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Editor reveals terminal cancer as he pens farewell column

A former regional press journalist now editing a weekly current affairs magazine has revealed his terminal cancer in a farewell column.

Kenneth Roy, who wrote his first column in the now-defunct Falkirk Mail sixty years ago at the age of 13, revealed what he termed his “unwelcome diagnosis” in a farewell column.

Kenneth, who has also worked for the Falkirk Herald and The Scotsman in the course of his long career, went on to become a BBC presenter and also established West Sound radio.

He revealed his terminal cancer in a farewell column for the Scottish Review magazine, which he has edited for the past 25 years.

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He wrote: “You may have noticed that you haven’t seen much of me this year. The editorial, for so long a regular fixture at the top of the home page, has appeared less and less and recently not at all.

“It wasn’t a case of column-writing fatigue. Though as I wrote my first column – the Bonnybridge Notes in the Falkirk Mail – in 1958 at the age of 13, the best-before date expired long ago.

“The truth – I will detain you no longer – is that I have received an unwelcome diagnosis. That isn’t an original euphemism, by the way. I’m indebted to Michael Morpurgo for thinking of it first in a recent Spectator diary about his own situation.”

He went on to describe how his attitude to current events which had preoccupied him throughout his 60-year career in journalism changed after his consultant gave him the bad news.

“I didn’t realise then that everything had changed in an instant. That realisation came the next morning when they arrived with the morning papers. The choice wasn’t wonderful: Record, Sun, Mail. I thought I might enjoy being infuriated by the Mail, so the Mail it was,” he wrote.

“Except, for once, I wasn’t infuriated. Halfway through quite a thick edition, I had found nothing to interest me.

“Did I care about any of this? Did I care if we crashed out of Europe? No. Did I care if there was a second independence referendum and, if there was, did I care about the result? Perhaps a little; but only a little.

“The world of events, so preoccupying for the last 60 years ever since my first Bonnybridge Notes, had slipped away, and would never return. Well, not for me, anyway.”

Kenneth concluded his piece by revealing that his deputy Islay McLeod would be taking over as the new editor of the Review.

“For obvious reasons I can no longer edit it. I’m on the last bus now, front row nearest the driver, and heading for the terminus. And hoping all the traffic lights are at red.

“I told Islay that we could either pack it in 15 months short of the magazine’s 25th anniversary, adding that there would be no dishonour in that. Or she could take over the editorship with immediate effect. She unhesitatingly chose the latter.

“Allan Massie has described SR as a miracle: a small independent magazine that has survived in Scotland for almost quarter of a century. The torch now passes. If anyone can keep the miracle alive, it is the indefatigable Islay McLeod – with your support.”