Short illness claims life of former Scotsman Business editor

A FORMER business editor of The Scotsman newspaper has died, following a short illness.

Jim Dow passed away last night at the Marie Curie Hospice in Edinburgh, where he had been admitted late last week.

Although he had been diagnosed with an inoperable tumour just before Christmas, friends and colleagues won’t be surprised to hear that he never stopped filing his long-established commercial property column for The Scotsman – his final piece was published as recently as the 23rd of last month.

He had also been working for the last few months on a relaunch of compropscotland.com, the online commercial property newspaper.

Glasgow-based freelance, Stewart McIntosh, Jim’s partner on the project, said: “He had decided to keep on working for as long as he could. When it came to producing copy, he was like a combine harvester – story after story would pour into my inbox. I couldn’t match his output.

“Despite having spent more than half a century in traditional journalism, Jim embraced online publishing – not only being a founder partner in compropscotland.com, but setting up his own blog – jimdow.wordpress.com – and was preparing to set up his own Twitter account before illness intervened. I’ll miss his wisdom, his work rate and, most of all, his pawky sense of humour.”

Jim’s family has requested that friends and colleagues respect their wish for a private, family, funeral.