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August 15, 2002updated 22 Nov 2022 12:58pm

Innes Irvine

By Press Gazette

Former Sunday Mail journalist Innes Irvine, who was based for many years in Arbroath, Scotland, has died, aged 79.

During his long career, Irvine worked as a reporter on both national and local newspapers, covering events in Scotland and overseas.

He was the first reporter to be invited onto a North Sea oil rig to witness oil being extracted.

In later years he made his living as a freelance journalist and even after retiring remained active, filing stories to papers until very recently.

Born in Edinburgh, Irvine was educated at George Heriots School in the city. He studied history at Edinburgh University but this was interrupted by the outbreak of the Second World War. He worked in the Lothian shale mining industry during the war and when peace was declared he didn’t return to university but entered journalism, taking his first job at the West Lothian Courier in Bathgate.

He later worked in Dundee on NCR’s company magazine before moving to the Sheffield Telegraph, the Arbroath Guide and then the Sunday Mail.

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After retiring from the Mail, Irvine returned to the Arbroath Guide and also worked on sister titles the Carnoustie & Monifieth Times and Broughty Ferry Times during the Seventies. When the Guide series folded, he went freelance.

Irvine was an elder of the Arbroath Old & Abbey Church and a member of Arbroath Probus Club. His other interests included rugby, golf, reading and gardening.

Married on July 4, 1947 in Armadale, West Lothian, he is survived by his widow Mae, son, Keith, and two grandchildren, twins Jamie and Ben.

Colin Hogarth

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