Thomson Foundation consultant Norrie Drummond died in hospital at Abergavenny, South Wales, on Good Friday. He was 59.
Norrie
had been working in Afghanistan since December for the Institute of War
and Peace Reporting and was coming to the end of his threemonth
engagement when he collapsed on 16 March. He was treated at a German
military hospital in Kabul before being flown back to the UK by air
ambulance three days later.
Norrie Alexander Drummond started his
journalistic career on the Scottish Daily Express in his home city of
Glasgow. A job with the New Musical Express brought him south to London
and then, after a spell freelancing in Britain and the US, he joined
the South Wales Argus in Newport in 1971. In 1988 he moved to Bristol
to work in the features department of the Western Daily Press where he
remained (apart from a six-month sabbatical in North Africa) until 1999.
Norrie
joined the Thomson team in 2001 and was a regular lecturer on
Cardiff-based courses. In between these, he worked on Thomson projects
in Sierra Leone, Bangladesh and India.
He interrupted his
assignment in Afghanistan in January to travel to Bhubaneswar, in
Orissa, to lead a Thomson programme there for the British High
Commission.
John Ryan, press division controller, said: “Norrie
was an old friend from before he or I joined the Thomson Foundation. We
were neighbours in rural Monmouthshire and had worked together on the
South Wales Argus. He was gifted, as many Scots are, with an explicit
enunciation of the English language, and overseas participants on our
Cardiff courses regularly commended him as the lecturer they could
understand the most easily.
“That ability, plus a sound knowledge
of the newspaper industry from its roots, made him a popular and valued
colleague who will be sorely missed.”
Mike Peirson, Thomson’s director for UK courses, said: “Summer courses in Cardiff won’t be the same without him.”
Norrie
lived for 35 years with fellow journalist Annabel Hughes. He is
survived by a family in Glasgow – an older brother, David (who also
worked in the newspaper industry and was circulation manager of the
Scottish Daily Express), a sister-in-law, Ena, a niece, Audrey, and
nephews, Craig, Alan and Stuart.
The Thomson Foundation
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