Goodbye to all that

 
The Sunday Times Scotland, as we know it, is gone. The section I edited, Ecosse, was launched in 1995. I wrote the cover of the first edition. It was a re-imagining of Scotland had the Jacobites won the Battle of Culloden.  As I recall, Sean Connery was President because we were independent and - for reasons no longer clear - Michael Forsyth had ended up Prime Minister.

Ecosse gave all its staff the opportunity to write at length on matters close to home. In those early days I conducted a cover interview with the late Donald Dewar in which he confessed to never having owned a coat. We went to an Indian restaurant called the Killermount Polo Club which I imagined was his local but he said he found  "a bit too expensive".  He kindly offered a lift into town afterwards in his very modest car.  Donald died within a few years and his will showed him to be wealthy man. He was not so much "canny" as completely lacking in materialism.

I will always be grateful to The Sunday Times for giving me space to write columns that were pro-independence. I could cast a critical eye on the country, but always with the presumption that we'd be better off outside The Union. My work has covered everything from the cultural ubiquity of the Playboy bunny to the merits of education in the great outdoors. The Sunday Times style demands clear, direct writing. It loves wit and despites waffle. Self indulgent digressions and purple patches just wouldn't make the paper. The discipline of these restrictions helped me me develop as a writer from the day I joined in 1995. That's why I was happy to return in 2006 after spending five years as deputy editor of The Herald. The team of writers at Ecosse - Gillian Harris, Gillian Bowditch, Allan Brown, Anna Burnside and Rachel Devine made the job of editing a pleasure. So did working with photographers like Stuart Wallace whose picture features here.

Finding out you are about to lose your job - on the first day of the Conservative Liberal government - has a black humour about it. The "continuing economic uncertainty" was quoted as the reason. Given that we were market leader in Scotland, that gives you an idea of how bad things are. But nobody working in the newspaper industry expects a job for life and such events bring opportunities we might have considered too risky with the safety net of an annual salary.

The last few weeks were pressured - hence the sporadic nature of this blog. That will change, and Go Lassie Go will soon go even further. I have not abandoned the paper media either and you will see my by-line again very soon. 

PS If you want the LAST EVER Sunday Times Scotland featuring Ecosse you will need to BUY it. The online version has not been put up today. I would recommend highly that you do. There's a great piece by Stuart Cosgrove on why it's okay not to support England, an interview with Louise Welsh by Gillian Bowditch, Rachel Devine on the new album by McFall's Chamber, Anna Burnside on the launch of Glitterball to help Cancer Research and me on the Alcohol Bill. 

Comments

[maork]

the Times new look website looks very similar to the NYT

[HolyroodPatter]

crazy that the scottish version outsold its more anglocentric daily cousin in relative terms, and was a market leader, and yet is scrapped. all the best!

[Benjamin]

Hey, good luck, keep up the good work!

[Jo]

Sorry to hear your news Joan. I fear you will not want to return to the Herald what with the new Editor in Chief having lately arrived from the Daily Record. ; )

[David Park]

Thanks Joan for all your efforts to bring a modicum of balance to an increasingly rabidly pro-union press. There's not even an attempt to disguise their loathing of the SNP and independence suporters anymore. We, and our aims, are simply illegitimate (like anything that could potentially undermine the establishments vested interests) and are deserving of nothing but obloquy.

[Steve Brannigan]

Thank you so much for all the brilliant articles you have given us over the years, Sunday's will not be the same!
Keep fighting the good fight Joan.

GO LASSIE GO!!

[1971Thistle]

Good luck and keep writing!

[Mike Ritchie]

I appreciate you will continue to write in this space in award-winning style and, hopefully, elsewhere, too.
I'm not alone in buying today's final edition that includes Ecosse. This is a severe loss to the newspaper scene in Scotland - and no political agitation, as far as I'm aware, either?

[Mogreb-El-Acksa]

Joan
If you're looking for a job....how about starting up a pro independence (unbiased would be good enough) web based news paper with Iain Bell (not Iain Macwhirter). At the Herald Bell isn't allowed to mention Scottish politics, and his sketches of first minister's questions have been reduced to the size of a postage stamp. I heard Macwhirter on radio scotland 12th May am.....already he's predicting the SNP are dead in the water for the 2011 holyrood election and it's Labours for the taking.

[joanmcalpine]

Thanks for all your kind comments. I will not be away for long and have a number of really exciting opportunities - and that's not a code for more gardening! Lallans it's true that more women seem to end up on features, though often that's as much from choice as anything else.

[Hythlodaeus]

You're a loss to News International anyway, although I'm afraid I was always a Sunday Herald reader. I just hope you aren't left on the dole as too many journalists seem to be these days. I am, however, excited by the prospect of more blogging from you.
Incidentally, as Wardog says, excellent photo.

[Mary Picken]

Sorry to see Ecosse go. It was always essential reading, and in the early days even paid me for the odd snippet. Sadlymcannot buy the last edition - they don't sell it in my part of the UK

[Wardog]

Sorry to hear this Joan, although like you say it seems to have been in the offing for a wee while. All the best with the new endeavour, I look forward to reading more Go Lassie Go as one for the few pleaces where I can read enlightened, fair and rational views dealing with issues pertinent to Scots.

PS Great photo, you look stunning! ;-)

[Lallands Peat Worrier]

Also, if I may say so, striking that your knot of Ecosse writers were so dominantly female. Isn't that rather unusual, in the slugging profession of journalism? In any case, fare thee weel with all your new endeavours!

[Kirsteen Fraser]

I'm sorry to see the Scottish Sunday Times as it was go. I found it one of the most impartial, refreshing and informed reads in Scotland and a cut above anything else that was on offer.