Ian Dow. Journalist. An appreciation
IAN Dow, who has died aged 63, was a much-respected staff reporter at The Daily Record for over a quarter of a century, covering many of the major stories of recent times.
His intellect and journalistic skills could no doubt have gained him promotion to better-paid jobs at Anderston Quay, but Ian was content to toil away as one of the Record’s foot soldiers.
He had a healthy disdain for bosses and bean counters… his advice to young hacks was "Never take a job with a title. If you do, it’s only a matter of time before someone notices you and you’re on the way out the door."
It was advice that obviously worked for Ian. After learning the journalistic trade at the St Andrews Citizen and Livingston Post, he joined the Record in 1983, staying there for an impressive 26 years. He survived the horrors of the Maxwell era, before finally falling in 2009 to another in the round of inexorable cost-cutting.
The 1980s and early 1990s were the glory days for the Record, the best-selling newspaper in the land which regularly shifted three-quarters of a million copies each day and Ian’s by-line was found on huge stories like the miners’ strike of 1984-85, the Piper Alpha Disaster of 1988 and the Dunblane massacre of 1996.
He also did his fair share of silly tales; dressing up as a parrot, a sultan and Del Boy for stories. “When you’ve had to dress up as Del Boy for a daft story, you know you’ve come a long way from Woodward/Bernstein and Watergate!” he would tell friends.
Ian was deputy Father of the Chapel at the Record and was a wise-counsel for many fellow reporters on the frenetic news-room floor. He was a great story-teller with a coal-black, mischievous sense of humour.
A self-confessed petrol-head, he loved to write features for the paper’s motoring section, test-driving Ferraris, Aston Martins and Lamborghinis. The delivery of these cars to his Corstorphine home always got the neighbour’s curtains twitching.
His work also allowed him to indulge another great interest – military matters – going on exercise with 55Para in Germany and accompanying veterans to El Alamein and Arnhem. On a family holiday to the Loire Valley in France, he neglected culture and romantic scenery, preferring instead to while away hours in a tank museum.
His exploits saw him fly with the world gliding champion and also fly on Concorde following the opening of the Scottish parliament.
Despite failing health, he kept busy in his retirement, and was devoted to his family, photography and his love of cars.
He had a nice line in self-deprecating humour, but he was a top reporter who always wanted to expose injustice and ask the questions those in power didn’t want to answer.
But he treated people with respect too. I recently found a 1988 issue of the paper where the father of a murder victim wrote to the Record’s editor to praise the “professional integrity and unbiased reporting” that Ian and his colleague Brian Swanson had shown in covering the tragic tale. “This has put me, my wife and our many friends at peace. Our heart-felt thanks” the dad wrote.
That sums up Ian well. He was one of the good guys.
Ian is survived by his widow Moira and their children Alison and Graham.
JOHN NEIL MUNRO
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