HERALD COLUMNIST PASSES AWAY
FIDELMA Cook, the much-loved Herald columnist, has died. Fidelma, aged 71, had been suffering from cancer. Her son Pierce Cook-Anderson said she was admitted to hospital on Friday and passed away peacefully on Saturday morning in her sleep. Medical staff think she suffered a heart attack.
Pierce said: “I spent two weeks with her recently and she perked up noticeably. I managed to get her outside for the first time in months and we drank wine most nights, which was nice.”
He said his mother was always happiest when she was writing and even in the midst of her illness she continued to file her weekly column for The Herald Magazine. Pierce added: “She loved company and called herself a gregarious reclusive. She was always interested, always asking questions. She was a journalist to the end.”
The grandmother of two was born in Blackpool and began her career in English local newspapers in the seaside town, before moving to TV where she was a reporter for BBC Scotland. She also worked for the Daily
Mirror, Daily Record, Sunday Mail, Daily Mail and Daily Express. After being made redundant from The Mail on Sunday, at the age of 56, she left behind her flat in Glasgow’s west end and moved to France with her Afghan hound Portia.
She began a weekly column in The Herald in 2006, writing about her new life in the south of France. She quickly became a favourite of readers. Far from painting an idealised picture of her new home Las Molieres, which she bought in 2007, she was open and honest about the ups and downs of leaving everything she had known behind, and the difficulties of maintaining her sometimes ramshackle new home.
She also wrote, sometimes blisteringly, about the expat community, some of whom cut her out of the social circle. However, she was glad to be free of them.
Fidelma enjoyed a unique relationship with her readers. When they opened the Magazine on a Saturday, she invited them into her life.
The relationship was reciprocal – earlier this month she wrote about how much the thoughts and prayers of the readers meant to her. Her columns ranged across many topics.
She could write movingly about friendships and ageing, and was also fierce in her political views, especially her distaste for Brexit and the present UK Government.