Candid Cuth bert was Postl egend
Jim played crucial role in paper’s dynamic growth
One of the Ayrshire Post’s most legendary former reporters has died, aged 75.
Jim Cuthbert was a hugely respected figure covering the political beat in Nile Court for 30 years.
His fearless reporting and ability to hold those in power to account helped Jim play a huge part in the Post’s transition from sedate weekly to a more dynamic title.
His reports and insights were enjoyed and valued by thousands of Ayrshire Post readers.
For Jim Cuthbert, who has died suddenly aged 75, was very much ‘in the know’.
Jim had the contacts and the intellect to sense when stories were about to break in his specialist world of politics.
He reported without fear or favour on the intrigues and plots that were – and are – so often a part of a fascinating but murky world.
The former Kyle and Carrick District Council swung between Tory and Labour rule and Jim had contacts in both camps.
He served the democratic process well by laying bare their various plans and rivalries, often within a party group.
So respected was Jim that he had his own Candid Cuthbert column in the Post, giving him more scope to analyse local and national stories.
His MP contacts included George Younger, Jim Sillars, George Foulkes, Phil Gallie and Sandra Osborne.
Jim Cuthbert joined the Post in the
early 1970s, having been a reporter at the Daily Record in Glasgow, and also having worked in London.
He was in his 20s, and relished his role on his home town paper.
Print journalism was booming, and the Post was building a team of specialists.
Alistair Macmillan was the police and crime man, Archie Venters focused on history and the great outdoors, young Mike Wilson had the sports pages bulging.
Typewriters provided a frenzied soundtrack to the newsroom in Nile Court, whose other rising stars included Bob Shields and Bob McKenzie.
The Ayrshire Post was transforming from a rather sedate weekly into a far more dynamic newspaper – and Jim’s role was crucial to its growing success.
Jim was to spend his next 30 years at the Post, also taking on the roles of business editor and deputy editor.
But his real joy was in nosing out the stories that those in authority didn’t want revealed, and Jim decided to take early retirement, in 2002, aged just 55.
Journalism was heading in a digital direction, and this was a bleak outlook for a man who resisted having a mobile phone.
Jim simply didn’t want or need the stress of it when he and wife Grace could be travelling to their favourite Scottish islands.
Grace was a staff nurse at the old Ayr County Hospital when she met Jim, later becoming a clinical nurse teacher at Ballochmyle.
Jim Cuthbert was born in Maybole, but his family moved back to Ayr when he was an infant.
Dad Johnny was a fishmonger, and Jim’s grandfather was reputed to be the last man to drive a tram in the Auld Toun.
After leaving Belmont Academy, Jim got an early start in newspapers as a message boy for the Ayr Advertiser.
He was later to train in Glasgow as a newspaper compositor, gaining experience with the old hot metal typesetting method.
He also tackled jobs as diverse as hospital porter and labourer on the Loch Bradan Dam scheme.
Jim and Grace lived in Maybole in the early part of their married life, before buying a house in Alloway.
They had planned to be in Arran for Easter, and next year would have been 50 years married.
They had no children of their own, but Jim was fond of his nieces and their families, even writing short stories for them.
Jim Cuthbert’s funeral service will be at Ayr’s Masonhill Crematorium on Thursday, April 28 at 10.30am.
His real joy was in nosing out the stories that those in authority didn’t want revealed