

Killer asbestos

Rising drug deaths

Dunblane

Last Polaris submarine

Greenock torture trial

Oasis at Loch Lomond

Labour propose referendum on devolution

Glasgow sick city of Europe

First commercial windfarm

E-coli outbreak

1997

General Election 1997

Conservative wipeout in Scotland

Death of Princess Diana

Devolution Referendum

Hamilton curfew

1998

Housing shortage

World Cup 1998

Edinburgh tram proposal

Scottish Six ruled out

1999

First Scottish Parliament election

Donald Dewar becomes Scotland’s first First Minister

Opening of Scottish Parliament

Glasgow Airport crash

Scotland v England European Championship qualifiers

2000

Clause 28 row

Fuel crisis

Donald Dewar’s death

Henry McLeish becomes First Minister

First Minister meets the Pope

Madonna’s wedding

2001

Lockerbie Bomber conviction

Foot and Mouth outbreak

Resignation of First Minister Henry McLeish

Jack McConnell becomes First Minister

2002

Lockerbie Bomber’s appeal

Champions League Final in Glasgow

French school bus crash

Firefighters’ strike

Cowgate blaze

Catholic schools row

2003

Iraq War

Scottish Parliament elections 2003

Celtic in UEFA Cup Final

Holyrood building fiasco

2004

Rosepark Care Home fire

Alex Salmond returns as SNP leader

Holyrood Inquiry

Opening of new Scottish Parliament building

2005

Auschwitz anniversary

Make Poverty History march

G8 Summit at Gleneagles

Civil Partnerships

2006

Smoking ban

Bird Flu scare

East European immigration

2007

Scottish Parliament election 2007

Madeleine McCann disappears

Alex Salmond becomes First Minister

Gordon Brown becomes Prime Minister

Glasgow chosen to host Commonwealth Games

2008

Death Row Scot returns home

Rangers in UEFA Cup Final

Wendy Alexander resigns as Scottish Labour leader

Banking crisis

2009

RBS post worst losses in uk financial history

North Sea helicopter crash

Lockerbie Bomber freed

Peter Tobin sentenced to life

2010

General Election 2010

Coalition Government

Pope Benedict visits Scotland

Ed Miliband new Labour leader in UK Big Freeze

Tommy Sheridan convicted

2011

Scottish Parliament elections 2011

SNP majority Scottish Government

Launch of Scotland Tonight

Hurricane Bawbag

2012

Scottish Independence debate

Rangers go bust

Death of Lockerbie Bomber

Olympic Torch in Scotland

Andy Murray wins first Grand Slam

Olympic Homecoming parade

Kevin Bridges interview

Oscar Pistorius interview

Andy Murray interview

2013

Death of Margaret Thatcher

STV Independence debates

Andy Murray wins Wimbledon

Scottish Government white paper on Independence

Clutha tragedy

Death of Nelson Mandela

2014

Commonwealth Games in Glasgow

Scottish Independence Referendum

Johann Lamont resigns as Scottish Labour Leader

Nicola Sturgeon becomes First Minister

George Square tragedy

2015

General Election 2015

Conservative majority government

SNP landslide in Scotland

Death of Charles Kennedy

Debate on more powers for Scotland

2016

Work starts on two new ferries

Richard Gere interview

Scottish Election 2016

Brexit Vote

100th Anniversary of the Somme

Chilcot Inquiry

Andy Murray’s second Wimbledon win

Theresa May wins Conservative Leadership

Theresa May becomes Prime Minister

Oil rig runs aground on Western Isles

Mark Millar interview

Donald Trump wins US Presidential Election

2017

Theresa May says, ‘Now is not the time’ for second Independence Referendum

Theresa May indicates a Hard Brexit Inauguration of President Trump David Tennant interview

First Minister rules out Independence Referendum in 2017

Scottish Parliament vote on second Independence Referendum

Prime Minister triggers Article 50 to withdraw from EU

Theresa May calls snap election for 8th June

Manchester Arena Bombing

General Election 2017

Opening of Queensferry Crossing

Kezia Dugdale resigns as Scottish Labour Leader

Kenny Dalglish interview

2018

Beast from the East

Michael Sheen interview

Archie Macpherson interview

Glasgow School of Art second fire

Donald Trump in Scotland

Runrig’s last concert

Police investigate Alex Salmond

Kelly-Ann Woodland becomes co-presenter

Closure of Michelin tyre factory

Centenary of First World War Armistice

Theresa May’s Brexit Deal

2019

Alex Salmond arrested and charged

Prime Minister Theresa May loses second ‘Meaningful’ vote on Brexit Deal

EU leaders agree to delay Brexit

Theresa May announces resignation

Danny MacAskill interview

Boris Johnson wins Conservative leadership contest

Boris Johnson becomes Prime Minister

Boris Johnson announces the proroguing of Parliament

Martina Navratilova interview

New Edinburgh children’s hospital delayed

Court of Session rules proroguing of Parliament illegal

Man charged in 40-year-old Renee MacRae murder

Republican marches in Glasgow banned this weekend

Peter Howson interview

General Election 2019

2020

UK formally leaves the EU

First Covid case in Scotland

Billy Connolly

First Coronavirus death in Scotland

Alex Salmond trial

Prime Minister in intensive care

Aberdeen train crash

Announcement of vaccine

Agreement on Brexit Deal

2021

Death of the Duke of Edinburgh

Scottish Election 2021

Scotland’s first game in an inter national tournament in 23 years

COP 26

2022

Russia invades Ukraine

Rangers in Europa League Final

Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations

Boris Johnson resigns

Liz Truss becomes Prime Minister

Death of Queen Elizabeth

Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-budget

Liz Truss resigns

Rishi Sunak becomes Prime Minister

UK Supreme Court rules against Independence Referendum

2023

Nicola Sturgeon resigns as First Minister

Nicola Sturgeon’s final address to the Scottish Parliament

Humza Yousaf becomes new First Minister

King Charles Iii crowned Nicola Sturgeon arrested

2024

UK Covid Inquiry in Scotland

Val McDermid interview

Humza Yousaf resigns as First Minister

John Swinney becomes Snp leader for a second time

Infected Blood Inquiry Report

Scotland in Euros 2024

General Election 2024

Death of Alex Salmond

Endnote

Acknowledgements

My thanks to:

Phil Taylor, Eddie Mair, Alison Walker, Dougie McGuire, Michael Crow, Sharon Frew, Howard Simpson, David Cowan, Mike Farrell, Pete Smith, Karen Greenshields and Ewan Petrie for their contributions.

Bernard Ponsonby, whose on-air analysis is such a key element of this history. Also, Colin Mackay who takes on that role later.

STV for the use of their archive.

Excerpts from BBC Scotland News, courtesy of the BBC.

Katie O’Donnell for providing transcripts of many interviews.

The STV Library team for delving into the recesses often and without complaint.

My many co-presenters, in particular Shereen Nanjiani, Raman Bhardwaj, Rona Dougall and Kelly-Ann Woodland for all that we have shared.

Too many colleagues past and present to thank individually.

www.euanandersonphotography.com for the author photo.

Particular thanks to Kenny MacKay and Stephen Townsend for their feedback.

Preface

It is ten years since the Scottish Independence Referendum. The anniversary of that result also marks 30 years since I joined STV News.

Scotland has changed dramatically over that time and yet much has remained the same. As a reporter and a news presenter, I have had the privilege of witnessing many of these changes at close hand.

Using contemporary reports, interview transcripts, personal diaries and recollections, this is the story of one of the most tumultuous periods in Scotland’s peacetime history.

It is a re-edited and updated version of Notes of a Newsman, which was published in 2015. So much more has happened since then. In addition to the stories of the last ten years, I have uncovered more news archives to provide a fuller picture of the beginning of Scotland’s transformation.

This book lays no claim to being the inside story. Quite the opposite. It is the story of a changing Scotland as it was heard and seen by the people at the time.

Introduction

As well as charting Scotland’s story over the last four decades, this book reflects my developing career as a journalist. The stories covered in the first few years are not of national significance, but they are a glimpse of Scotland at that time. As my career moved on, so did the importance of the stories I reported. By the time of the creation of the Scottish Parliament I was presenting the STV News and most of the major stories are front and centre.

In the summer of 1986 I was preparing to go to London.

I didn’t want to leave Scotland, but my ambition of working on the Evening Times in Glasgow would have to wait because they didn’t take on trainees. Radio Clyde rejected me because they said I didn’t have a voice for broadcasting.

My years as a paperboy, my £10 Letter of the Week to SHOOT! magazine, my degree, my editorship of the Glasgow University Guardian and wearing my trench coat to cold call at every paper I knew had all delivered nothing.

So, I was off to London and a postgraduate journalism course at City University. There is every chance that’s where I would have remained. All roads led to London. I heard that then and I’ve heard it ever since.

Maybe it was the trench coat, I don’t know, but The Sunday Post had seen something in me when I called and belatedly asked me back for an interview.

DC Thomson were good enough to give me a job as a trainee reporter and that was it. I was embarking on a career as a journalist in Scotland at the beginning of one of the most significant periods in the country’s peacetime history.

1986

Thursday 31 July 1986

DIARY: I’ve got a job as a journalist! I went into The Sunday Post office in Port Dundas Road and the Glasgow Editor Robert Miller said, ‘Well it looks like we’ve come to the end of the road and we’re prepared to offer you a job as a trainee reporter at £90 a week.’ I have my foot in the door and hopefully I’m embarking on an eventful and successful career.

The Sunday Post was a hugely popular newspaper with a circulation of around a million during the 1980s. It was a fascinating throwback to a different Scotland. Like a scene out of the old black and white movies, it was a place suited to a trench coat. There were wooden-framed telephone cubicles at the far end of the office for talking privately to contacts. One of the office girls would summon you if a call came in. It was a throwback in other ways. It was non-union, non-sensational and by-lines were rare, but DC Thomson had a deserved reputation for giving a start to young journalists and many familiar names in Scottish journalism got their first break there.

HERCULES THE BEAR

One of my early jobs was to meet Hercules the Bear. Everyone knew Hercules. He was the ‘Big Softy’ who starred in the popular Kleenex adverts. He lived with his owners Andy and Maggie Robin in a big house on the road to Perth. I can’t recall what the story was, but Hercules was a star so that was reason enough. When I arrived there was no sign of him, but I seem to remember an ominously open cage. As I sat in the Robins’ lovely lounge, he suddenly sauntered in paying me no mind. I paid him plenty. I didn’t take my eyes off him as he padded around amiably. But Andy wanted me to see Hercules perform. This grizzly could act. He could wrestle. So, Andy started to playfully slap him. The bear pawed back, rearing up as he did so. Oh, but he was big. I mean really big. My student journalism had been limited mostly to the blathering of student politicians. This was the danger of front line reporting. From a lounge. In Perthshire. Wearing a trench coat. The truth is Hercules was so placid I think he’d have put a paw around my shoulder to show me out. He never got the chance. I was gone.

Sunday 31 August 1986

The Sunday Post

Some husbands may be in for a shock when the new Family Law (Scotland) Act 1985 comes into force tomorrow. For the first time, if a husband keeps his wife short on housekeeping, she can go to court and be awarded a fair amount. Previously, she’d have to leave him before she could get a court order. Children living at home can also take their parents to court for their keep. ‘Revolutionary’ is how some solicitors see the new laws.

Revolutionary indeed.

Sunday 14 September 1986

DIARY: Good feeling that the Post, the paper I’ve read for so long, had some of my work in it. Some of my early Sunday Post stories.

A GHOST AT THE WEDDING IN LOCHBOISDALE

THREE CHEERS FOR THE FRIENDLY FIREMEN FROM STRANRAER

Sunday 5 October 1986

The Sunday Post

KIEV HERE WE COME

Celtic fans are already making plans to travel to Kiev to watch their team play – despite the Chernobyl threat. The city is only 65 miles away from the nuclear plant where there was a massive explosion earlier this year. Danny McCarron of the Celtic View, the club newspaper, insisted the club would not advise supporters to travel. ‘Apart from the nuclear scare and the political situation, the difficulty in obtaining visas will discourage most people,’ he said. A spokesman for the Scotland–USSR Society said, ‘Official reports indicate the area is now safe.’

Celtic lost 3–1 to Dynamo Kiev.

Friday 10 October 1986

DIARY: Sent out on a story on last night’s big fire at the McLellan Galleries. The wedding shop next to it was thought to have a number of dresses for brides on Saturday ruined. I had to check this. No there aren’t. End of story.

As I was writing this it was announced that the McLellan Galleries were to be reopened after many years closed. The report included archive footage of the Galleries from the time of the fire. There in a shop window were the unharmed wedding dresses in all their pristine glory.

Sunday 2 November 1986

The Sunday Post

FIREWORKS TURNED TO TERROR FOR THOMAS

Playtime turned to terror for 11-year-old Thomas Reilly when an older youth stuffed a lighted banger into his pocket.

GEORGE IS SCOTLAND’S CHAMPION WHISTLER

78-year-old George Cruickshank from Falkirk was well known among locals for his whistling.

‘The Road to the Isles’ and ‘The Northern Lights of Old Aberdeen’ are among his favourites, though he’s also been known to whistle the odd bit of opera.

This was a typical example of the Post’s heartwarming stories in the middle pages. I had a lot of these early on.

Saturday 8 November 1986

A regular Saturday night routine was driving round the city police stations with early editions of the paper. You were more likely to get a tip from speaking to the desk sergeant face-to-face than you would from a telephone call.

Sunday 21 December 1986

The Sunday Post

AMID THE GLOOM

In the shadow of the closed steel works, Gartcosh village was a place of laughter yesterday. Despite the loss of 550 jobs earlier this year, the children were treated to their annual Christmas party as usual… Only a small number of the redundant workforce have found new employment. The rest are on training schemes or have nothing.

The closure of heavy, nationalised industries and the fallout from that was a feature of the Thatcher era.

Sunday 28 December 1986

The Sunday Post

MYSTERY OF MISSING LAWYER

The disappearance of a Scottish lawyer, only hours after he left to visit clients has left police in England and Scotland baffled.

This was my first front page, co-written as I recall. Tragically, the lawyer had died by suicide.

1987

Sunday 4 January 1987

The Sunday Post

NEW ROW OVER COLD PAYMENTS

Braemar, Scotland’s coldest village, shivered in temperatures of 16 degrees below freezing on Friday with underfoot temperatures even lower at 19.3 degrees below. But the freezing conditions haven’t been enough for OAPS in the village to qualify for extra heating allowances under the Government’s new Severe Weather Payments Scheme.

DIARY: Spoke to SNP Chairman Gordon Wilson. Pleasant and well prepared. His comment was more of a dictation eg ‘stop, new sentence.’

BARLINNIE RIOT

A riot erupted at Barlinnie Jail on Monday 5 January 1987. One hall was trashed and some prison officers were taken hostage. Prisoners took to the roof of the jail. Banners were hung alleging brutality and slates were thrown.

Saturday 10 January 1987

DIARY: Stood around in freezing conditions waiting for a statement following the end of the Barlinnie siege this morning. When the Scottish Office spokeswoman finally came out, I put my tape recorder out and taped the statement… Only problem was the pause button was on, so I never got anything! Fortunately, the statement was also printed. In the end we waited around for hours for very little.

Tape recorders – strictly speaking cassette recorders – were only beginning to appear at news conferences. The spokeswoman had looked at me askance as I thrust it in front of her. Maybe it was because the pause button was still on.

Thursday 22 January 1987

The Sunday Post

IT’S NOT EASY SITTING BESIDE A MINISTER AT IBROX

DIARY: Afternoon working on a story about a Rangers fan who pays a minister some cash each week so that he can shout abuse at games. Would like to do more news.

Sunday 25 January 1987

The Sunday Post

Livingston MP Robin Cook plans to meet senior management of Golden Wonder to discuss the threatened closure of their plant at Broxburn with the loss of 340 jobs. The crisps and snacks company announced the closure in an effort to streamline their operations, but Mr Cook claims that supermarkets ask that their brand name crisps be produced at the Broxburn plant because of its high quality produce.

DIARY: Also rewrote story of the Queen’s fury over the leaking of the Duke of Edinburgh’s letter to the Marines over Prince Edward’s resignation. So, five articles in this week’s issue.

Friday 30 January 1987

DIARY: Got total of £27.40 in expenses, so that’ll keep me going until my salary is in the bank – what there is of it. The editor signing my expense sheet says, ‘you sport boys eat well.’ I’m news.

Saturday 31 January 1987

DIARY: Was down in the case room for a while watching how they put a page together. It certainly is an art, but a dying one. It seemed very fiddly to me and the new processes should speed it up.

The paper was changing, as most did in that period, from the old method of hot metal type to new, cheaper computerised technology.

Saturday 14 February 1987

DIARY: Went to a wedding in Milngavie. The story never existed (all to do with nine brothers wearing the same suits).

This was a typical experience. Every reporter has gone out with a heavy heart knowing that what will meet them will bear little resemblance to what was promised, but knowing, too, that they need to bring something back for the newsdesk.

Sunday 22 February 1987

The Sunday Post

ROLLS ROYCE PROTEST

Almost 2,000 workers at the Rolls Royce overhaul plant in East Kilbride will stage a two-hour walk out tomorrow in protest at privatisation plans.

Industrial unrest over privatisation was standard fare during the Thatcher years. This one had a personal connection because my Faither and brother worked in that plant.

Friday 27 February 1987

DIARY: Out at a special AIDS press conference at Glasgow Uni. Prof Jarrett at the forefront of the race to find a vaccine said, ‘The permissive society is dead.’

The AIDS scare was reaching its peak in 1987. A Government-funded campaign told us, ‘There is now a danger that has become a threat to us all. It is a deadly disease and there is no known cure.’ This was emphasised by a gravestone with AIDS chiselled on it and the slogan ‘Don’t die of ignorance.’ It’s questionable that it was ever really a threat to us all, but the advances in treatments for HIV mean that people can now live long, healthy lives with the virus. And it’s probably fair to say the permissive society is still alive.

Thursday 19 March 1987

DIARY: Frustrating day. In work I was landed with a couple of shitty jobs, including collecting quiz questions. That after we’d had an informal meeting about making the news harder.

I’ve seen this time and again from young people starting in newsrooms. There is a natural desire to get on, but it is easy to forget that you have to serve your time. That includes doing basic jobs.

GENERAL ELECTION 1987

As a junior reporter on a Sunday newspaper I had little involvement in covering the 1987 General Election. The following report, to which I contributed these vox pops, looked at first-time voters ahead of the election.

Sunday 22 March 1987

The Sunday Post

YOUNG SCOTS SAY ‘NO’ TO MRS THATCHER

Every party recognises that first-time voters are going to be a crucial factor in the next election. Since the last General Election in June 1983, 2.1 million voters have had their names added to the electoral register. They now account for almost five per cent of the total electorate of 43.4 million. Their votes could swing the result in many marginal constituencies and affect the overall result if it is a close call.

GILLIAN FISHER: There is no way I would vote for Margaret Thatcher and I have no confidence in Neil Kinnock. The Alliance will get my vote.

JAMES SMITH: The Labour Party is biased against Catholics, so I won’t be voting for them. The Alliance just don’t appeal to me and there’s no way I would vote Tory. It seems the SNP is all that’s left.

ANDREW WITHERSPOON: I don’t have to think twice. My parents have always voted Conservative. Coming from a private school, which Labour want to abolish, I think I’ll stick with that philosophy.

In June 1987 Margaret Thatcher won an historic third term with a significant parliamentary majority across the UK. That picture was not reflected in Scotland. Labour won 50 seats, the Conservatives dropped from 21 seats to ten, the SDP Liberal Alliance got nine seats, the SNP won three, an increase of one.

Sunday 17 May 1987

The Sunday Post

Princess Anne yesterday praised the people of Inverclyde for their record-breaking fundraising efforts. In her role as President of Save the Children, the Princess told a massed crowd at a charity fete in Greenock that they had renewed her faith in hospitality and generosity. Dressed in a red, woollen, two-piece suit, the Princess was treated to a series of displays, including a performance by a wheelchair dancing troupe.

DIARY: Down in Greenock… From 11.00am to 4.00pm and it was dull. I reckon we could have left after the Princess arrived at 12.15pm. Not much of a story. Felt sorry for her if she has to visit these affairs so often, meeting dull dignitaries and watching the same displays. Having said that, the fetes are great for locals – the whole town seemed to be out.

Sunday 12 July 1987

The Sunday Post

A plan to have an open-air Christmas market in Glasgow’s George Square has caused a storm of protest. The proposed market would have 72 stalls, four chalets and an entertainment stage in the Square during the festive period. Now, a petition opposing the plan has been launched by stallholders at the all-year-round at Barrowland. They claim the George Square stalls would threaten their livelihoods and other markets might be forced to close.

Sunday 12 July 1987

The Sunday Post

The Glasgow Garden Festival is already proving to be a success nearly a year before it begins. Sales of the first batch of season tickets (at £15 a head) have been in excess of 70,000, smashing the organisers’ estimates of 25,000… Orders for the season tickets have come mostly from the Glasgow area. But 15 per cent have come from around the world, including Canada, the US and Australia.

Sunday 19 July 1987

The Sunday Post

Thousands of Scottish would-be holidaymakers were caught in a nightmare yesterday as their Glasgow Fair Fortnight got underway. Bus, plane and weather problems combined to cause chaos and misery and ruin expensive holiday plans. The Scottish Bus Group strike led to angry scenes at bus stations in Edinburgh and Glasgow when passengers expecting to leave for resorts such as Blackpool, Scarborough and further south were told most services had been wiped out.

The Glasgow Fair, Blackpool and Scarborough are evocative of a different age of holidays.

During that summer I saw an advert for news trainees at BBC Radio Scotland. I ignored it initially because I didn’t think broadcasting was for me. A combination of curiosity and youthful optimism made me submit an application late on, but with no real expectation of being selected from the thousands of others who applied.

Friday 18 September 1987

DIARY: Big day as regards the Radio Scotland job. Final interview and voice test. Given a selection of news items which had to be whittled down to two minutes. Taken to conference room with another six Radio Scotland officials – News Ed, Current Affairs Ed etc. Grilled me solidly for about 45 minutes. Mostly about news with a Scottish flavour – what Scottish stories should be given more exposure, most important Scottish stories of the week etc.

Thursday 24 September 1987

DIARY: I am going to work for the BBC! Got the phone call this evening. A two-year contract at £8,280 (+£634 shift allowance). A great opportunity. Ironic that earlier Flash (Bill Anderson – The Sunday Post editor) was down from Dundee. He pulled me into the TV room on my own… turned out to be a pep talk. I mentioned not being satisfied with my news contribution, but he said he was perfectly happy and I was scoring well throughout the paper.

Sunday 27 September 1987

The Sunday Post

The demolition of the Apollo Theatre in Glasgow this weekend has taken local traders by surprise and brought their takings tumbling down. Neighbouring businesses say they were not notified of the operation…The building is being demolished in the interests of public safety and a proposed 14-screen cinema costing £7 million is to be built on the site.

Glasgow’s famous Apollo Theatre was demolished following its closure two years previously. The Apollo had hosted most of the major rock acts of the ’70s and ’80s and still holds a special place in the hearts of the city’s music fans.

I’ll always be grateful to The Sunday Post. I got my start on the paper and my colleagues took me under their wing. Many of them went on to success elsewhere. Others established themselves as significant figures in the DC Thomson operation.

I started at BBC Radio Scotland in November 1987. My initial training was on the news desk preparing the news bulletins. It was a different culture entirely with hourly deadlines. Central to the news output was a bank of telex machines. Every hour at 20 to the hour, they would start chuntering out three minutes’ worth of news material from London, covering UK and international stories. This was called the ‘rip-n-read’ because that is exactly what you did with it – the stories were printed on a long sheet of telex paper and, using the edge of a ruler, you tore out the ones you wanted, stapled them onto a sheet of A5 paper and arranged them into the running order. In addition, a news voicer might be sent, which had to be recorded onto a cartridge. This was all complemented by Scottish stories and voicers from our own reporters and copy from local correspondents. You then descended two floors to where the newsreaders had their small continuity studios. That was how it was supposed to work, but news never does. The rip-n-read was frequently late, or there was a problem with the audio or there was a breaking story. Too often I would burst through as the pips were marking the final seconds towards the hour. I loved it. This was news as it was happening, or as close as it could be for the time.

Tuesday 17 November 1987

BBC Radio Scotland

A demonstration organised by the National Union of Students marched through Glasgow city centre this afternoon to protest against Government plans for education. Students from the 32 affiliated colleges in the West of Scotland took part in the protest. John MacKay reports…

This was my first BBC report.

Monday 7 December 1987

BBC Radio Scotland

Police in Glasgow are investigating the possibility that a batch of bad drugs have been responsible for three deaths over the weekend. The bodies of three men were found each with a hypodermic syringe beside them.

Drug deaths have remained a consistent story throughout the subsequent decades.

Tuesday 15 December 1987

BBC Radio Scotland

The bridge that leads to nowhere at last seems to be going somewhere. Developers have submitted a plan to Glasgow District Council which will transform the concrete eyesore into part of an £18 million office development, linking with a new office complex to be built at the bottom of Bath Street.

The bridge had been constructed in 1972 as part of the city’s inner ring road. It was supposed to be part of a pedestrian walkway above the motorway, but that didn’t happen and it was considered too costly to demolish. The office development is the distinctive brown office block, Tay House, sitting over the M8 motorway at Charing Cross. In 2024 plans for the redevelopment of the area included the demolition of the offices.

Undated news report 1987

BBC Radio Scotland

The Prime Minister has been urged to drop plans to retain Prestwick Airport’s status as Scotland’s sole transatlantic gateway airport. In a letter to Mrs Thatcher, the Chief Executive of the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce said that the building of road and rail links to Prestwick looks like an expensive way to buy votes in Ayrshire, Edinburgh West and Bearsden.

Until 1990 transatlantic flights from Scotland could only fly from Prestwick Airport.

Undated news report 1987

BBC Radio Scotland

Over two-thirds of Scottish people see no need for shops to open on a Sunday, according to organisers of a new movement – the Scottish Keep Sunday Special Campaign. They claim that Scottish society does not want or need Sunday trading. And they are backed by traders and trade unions.

There was no legal restriction on shops being open on a Sunday, but it was the custom. Town and city centres would be dead on a Sunday. That began to change rapidly in the 1990s.

Undated news report 1987

BBC Radio Scotland

Teaching schoolchildren in remote parts of the country could be revolutionised by new technology. Education officials from the Northern Isles and Highlands have been in Aberdeen to see demonstrations of the new equipment… The proposed scheme would allow schoolchildren to remain in their own communities. Videos, fax machines and computers would link pupils to teachers, who may be miles away, without the child having to leave their home area.

Undated news report 1987

BBC Radio Scotland

Later this morning Strathclyde Regional Council are expected to refuse planning permission for a £150 million leisure and shopping development for the 200-acre site at Shieldhall. There are 90 applications for developing similar sites in the region and it’s expected that most of them will be rejected. The council’s policy is one of urban renewal, rather than out-of-town developments. Another group opposed to the development of big hyper-markets are small businessmen… The Port Authority say the new scheme would create an estimated 3,500 jobs… and the proposals are part of their efforts to develop the Clyde now that traditional industries are waning.

The Braehead Shopping Centre was opened in 1999.

1988

Thursday 7 January 1988

BBC Radio Scotland trainees were sent to ‘out-stations’ around the country to gain intensive practical experience. I was assigned to BBC Radio Orkney under the guidance of station manager John Fergusson.

DIARY: Sent out on a ‘jolly’ today to the island of Sanday to the north-east. The flight was on a Loganair Islander. Ten seats, including pilot and co-pilot. A ten-minute flight from Kirkwall and when we came in to land I was amazed to find that we were coming down on a field with sheep scattering beneath us.

I knew there wouldn’t be airports, but I thought the planes would land on the roads. City boy ignorance.

Monday 11 January 1988

DIARY: Committed the cardinal sin this morning. I had arranged to be in the studio with John again this morning – and I slept in. I’d set my alarm for 6.30am last night, but I hadn’t switched it on. So, when I finally awoke at 8.30am the programme had already gone out. Fortunately, John took it in good part, but it can’t happen again.

Tuesday 12 January 1988

BBC Radio Orkney

On the island of Shapinsay, two farmers with very different sizes of farms are both practising a very different type of care for their sheep. In Orkney it’s unusual for farmers to take their sheep in for the winter but, as John MacKay has been finding out, that could very well change.

DIARY: On a boat for half an hour to sail to Shapinsay. Met by shepherd – Jim Foubister – who took me to his home where his wife Ina gave me dinner (lunch actually, but I wasn’t so sophisticated then). Did an interview with him about wintering sheep and then he took me to see another bloke about the same. Finally, he took me to the local laird’s son who is breeding ducks for wild shoots. Crammed all that into a two-hour stay before the ship returned. If it hadn’t been for Jim I’d never have made it. I can’t get over how welcoming and helpful the islanders are.

Thursday 21 January 1988

DIARY: I had the continuity announcement at lunchtime sprung onto me. I was quite nervous as I flicked open my microphone for my first ever ‘live’ broadcast. I stumbled a couple of times and crashed into Robbie Shepherd’s programme a bit early. It was the old dry throat, thumping heart syndrome. But John reckoned I’d done okay and it didn’t sound as bad as I thought it had. I’m glad to get it out of the way because I’m presenting my first breakfast programme tomorrow.

Friday 22 January 1988

BBC Radio Orkney

Good morning. You’re listening to BBC Radio Orkney. I’m John MacKay and over the next half hour we’ll be hearing about privatisation plans in the health service, an Orkney student who’s on his way to Japan and we hear from the Vice-President of the Scottish National Farmers’ Union. All that and more to come. But first, the weather…

DIARY: Presented my first live show this morning and it went well. It helped to have got yesterday’s out of the way. As soon as I opened the mic I was away and relaxed very quickly.

Starting with the weather forecast emphasised how important it was in the islands. I learned very quickly on radio how people relied on the forecast, not just in Orkney. On the national radio there was an hourly three-minute bulletin and there would be complaints if the 15 seconds of weather wasn’t included.

Tuesday 26 January 1988

DIARY: Caught the 5.05pm flight to Shetland. I went to see the ‘Up Helly Aa’ procession – which was spectacular – with up to a thousand men marching with flaming torches. The burning of the traditional galley was quite a sight.

Tuesday 2 February 1988

DIARY: Big mistake this morning. We have market reports from two different Marts – one is the Kirkwall Auction Mart, the other is the West Mainland Mart and I spoke about them as if they’re one and the same.

The islanders were very welcoming, but it must have pained them at times to hear a ’sooth-moother’ like me make such basic errors. Pronouncing the island of Foula (Foola) wrongly was another one. It might seem trivial, but it matters. If you can’t get the basics right, how can people be sure your other facts aren’t as sloppy?

DIARY CONT: At a council meeting. I found it dull, uninspiring and full of old farmers and prim maids with starched drawers. Dry stuff.

Ah, the cliched arrogance of youth. This was local democracy in action.

Thursday 4 February 1988

The first Comic Relief Red Nose Day was held in February 1988. I had interviewed some children from Stromness who were going to school in their pyjamas to raise money. The interview ran the following day.

DIARY: Just before the final item finished I ran downstairs to check with Mairi (Mairi Fotheringham – station assistant) whether the weather summary had arrived on the telex machine. I ran back upstairs and ended up breathless.

What this entry doesn’t detail, probably because of overwhelming embarrassment, is that the final item was the piece about the Stromness children. The very last clip was a young girl describing the night clothes she was wearing. I arrived back at the sound desk to fade up the mic just as she finished speaking. Having just run upstairs I was panting like a pervert and I knew it. In these situations there is no short remedy, you just have to wait until you get your breath back. It took a few of the longest seconds of my life.

Wednesday 10 February 1988

BBC Radio Orkney

The Celtic Supporters’ Club held a successful annual dance last night and they entertained two very special guests. Celtic manager Billy McNeill and his wife are paying their first visit to Orkney.

BILLY McNEILL, Celtic Manager: The supporters of Celtic have never really surprised me for a long time now, simply because of the fact that I’ve been used to them popping up everywhere… But it delights me, to be quite frank with you, that I’ve been invited to a place like Orkney, where, obviously, Celtic supporters here can only see the team on very few occasions and obviously keep in touch by radio and by newspapers and, perhaps, by telephone calls to friends on the mainland. So, it delights me to come here and share a night with them.

JM: Any prospect of the likes of a young Orkney footballer making it with Celtic?

BM: It’s difficult, I think, just simply because of the environment. I’m not just speaking of Orkney, in particular, but any island round about Scotland, or indeed any other country. I think it’s possibly the lack of any true competition which would always hold them back. That, plus the fact that there’s always the difficulty of taking kids away from their parents at a very, very young age to provide the necessary competition. But we’re always on the lookout for players from wherever.

DIARY: Interviewed the Celtic manager Billy McNeill today. Very impressed by him – genuine, warm and articulate. I’d half expected the big shot from the big city syndrome, but no. I liked him a lot.

Saturday 27 February 1988

DIARY: I had an interview to do on North Ronaldsay and we travelled in the wee Loganair Islander. Unfortunately, there was a blizzard on the way and it was a turbulent flight. I only had five minutes to get my interview, but I’d arranged to meet the guy at the airfield. On the way back it was just as bad and on the approach to the runway the pilot had real problems holding the plane level.

There was a big storm coming in and the pilot told me if I wasn’t back in five minutes he would have to leave. I ran out to a small outbuilding, met my interviewee, recorded the interview and ran back to the plane, unknowingly stepping in cow dung as I did so. As we flew quickly back from North Ronaldsay the plane heated up and as the heat spread so did the pungent stench of shit emanating from my seat. There was evident suspicion among my fellow passengers that the turbulent flight had been too much for me.

Friday 4 March 1988

DIARY: Got a real scare on the flight home. We’d just taken off from Inverness (the Orkney flight to Glasgow went via Inverness) and reached our cruising altitude when the plane suddenly turned sharply and seemed to dive through the clouds. The pilot said we had to return because of a technical fault, but we had fire tenders on the runway and it was all very rushed. I now know the meaning of the term ‘shaken’.

As we descended rapidly below the clouds all I could see was flashing blue emergency lights along the runway. The cabin was suddenly full of anxious chatter when previously it had been almost silent. Across from me were an elderly woman and a younger man. They didn’t know each other, but she grasped his hand. The plane landed safely (the cause of the alarm had been a flashing warning light in the cockpit). In the arrivals lounge there were two coin-operated phones on the wall. I ran to one to alert my newsdesk. I could hear the other phone was being used by another reporter (a freelance). Meanwhile, the rest of the passengers lined up behind us waiting to phone their loved ones to tell them the drama behind their delay.

Thursday 10 March 1988

BBC Radio Orkney

Several residents from the north isles of Orkney are being sent on a special mission to the United States of America to help out with scientific research over there. The residents are not some of the human population, but local mice. Two consignments set off from Kirkwall Airport yesterday destined for Washington. For a number of years Professor Sam Berry has been carrying out detailed studies on the special characteristics of our mice here in Orkney.

PROFESSOR SAM BERRY, University College London: What will be looked at is their DNA, which is the actual chemistry of the genes. What the Americans are interested in – and this is indirectly related to AIDS research, because this is one of the things that everybody is interested in at the moment – the Americans are interested in viruses, which infect the mice and then they get absorbed into the actual genes of the mice and replicate when the cells divide. Which is not what happens to a normal virus, of course, but the AIDS virus does something rather in the same way. Now, the viruses in the mice are, of course, nothing to do with AIDS, nothing whatsoever to do with it, but it could be we might learn something about AIDS through looking at the mice.

I left Orkney with some reluctance at the end of my attachment in March 1988 and returned to the BBC Radio Scotland Newsroom in Glasgow.

Tuesday 19 April 1988

DIARY: Had to do a piece on a report which claims that Scotland isn’t doing enough for refugees. But the organisers couldn’t even line up a refugee family.

This is still a regular complaint by reporters. There is no point in sending out a news release to broadcasters if the main figures are away on holiday, unavailable for interview, don’t want to speak etc. If you want good coverage for your story, provide an example who is willing to talk about their experience and a specialist who can give it authority. That’s what the best PR people do. Time is often against reporters and the more you can set up, the better the coverage of your story will be. A reputation for providing tea and bacon rolls is a big plus, too.

Wednesday 20 April 1988

BBC Radio Scotland

RIKKI FULTON

Scottish Opera have announced details for their new season and there is one, rather surprising, introduction. Rikki Fulton – better known for more light-hearted roles – is playing the Lord Chancellor in Gilbert and Sullivan’s Iolanthe.

RIKKI FULTON: I suppose a performer who’s spent as long as I have doing so many characters, I don’t think I’ve, perhaps, got anything new in terms of characterisation to offer. So, maybe this’ll be a sort of amalgam of one or two. But I sincerely hope they won’t be particularly recognisable.

JM: Do you see yourself as a new Pavarotti, or something like that?

RF: I do not. My voice is certainly not trained, even if it’s clean about the house.

DIARY: First time I’ve felt the pressure of a deadline. Rikki Fulton – the popular comic actor – was there and I had to get an interview with him and the Opera’s Managing Director. I couldn’t interview them until midday, although the conference started at 11.00am. I had two snatches of interview on just after 12.45pm, so I was pleased.

In the pre-digital era, I would return from my story with the material recorded onto quarter inch tape. It was edited by marking the tape with a white chinagraph pencil and literally cutting it using a razor blade on an editing block. The edits were joined with sticky tape. Finally, a length of yellow, quarter inch lead-in tape was required to mark the start and red tape to mark the end of the piece.

THE GLASGOW GARDEN FESTIVAL

The Garden Festival was a huge success for Glasgow. Created on the site where STV and BBC Scotland are now, it converted a rundown dockland area into a garden wonderland with theme parks. Millions visited between April and September and it is remembered fondly. Many wondered why it could not be maintained permanently, especially when the housing which was supposed to be developed on the site never happened.

Thursday 28 April 1988

DIARY: The first day of the much heralded Glasgow Garden Festival. It’s a credit to the city and while some parts seem to be bustling, the gardens are quiet and serene.

Monday 6 June 1988

DIARY: Down to Dalmuir to do a piece on asbestos burial and for the first time I used the cellnet phone to file copy.

My News Editor Robin Wyllie had handed me a heavy black box with a telephone receiver on top to try out. The contraption was so big it came in its own briefcase and clamped to the roof of the car. It was many years before the use of mobile phones became widespread.

Friday 10 June 1988

BBC Radio Scotland

Simple Minds are among the good and great on the bill at Wembley tomorrow in a concert to mark the 24th anniversary of Nelson Mandela being sentenced to life imprisonment. On Sunday the Minds’ main man, Jim Kerr, will be among the speakers at a rally in Glasgow, which looks set to be the biggest ever anti-apartheid demonstration in Scotland.

JIM KERR, Simple Minds: I just manage to see the world going further than the end of my street. I hate injustice of any sort and in our songs we write about these ideals, maybe ideas. We have dreams of freedom, universal peace. And they seem dreams, but the only way of making dreams into a reality is by doing something physical, by making a stand.

JM: Is that the role of the rock star?

JK: I think it’s the role of the individual. I will say that my favourite music has always been music that both entertained me and also passed on a message. And I think when that happens rock music becomes a lot more credible.

JM: On the day after the concert the Nelson Mandela Freedom March will start with a demonstration in Glasgow. The March will then cover 600 miles in five weeks, arriving in London on the 17th of July, the eve of Nelson Mandela’s 70th birthday.

ISAMIL AYOB, Nelson Mandela’s lawyer: Glasgow is the most important city in the UK as far as we are concerned because it was the very first city which made him a Freeman of the city and Winnie Mandela is the Rector of your university. Your Lord Provost also organised a worldwide campaign when 5,000 mayors, throughout the world, signed a petition for the release of Mandela. And all of that started in Glasgow.

PIPER ALPHA

On the night of 6 July 1988 the North Sea oil rig Piper Alpha exploded killing 167 men. It was caused by a gas leak during maintenance work and remains Britain’s worst-ever oil disaster. The blaze took three weeks to extinguish.

Thursday 7 July 1988

DIARY: Today’s news dominated by a tragedy in the North Sea. An oil rig – Piper Alpha – blew up and there are believed to be some 160 people lost. Apparently, flames were reaching up to 400 feet and some TV pictures of it were dramatic. There were also pictures of relatives severely distressed, screaming in the street. I think that is intrusive. Amazing how these stories develop. Peter Aitchison (BBC colleague) joined us in the bar last night from the newsroom after his shift. ‘There’s a fire on a North Sea rig, but it doesn’t seem to be much,’ he said. Then I woke up to hear that. A real shock.

The subsequent inquiry was covered extensively in our news bulletins for months afterwards, much of it very technical. The word ‘flange’ (a metal disc to seal the end of a pipe) became one of the most commonly used words in news reports.

I was temporarily off news at this time. BBC Radio Scotland decided it needed to reach out to a more youthful audience. As one of the youngest people in the station, I was, very reluctantly, part of the team which developed and produced the No the Archie Macpherson Show. The Executive Producer introduced a new comic writer who wrote sketches and a weekly soap. I thought him a pleasant guy, but I didn’t connect with his humour. At production meetings I would argue that this or that sketch just wasn’t funny. Armando Iannucci went on to have a hugely successful career as a comedy writer in the UK and Hollywood. I never produced another non-news programme again.

Saturday 10 September 1988

DIARY: My first football report today. No Premier League games on because of the forthcoming World Cup qualifier against Norway midweek. So, the focus was on the First Division. I was at Broomfield for Airdrie versus Kilmarnock. Must have been one of the first there. Settled in time for my tee-up piece just after 2.00pm – and from then until half-time I was doing a series of short pieces. Only one in the second half and a final summing up at full time. Also got Airdrie manager Gordon McQueen to do a telephone interview.

Airdrie won 5–1. Their first goal was scored by full back Tom Black who had a thick black moustache. I dialled the studio to update them and as presenter Tom Ferrie threw to me, my note with Tom Black’s name on it blew over. There was a momentary panic as I announced the goalscorer was ‘…the man with the moustache…’

Everything was still done using a dial-up telephone. Far from the open mics now, you had to dial in if anything happened and hope the studio number wasn’t engaged.

Friday 4 November 1988

DIARY: My last Good Morning Scotland as a producer – for quite a while at least. I’ve enjoyed the producing, but I’m not sure I’ll miss it.

Producing GMS involved a long working day, a short sleep and then back in to put the pro-gramme out between 6.30am and 9.00am. It was two-and-a-half hours of live radio, reacting to stories that could be international or local. Taped reports would be commissioned, live interviewees set up, presenters briefed. It was challenging, but enjoyable.

Such was the status of the BBC, there was some incredulity in my family that I was working there. When a friend told my mother that she’d heard my name as producer in the credits for Good Morning Scotland, my mother had said, ‘I don’t think that would be our John.’

Undated report November 1988

BBC News

All police interviews with suspects in Strathclyde will soon be tape recorded. The Strathclyde Police Force are introducing a £1.3 million programme which will start with Maryhill Division next month. Other divisions will be included in the New Year.

This is now standard procedure for serious crimes.

Friday 11 November 1988

DIARY: Jim Sillars won the Govan by-election – turning a 19,000 Labour majority into a 3,000 SNP one. It’s caused massive reverberations and what is clear is that the Tories are doing nothing for Scotland and Labour’s 50 Scottish MPs are ineffectual.

One of the candidates in this by-election was an impressive young man called Bernard Ponsonby. He plays a very significant role later in this book.

Wednesday 23 November 1988

DIARY: Rangers have been bought by Scots businessman David Murray.

Rangers had begun their transformation two years previously under the chairmanship of David Holmes. His hiring of Graeme Souness as the new player manager and then an influx of top English players had transformed Rangers and Scottish football. Murray took Rangers to another level and invested huge sums trying to achieve success in Europe. It all came to a crashing end more than 20 years later.

David Murray would readily take direct calls from reporters which was great from our point of view, but also gave him a degree of manipulation. He liked to mess with reporters too. During a series of media interviews I went in after the BBC’s highly regarded Alan Mackay. As my cameraman was setting up, Murray spoke of how good Alan was and what an interview he’d just done. I was followed by a former colleague Alison Douglas. She told me afterwards that he’d said the same about me. All of it just to put the reporter facing him a little on edge.

Monday 5 December 1988

DIARY: A press conference at police HQ.

There’s some nutter loose in the city.

Ah, Glasgow.

Wednesday 21 December 1988

LOCKERBIE BOMBING

A Pan Am jet flying from London to JFK Airport in New York exploded over the Scottish town of Lockerbie.

The BBC Radio Scotland newsroom had deserted quickly that evening, many to a Christmas party being held elsewhere in Broadcasting House. I had brought a book in anticipation of a quiet shift.

DIARY: Answered two very important calls just after 7.20pm. One said there was an explosion in the town of Lockerbie. A minute later the AA called – a patrolman had seen a plane come down on a housing estate. Quickly established that it was a Pan Am 747 flying from London to New York and all 259 on board were dead, plus 11 on the ground. As the night wore on the full scale of the disaster became clear and we broadcast through the night.

One of the first questions was where was Lockerbie? It was one of those names we were vaguely familiar with because we’d passed it driving south, but I don’t think anyone could have said precisely where it was. It quickly became apparent it was not a military, but a passenger jet. We immediately thought it must be the London to Glasgow shuttle. Calls to air traffic control and airlines soon established that the plane missing was a Pan Am 747 flying from London to New York.

Duty News Editor Phil Taylor bashed out a script and told me to go to a studio and record it for transmission on Radio 4 at 8.00pm. In the days before 24-hour rolling news the first much of the UK would have heard about the tragedy was my young Scottish voice reading that script.

BBC Radio 4 News

Police in Dumfries say that ‘many bodies’ have been recovered from the wreckage in Lockerbie town centre where a Pan American Airlines Boeing 747 crashed in flames earlier this evening. The injured are being treated in hospitals throughout Dumfriesshire and Carlisle. Doctors and medical staff are being called in from a wide area. Police say that any members of the public offering blood should contact Dumfries Infirmary. The plane, flying from London to John F Kennedy Airport had 258 passengers on board. It’s reported to have struck a petrol station, exploding and setting alight nearby houses. An eyewitness spoke of a 300-foot fire ball shooting into the sky. Police believe there are a ‘huge number’ of casualties. They have appealed to motorists travelling north or South to avoid the main A74 Glasgow to Carlisle road for the next few hours.

Kenny Macintyre – a reporter who worked off his wits – went straight to the phone book, looked up the number for the post office in Lockerbie and called. That quick reaction got one of the first eyewitness accounts of what people in the town were experiencing.

Phil Taylor, BBC Radio Scotland News Editor

Like all the truly memorable/remarkable/terrible stories of a life in journalism, the Lockerbie Bombing from a personal standpoint was one of those lurches from the mundane to the extraordinary and chaotic. Our sub-editor hung up the phone, paused, and then turned round to the newsdesk and said, ‘It appears a plane has come down in Lockerbie.’

Within minutes of that conversation, we were getting calls from BBC Scotland journalists down in the south-west. Kenny Macintyre, being the genius journalist that he was, was also bashing the phones, trying all the contacts he could think of, including – no doubt – members of Mrs Thatcher’s Cabinet. The next stab at what was really going on was a rumour that an RAF jet fighter, on a low-level training flight had crashed on to a petrol station. All these years later, writing this prompts me to go to Google Earth and to gaze down at the A74 as it passes the ill-fated Sherwood Crescent where a wing section from Pan Am Flight 103 created a crater 150 feet long, killing 11 people. Where did the petrol station rumour come from, I wonder? The nearest services are at Annandale 8.2 miles to the north. I guess the grim answer is: how else do you explain sheets of flame rising hundreds of feet from the side of a motorway on a chill December evening?

Over the next hours, our newsroom did what newsrooms have always done at such times of drama; we drafted in every member of staff we could reach. We despatched reporters – including a young Eddie Mair – producers, TV crews. Staff from BBC Scotland’s Dumfries office became the point men and women, getting to the scene first, or as near the multiple sites of destruction as the emergency services could allow. The calls began flooding in from all around the world. Could we put one of our staff on the line to tell the story? Very quickly it started to emerge that 35 of the passengers were young students from Syracuse University in New York. They were returning home for Christmas. We began calling the University for reaction – and New York radio stations were calling us.

Eddie Mair, BBC Radio Scotland Reporter