Obituary - Bill Owens, journalist

Died: September 17, 2017

BILL Owens, who has died aged 85, was a journalist who established his reputation in the 1950s and 60s covering some of the major Scottish stories of the time, including the notorious Bible John murders. He later co-founded Fitzgerald Owens, which became one of Scotland’s biggest, busiest and most respected news agencies.

He was born in Haugh Road, Glasgow, where his parents, Mary and Charles, owned a fruit and vegetable business, and was educated at Overnewton Public School and Victoria Drive secondary school in Scotstoun.

He started his career in journalism as a junior reporter on the now closed Clydebank Press, where his contacts in the industrial relations-troubled shipyards were legendary. He was then conscripted to do national service in the Royal Air Force and was stationed at RAF Rufforth in York and Bomber Command in Inverness.

After demobilisation, he progressed to The Scotsman and the Daily Record where he wrote the Pat Roller column, a nightly diary of Glasgow’s dark side made up of news items collected in police stations, hospital casualty departments and mortuaries. He also wrote for The Washington Post, The Toronto Star, and the National Enquirer.

While writing for the Daily Record he was offered a job in Fleet Street, but chose instead to set up a freelance news agency in Dumbarton with his Sunday Mail colleague, Gerry Fitzgerald. At the time, Dunbartonshire was a fertile area for freelance journalists and stories came from the embryonic Clyde Submarine Base at Faslane on the Gareloch, the tourist areas of Loch Lomond, the Clyde shipyards, and the Singer factory in Clydebank.

Dumbarton Sheriff Court was also one of the busiest in Scotland and Owens was one of the best court reporters, who could boast a shorthand speed in excess of 160 words a minute.

He was so fast at Pitman’s that when the official note takers failed to turn up, the sheriff clerk would ask Owens if he would fill in for them.

The Fitzgerald Owens Agency was then given the contract by Helensburgh Advertiser owner Craig M Jeffery to supply the whole editorial content and photographs for a new Dunbartonshire weekly.

The County Reporter started out in life with an exclusive front-page splash about the closure of Denny’s shipyard in Dumbarton with the loss of 2,000 jobs while the newspaper prospered in a highly competitive market.

Fitzgerald Owens also landed a contract with BBC Scotland to supply news items in Glasgow and opened a bureau in Sauchiehall Street for that purpose, but it too was to expand and supply news to London and international media outlets which did not have a presence in Scotland’s second city.

The company then branched out into public relations and opened Impress, which handled media relations for a number of prestigious companies and individuals including Sir Jackie Stewart, who was making his mark as a Formula 1 champion.

Liverpool-based Littlewoods Pools also hired Fitzgerald Owens to arrange for winners’ cheques to be presented by Scottish celebrities, including the late Jimmy Logan.

One of the unusual requests Owens received through his public relations company was from the Lorimer family who owned Kellie Castle in Fife. They wanted him to design a flag for the castle, which they hoped to open to the public. Bill suggested they open an art gallery and recruited art teacher John Lyons who ran art competitions for school children, to set up a competition in which the winners would have their artwork displayed in Kellie Castle.

After having the flag designed, Owens then contacted the late Sir Nicholas Fairbairn to carry out the official opening.

Owens, tall, dark and handsome was always immaculately dressed in the image of a reporter out of an American B movie. He smoked cigars, drank modestly and wore a bow tie, a fedora and a trench coat.

At the beginning of the 1980s, he decided to seek sunnier climes and moved to the Middle East and Bahrain, where he worked for the Al Hilal Group as editor in chief of The Gulf Daily News.

During his tenure there he was once taken to a secret location in a Mercedes limousine with curtained windows and armed guards to interview Yasser Arafat.

He told colleagues he had been approached by the FBI and informed that his telephone had been tapped as they believed he was on a terrorist hit list.

While in Bahrain, he was invited aboard the Royal Yacht Britannia to meet The Queen and Prince Philip.

Five years on, Owens quit the Middle East and travelled to Sydney where he purchased a business newsletter.

It provided news of business contracts in the Middle East, and he became involved in setting up the Australian branch of the Al Hilal Group.

He remained in Sydney until his retirement, but travelled to Scotland often to see his ex-wife Chris, with whom he remained friends, and his children, Paul and Nicola.

Bill Owens is survived by them and by his partner Louise, and their son, Uilleam, and his two other children Robin and Briony.

BILL HEANEY