Scoop was an apt nickname for a journalist whose prolific career
both started and ended at the paper he loved, the Linlithgow Gazette.
Vic Wood, or Mr Gazette as he was known, was born in Linlithgow in 1945.
At
16 he enrolled at Torphichen Typing and Shorthand School in Edinburgh
and secured his first job as a junior editorial messenger with the
Scottish Daily Mail.
In 1962, his dream of a journalism career
came true when he was appointed trainee reporter with his hometown
newspaper. He worked on several papers in England but returned to
Linlithgow in 1968, taking up a reporter’s post at the Gazette. It
proved to be a fateful move, for a year later, Vic met his wife-to-be
Glenna Gilmour, of Philpstoun. They tied the knot in 1970.
Vic
worked on both the Evening Citizen and Daily Express in Glasgow before
beginning an African adventure at the East African Standard in Nairobi.
While
Vic loved Africa, the lure of Lithgae resulted in just a year’s stint
abroad. Happily, the family’s return home coincided with the launch of
Radio Forth, and director Donald Ford offered Vic a job in the newsroom
in 1976.
Vic was lured back to the Gazette in 1977 when he was
headhunted for the sports reporter’s post. But a promotion to sports
editor saw him return to Radio Forth in 1980.
In 1988 he branched
out on his own, working freelance for the Stirling Observer, The
Scotsman and the Daily Record. But in 1990 he returned to his beloved
Gazette as sports editor, and it was here he worked until his death.
To readers, he was and will always be Mr Gazette, one of the town’s true characters who never took himself too seriously.
To us he was and will always be a much respected and cherished friend who will be very sorely missed.
Vic is survived by his wife Glenna, children Marlene and Steven and grandchildren Lucy, Neil and Nicole.
Julie Currie, Linlithgowshire Journal and Gazette chief reporter
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