More thrills than skills – A half-life in journalism, part 47

Over the next few weeks, allmediascotland.com is to publish, each weekday, edited extracts from the memoirs of Scottish war correspondent, Paul Harris. ‘More thrills than skills: A half-life in journalism’, is being scheduled for publication next year.

IT was an extraordinarily simple and moving epistle.

It talked of his despair at his son’s suffering in Bosnia. It talked in very personal terms of his son and their relationship and his own sense of isolation at what were hurtful press reports. “I know my own son.”

But then he went on to aver that my story had unexpectedly come along and corrected the balance: alone, Scotland on Sunday had told the real story, and he was grateful for that.

“I think another press award is in order,” commented Andrew.

I didn’t get one for that story but I had, in fact, just picked up a British Press Award at a glittering ceremony in London’s Grosvenor House Hotel for my reporting from the Bosnia-Croatia border in the spring of 1992.