Gordon Airs

Died: February 14, 2015.

Gordon Airs, who has died of cancer aged 76, was the Scottish newspaper reporter who went to jail during the Tartan Army trial at the High Court in Glasgow for refusing to reveal his sources to the judge.

Airs, who was chief reporter on the Daily Record, refused to identify one of the terrorists who blindfolded him and drove him to a secret rendezvous for an interview for the newspaper. He was sent down by Lord Keith and detained overnight in police cells after Lionel Daiches, QC for the accused, asked him to identify one of the men in the dock. Airs refused and told the judge it would be wrong for any journalist to reveal the source of his information.

On May 23, 1975, after a 15-day trial, five men were convicted of plotting to help seize Scottish independence through the Army of the Provisional Government (APG). They were jailed for a total of 34 years. It was one of many remarkable episodes in the life of the award-winning reporter, who was inevitably nicknamed Porridge by his newsroom colleagues.

Born in Edinburgh, Airs went to Tynecastle High School, which he left at 15 to become a copy boy in the office of the now defunct Edinburgh Evening Dispatch.

He learned shorthand and typing at night classes and was so good at it that when he was called up to do his national service he was immediately given the job of secretary to the Officer Commanding at Catterick Camp in Yorkshire. It was a source of great regret to him that the general in question thought he was so valuable that he never allowed him to be posted abroad or to anywhere he would be in danger.

He was to experience plenty of action later though when, after returning to Edinburgh and spending six months on the Dispatch in 1960, he transferred to the Record reporters' room in the capital. He had by now met and married his first wife, Monty (Monica) Symington, and they had a son, Kevin, who is a soccer magazine editor and broadcaster in Sydney, Australia.

Airs was then promoted to the post of chief reporter at the Record's head office in Hope Street, Glasgow and was given important assignments including covering The Troubles in Northern Ireland. There he was forced to flee with fellow journalists from their temporary office in the infamous Europa Hotel in Belfast minutes before it was bombed by the Provisional IRA.

He also travelled to some of the most dangerous places in the world, including the deserts of Kuwait and Iraq and European towns and cities in Germany and Holland to cover the activities of the Baader Meinhof Gang.

His work, tremendous energy and colourful lifestyle took its toll on his marriage and he and Monty separated in 1977. A short time later he met and married his second wife, Maggie, and they had a daughter, Kirsten Jennifer. The couple separated in 1986.

Two years later, Airs met and became the partner of Carole Bentley, a BBC news scriptwriter and radio newsreader, in Glasgow. The couple settled in Kilmacolm, where Airs was able to indulge in his passion for golf at Kilmacolm Golf Club and travelling to unusual foreign parts. He separated from Carole around the time of the Balkans War, which he covered for the Record. He was shot at and narrowly escaped death in Croatia when his driver took a wrong turning and came up against heavily armed soldiers.

His other passions were sports cars and cooking and when he retired from the Daily Record, aged 55, he toured the world at least five times in his Triumph Spitfire and later his Morgan. He enjoyed driving great distances to places such as St Petersburg, Mongolia, Beijing, Romania and even Australia.

Monty said: "Gordon was a good cook and good father to Kevin and Kirsten. He took us on marvellous holidays and later in life his former partner Carole and I went on holiday together while he went away and played golf."

A large number of expressions of regret, condolences and tributes to Airs were paid by colleagues in the newspaper industry. His death notice in The Herald said that he had been "husband to wives and partners too numerous to mention".

Malcolm Speed, former news editor and managing editor at the Daily Record, said: "Gordon Airs was a colleague for almost 25 years. He was one Scotland's best reporters and was a member of that top group of news 'firemen' much valued by news editors."

Media House director Jack Irvine, who was an executive editor at the Record, added: "Gordon was a newspaper legend, the man who went to jail for the Record rather than give up his sources. He hit the keyboard so hard he drove the typewriter keys right through the paper. It was like reading Braille!"

He is survived by his former partners and two children.

BILL HEANEY