Gordon Irving
Journalist and theatre critic who rubbed shoulders with the stars
Gordon Irving, journalist and theatre critic. Born: 4 December, 1918 in Annan. Died: 31 May,2018, in Glasgow, aged 99
From a Dumfriesshire farm to the glitterati of Hollywood was quite a quantum leap for a Classics graduate of Edinburgh University but it was one that Gordon Irving took easily in his no-nonsense stride.
Having left the Galloway coast and ditched the prospect of a career in academia he honed his trade in newspapers and, over many decades of showbiz reporting, remained impervious to the affectations of the galaxy of stars who crossed his path, once taking Danny Kaye to task for failing to acknowledge his Glasgow fan base and listing among his recreations “fighting snobs and bumbling bureaucrats”.
Irving, the eldest of three children of a farming family, was born in Annan, a small town near the Solway Firth and a world away from the glamorous movie stars that he would end up interviewing, among them Judy Garland and Cary Grant who signed his photo “To Gordon Irving, Cordially!”.
Educated at Stranraer High School and then Dumfries Academy, where he was dux, his first piece to appear in newsprint was written under the Roman name Itus when he was a teenager. It was published in the Annandale Observer and the youngster secretly lapped up the comments from readers, including maiden aunts, who had no idea he was the author.
He went on to read Classics at Edinburgh from 19361940 but, for whatever reason, decided against becoming an academic and joined the Glasgow Evening News as a journalist, later moving to the Daily Record as a news and features writer in Glasgow and Edinburgh. By this time the Second World War was well under waybuthewasprevented from serving his country, having suffered a bout of rheumatic fever as a 17-year-old.
From Scotland he moved to the newsdesk at Reuters news agency in London’s Fleet Street where war correspondents’ copy and breaking news of the Allies’ campaigns was handled with the utmost urgency. He often recalled the momentous occasion he and a colleague had to handle, at lightning speed, the D-day newsflash announcing that British troops had landed on the beaches of Normandy.
A few months later, after being briefed on the landing at Arnhem in Holland – the ultimately unsuccessful airborne assault Operation Market Garden – he was offered a strictly unofficial lift in the belly of a Dakota. The aircraft was to deliver food, weapons and instructions to Belgian resistance units in the Ardennes mountains and he could still remember seeing the headlamps of a lorry indicating the drop zone.
After the war he returned to Scotland and went back to the Daily Record where he reported on the country’s vibrant live theatre scene. He charted the rise of hundreds of stars of stage screen and radio, including comedians Harry Gordon, Dave Willis, Tommy Morgan, Jimmy Logan, Les Mclean and Stanley Baxter.
He also witnessed the heyday – and the demise – of theatres such as the Empire and Alhambra in Glasgow. The Empire, on the corner of Sauchiehall Street, attracted a host of stars post-war, including Frank Sinatra, Dorothy Lamour, Bob Hope, Judy Garland – and the American actor and comedian Danny Kaye.
Irving, who was Scotland correspondent and reviewer for the American weekly entertainment magazine Variety, upbraided Kaye for raving about his reception at the London Palladium but ignoring the thousands who cheeredhiminglasgow.itwas around the time four Scottish students removed the Stone of Destiny from Westminster Abbey and Kaye, who cabled an immediate apology to Irving for his gaffe, signed off his message:“now you can return The Stone!”
As television took off he chronicled its rising popularity and was there at the inception of STV. As features columnist of the TV Guide magazine and Scottish staffer on The Viewer, he became the first journalist to have a glass enclosed theatre box as his office, looking down from his typewriter on to the stage of Glasgow’s Theatre Royal when it was converted in 1957 into Scotland’s first commercial TV station.
In addition to his newspaper and magazine work, he was also an author andtravel writer. His publications included: Great Scot!, a biography of Sir Harry Lauder; The Good Auld Days; The Solway Smugglers; The Wit of the Scots and The Wit of Robert Burns. His book The Devil on Wheels was the story of fellow Doonhamer, or Dumfriesshire resident, Kirkpatrick Macmillan, a blacksmith who invented and built the world’s first bicycle. Macmillan had ridden the machine 68 miles to Glasgow and been fined for slightly injuring a young girl who had crossed his path when he was “speeding” at 8mph. Irving had been fascinated with his story since his student days and subsequently wrote his biography. He also wrote books on the world’s funniest signs, the story of Dumfries and Galloway Royal Infirmary’s first 200 years, 90 Glorious Years, charting nine decades of the King’s Theatre, Glasgow, plus a television script Standing Room Only (the Scottish Music Hall) and was made an Ambassador of Scotland by the Show Business Benevolent Fund.
Latterly he was semi-retired from journalism but had embraced the internet age and his Facebook page was populated with images of a parade of stars he had met down the decades. He loved surfing the worldwide web and his computer, he said, was the “greatest thing since the radio, flying machines and . . . yes, sliced bread”.
Although he was in his 100th year he also had his own website with many followers and was in the habit of signing off his emails with TALSGD – the Robert Burns line from A Red, Red Rose: till a’ the seas gang dry.
He was predeceased by his wife Betty. The Scotsman welcomes obituaries and appreciations from contributors as well as suggestions of possible obituary subjects.
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