Born: 12 December, 1914, in Dundee.
Died: 25 February, 2008, in London, aged 93. DON McNicoll, inevitably known as Mac during his long career in England, was a working journalist for an astonishing 72 years, nearly half of thos
e as a senior Fleet Street editor for the US-based Associated Press news agency, or "wire service". He was one of the old school, a "deadline man", obsessed with the right blend of accuracy, style and speed in beating the competition, mainly Reuters and, in those days, United Press International (UPI).
For most of his career, he was more at home with a red pencil and coffee-stained sheets of paper than with a computer, though he found himself overseeing the first computers in the AP newsroom in the 1970s – in the face of considerable hostility to the new technology from set-in-their-ways hacks.
Like many successful Scots journalists around the world, McNicoll broke into the largely "closed-shop" (union-controlled) newspaper business by joining the firmly non-union DC Thomson company in his native Dundee, initially with the People's Friend and the Dundee Courier. After joining AP in 1946, he would eventually see his byline used in thousands of newspapers around the world, notably after the death and funeral of Winston Churchill in 1965. Although he was a gifted reporter, he spent most of his AP career as an editor, first as head of the news agency's UK service, funnelling world news to British newspapers, and later as editor of its world service, responsible for AP news worldwide. He was also in charge of introducing the AP-Dow Jones financial news service to the UK, to compete with the burgeoning Reuters network.
Always eager to pass on his skills and experience in his spare time, McNicoll taught at the London School of Journalism for almost three decades, serving as its deputy head from 1965-75. For most of the 1960s and 1970s, he was chairman of the Fleet Street News Agencies' branch of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), and "Father of the (NUJ) Chapel" within AP itself. In his union role, he maintained the respect of journalists and management, navigating a treacherous path to keep his newsroom free of the strikes which beset other organisations.
McNicoll also took on the mantle of AP's "showbiz" reporter, a role which led to interviews and, in many cases, lasting friendships with stars such as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Bing Crosby, Neil Diamond, Neil Sedaka and fellow Scot Rod Stewart. McNicoll recalled attending a music industry dinner when he was already around 60. At his table, he was being teased by a group of young writers from the New Musical Express, who questioned his knowledge of pop music. At that point, Stewart, who had just become a massive star, walked over with a "hey, Don, how are you?" and joked with McNicoll over the "heavy night" the two had spent the night before.
By the time McNicoll formally retired in 1979 – though he continued writing as a freelance until left tetraplegic by a stroke in 2000 – countless Fleet Street journalists and editors had learned their trade "at his feet" in the AP office, watching their rough copy rewritten at great speed by the Scot with the booming voice and the pronounced limp from childhood polio. At McNicoll's retirement party, the then editor of the Daily Mail, Sir David English, noted that "half the editors on this (Fleet] Street, and half their staff, are 'Mac's Boys'."
Donald McKay McNicoll was born in Dundee in 1914. As soon as he was born, his father, David Birrell McNicoll, signed up with the 205th Royal Engineers, with which he would survive the battles of Ypres and the Somme before serving as regimental tailor to the Black Watch. When his father returned from the war, young Donald was at the door and ran away crying from the stranger he had never seen.
Childhood polio meant Donald McNicoll had to wear Forrest Gump-style leg irons, but he remained cheerful and determined to overcome his disability through cycling and other physical activity.
After attending Harris Academy in Dundee, he forewent a place at St Andrews University to break into journalism, first with DC Thomson, and worked under various pseudonyms. He was a football writer covering the two big Dundee teams, an "agony aunt", the astrologer "Madame Zygma" and the showbiz columnist "Shirley Wynne".
In his pre-Second World War years, still in Scotland, he also worked for the Sunday Post, the Glasgow Herald and the Daily Worker before signing up at the outbreak of the war for the Royal Army Medical Corps, initially stationed with the 194th Field Ambulance at Polmont, west of Edinburgh. His limp ruled him out of frontline action and he spent most of the war in Felsted, Essex, where he would later return to spend his retirement, founding a local Burns Night and staying active in the Royal British Legion. After his stroke, he spent his last few years in the Royal Star and Garter home for disabled ex-servicemen and women in Richmond upon Thames, west London.
Don McNicoll is survived by his wife, Anna, their son, Gavin, and a son, Ian, from an earlier marriage.
• The Scotsman is grateful to a longtime AP colleague of McNicoll's, Graham Heathcote, for material included in this obituary.
The full article contains 905 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
