A journalist’s book written from his hospital bed while he was terminally ill has been published posthumously.

Kenneth Roy, who worked for titles including the Falkirk Mail, Falkirk Herald, The Scotsman and Scotland on Sunday during his career, began working on the book prior to his death at the age of 73 in November last year.

Kenneth, pictured, who also worked for the BBC and founded Scottish Review magazine in 1995, had written and roughly edited 49,000 words of his book in three weeks while suffering from terminal cancer.

The book, In Case of Any News: A diary of Living and Dying (ICS Books), has now been published as the anniversary of his death approaches.

Magnus Linklater, the former editor of The Scotsman and The Times Scotland, wrote in the book’s introduction: “The book he leaves behind is remarkable, not just because it was written by a dying man; not just because it is finely crafted, full of wit and detailed recollection; but because it is a model of how to cope with impending death.

“It will stand as a testament to a life well led, and a death that is addressed honestly, unsparingly and with the utmost courage.”

Journalist Ian Jack, his former colleague at Glasgow-based daily The Herald, added: “Kenneth wrote this memoir when he knew he had only weeks to live. Facing up to his own mortality, sustained by the kindness of his doctors and nurses, he evokes and examines what life has meant to him – not in philosophical generalities and religious abstractions, but in its compelling and diverting particulars.

“Roy’s distinctive, wry voice is always present. His book is a marvellous achievement, often funny, always direct and honest: bleak and somehow not bleak. You will read few better accounts of saying goodbye.”

The book is published by ICS Books.