Graeme Smith

GRAEME Smith, who has died aged 44, was a gifted journalist who, when diagnosed with an incurable brain tumour, started a regular blog which appeared on heraldscotland.com which charted his journey through the illness.

Although the subject matter was self-evidently serious and would eventually claim his life, he always wrote about it with a sharp wit and a dry sense of humour.

He declared at the outset: "No-one seems to be funny about cancer any more. I'm just putting the 'umour back in to tumour." For him, it was a voyage of self-discovery.

At the time of his death, Mr Smith, who had been a professional journalist for more than 20 years, was content editor at s1, part of Herald & Times Group's parent, Newsquest Media Group.

In his final blog in April he explained that the chemotherapy which had kept his rare form of tumour, glioblastoma, at bay was no longer working and he probably only had a few months to live.

He wrote: "Cancer death can be so cruel and undignified. At least with glioblastoma it seems that there is no pain, no suffocation or pneumonia, no dwindling out of personality into dementia.

"Eventually the tumour fatigue takes hold and you simply sleep it away. But until then, I fully intend to enjoy myself as much as I can. I will remain me until the end and I will not waste that time on self pity." He died peacefully at home on Sunday.

He was born in Glasgow and brought up in Giffnock. He was educated at Giffnock Primary and then Hutchesons' Grammar School in Glasgow.

His first taste of newspapers was as a teenage copyboy on the Evening Times. He then became an editorial assistant on Scottish Field and Environment Now! magazines.

His reporting career began in 1989 when he secured a post at the bi-weekly Alloa Advertiser. Still technically a junior, he quickly became the paper's de facto chief reporter.

In 1992 he moved to the Falkirk Herald where he was appointed chief reporter.

He worked there until 1999, during which time he developed the weekly paper's style book and launched its first website.

Like many weekly newspaper journalists, he had wide experience of working news shifts with the Daily Record and Sunday Mail. However, his first full-time job in daily newspapers came in 1999 when he joined Scotsman.com, first as an online journalist and then later as channel manager with responsibility for setting up its heritage, travel, recruitment and education channels.

His next move, in 2000, saw him join the Herald & Times Group in Glasgow. He was a senior online journalist on the then newly launched s1 stable of websites which included s1jobs.com, s1play.com and s1homes.com.

He had particular responsibility for style and quality control and wrote the s1 style book, much of which was later incorporated into the style book for Scottish Television's flagship news programme Scotland Today.

Promoted to the post of content editor, his responsibilities included more than 100 s1community websites.

It was late in 2011 that he was diagnosed with cancer. In the first of his poignant and irreverent blogs, headlined: "I need this like a hole in the head," he wrote, "I have a brain tumour. Not a big one, not a deep one, not a snarly one with teeth and tentacles biting and twisting into the delicate fabric of my cortex. But a brain tumour nonetheless.

"At least, it's probably a brain tumour. I'll know for certain next Thursday when the nice people at the Southern General cut into my skull and have a rummage. The first door opening on this year's advent calendar is to be the side of my head."

Throughout the run of the blog, which he was writing until April this year, he told his readers how he was trying to keep a realistic but hopeful approach to his treatment. In October last year, after another session of treatment, he wrote: "I'm under no illusions: I know that radiation, chemo and vaccines notwithstanding, the cancer is likely to come back. Not least because the doctors keep telling me that, which I think is a good thing, as time is short and precious and it's important not to fritter it away in the warmth of a false sense of security. With or without cancer, we all waste too much of our least renewable resource when we should be making the most of every minute."

Over 16 months, the blogs became popular with readers. On heraldscotland.com yesterday, one of his readers said: "You fought the good fight with humour and fortitude. You will be missed."

He raised more than £4000 for the Beatson West of Scotland Cancer Centre through his blog.

As s1's managing director Mark Smith said, two things shone through in his online column: one was a real talent for writing and the other was his remarkable fortitude and optimism when faced with some very dark days.

A lifelong Southsider whose home was in Shawlands, he is survived by his wife Clare. The couple married during his illness, a fact which he charted in his blog.