Colette Douglas Home

Columnist

Journalism was made for me because I like to know what makes people tick. I've worked for Conde Nast's Brides Magazine, won the Catherine Pakenham Award, been an interviewer for the Scotsman, a columnist for the Scottish Daily Mail and now for The Herald.

Journalism was made for me because I like to know what makes people tick. I've worked for Conde Nast's Brides Magazine, won the Catherine Pakenham Award, been an interviewer for the Scotsman, a columnist for the Scottish Daily Mail and now for The Herald.

Latest articles from Colette Douglas Home

When moral codes disappear in the fog of bloody war

The court was furnished in blond wood. There were no wigs and the accused man wore a jersey. But the informality was in contrast to the gravity of the charges. An army officer was on trial for a war crime: the killing of 11 innocent women and children in Afghanistan.

Time to stand up to corrupt power of self-serving elites

So what is the story of our age? I have been reading Dictator, the final book of Robert Harris’s Cicero trilogy. It charts, with the clarity of hindsight, the great issues of the Roman Republic including Julius Caesar’s rise to power. I found myself wondering what will be written about us, about our age?

How a six-hour working day can be so productive

Sometimes the best ideas are so simple. A recent example is the headmistress from Stirling who made her unfit pupils run a mile a day. Within five weeks all were fit. Her pupils are obesity free, energised, bright-eyed, rosy-cheeked and more attentive in class. And the initiative is going international. I wonder why it didn’t happen ages ago.

Colette Douglas Home: Journalist's dressing down raises questions of style

I’d just finished interviewing a heart-broken widow. As I packed up my tape recorder and notebook I felt sorry about leaving her to an empty afternoon of stirred up memory. I said, ‘I’m about to have lunch. Could I tempt you to join me?’ She declined politely. Then, as she was showing me out of the door she added quietly, ‘It’s just that I’ve always preferred men.’