obituaries


and also continued to make a contribution to community life and journalism. A graduate of Cambridge


University, having studied history and geography, he was erudite. In 2018, he was made an NUJ member of honour in recognition of his lifetime commitment to trade unionism and journalism. Laura Davison, the NUJ general


Charles Harkness


Charles Harkness, a former deputy general secretary of the NUJ, has died aged 82, after having cancer. Charles was deputy general


secretary from 1975 to 1981, having served as a tough national executive council member at a time of significant industrial upheaval in the media sector. He was centrally involved in co-ordinating the national


newspaper strike from December 1978 to January 1979, which involved 8,000 journalists. The seven-week strike was the biggest stoppage in the NUJ’s history. He was also a community


activist, served as a Labour councillor and pursued his passion for equality and social justice. In recent years, he battled ill health with determination and humour


secretary, paid tribute: “Charles Harkness was an activist, an official, a trustee of our charities, an expert on standing orders, an adviser but, above all, a committed member who believed in and lived the values of the NUJ.” Dr John Lister, who worked with


him for several years on the standing orders committee (SOC), commented: “Charlie combined a real talent for teasing out minutiae with a naughty sense of humour and a readiness to chat, drink and be sociable. “He moved down to Rye while on SOC and his involvement with the local news there clearly delighted him and gave him a new fund of


used as a touchstone,” said Laura Davison, NUJ general secretary. David’s roles on the Scottish


David Gow


Anyone running an NUJ branch needs someone of the calibre of David Gow on the committee. It was the privilege of Edinburgh freelance to have just such a member, not only as the treasurer since 2019 but also as a journalist with a formidable contacts book. It was David who invited speakers


including Richard Norton-Taylor, former Guardian security editor, and Dame Frances Cairncross, author of the Cairncross review into a sustainable future for journalism.


20 | theJournalist


And it was David who served as the branch’s unofficial moral conscience, reminding members to stay on the case on issues such as freedom of speech, strategic lawsuits against public participation and the threats to journalists in Ukraine and Gaza. His death from a heart attack at the age of 80 has been deeply felt by the union. “We have lost a good friend, a loyal member and a standard-bearer for the NUJ code of conduct, in which he took pride and


executive council and the national executive council followed a prestigious career at home and abroad. He joined The Scotsman as a graduate trainee in 1969 in his birth city of Edinburgh. With a degree from the University of Oxford in modern languages, he was well placed to become the paper’s first Europe correspondent. In his 20 years at the title, he also covered industrial relations and became the London editor. Europe was where he thrived. Soon after moving to the Guardian in 1989, he was dispatched to Bonn where he spent six years as the German correspondent. Following a spell back in the UK, he was made European business editor, a position he held until retiring in 2012. “David was one of the very best


journalists I’ve worked alongside,” said Christine Buckley, editor of The Journalist and a colleague on the UK industrial beat while at The Times. “Sharp as a tack and witty, he cut through nonsense with a gusto. His energy was boundless, as was his sense of fairness.”


curiosities and stories for the lunch times and post-SOC breaks.” At the NUJ delegate meeting


where he was made a member of honour, Charles spoke on a motion urging the union to work with Cardiff University’s centre for media studies to investigate ways of helping hyperlocals such as Rye News to be set up because traditional papers were no longer providing adequate local coverage. He felt passionately about this. His typically robust speech focused on the falling standards of living: “I want you to be angry because the government was telling us this week that there are more people in employment now than in the 1970s – but what sort of employment? The gig economy? Zero-hour contracts, where you don’t know whether you can afford the rent from one week to the next?” He pointed out that few journalists


were still employed by large local newspaper groups and were paid little more than the £19,000 he earned in the 1970s – and that more freelances had uncertain incomes.


After returning to Scotland with his second wife, Gayle Brinkerhoff Gow, he joined fellow journalist Fay Young in setting up Sceptical Scot, a non-aligned website discussing the nation’s future. In print and in person, David relished lively debate and was neither narrow minded nor doctrinaire. While his professional achievements were great, his manner was always down to earth. “He was proud of those things but he wore it lightly,” said Young. Although officially bringing Sceptical Scot to an end in 2022, Gow continued to file articles and commission writers until his death. “He was passionate about the economics and politics of Scotland,” said Young. “All these stories are complex. There isn’t a simple black-or-white answer to the problems so politicians dodge them. David really wanted to hold them to account.” She observed many tributes sent to Sceptical Scot had used the word ‘irreverent’: “That kind of sums him up: the devilish grin and laughter.”


Mark Fisher


JESS HURD


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