One of the Royal Family’s favourite photographers, Ian Hardie, has died of a heart attack, aged 81.
Former Press and Journal picture editor Hardie joined Aberdeen Journals in 1937 as its first apprentice photographer and rose to the post of senior photographer before becoming P&J picture editor in 1974.
In 1972 he won a British Press Picture of the Year award for a dramatic photograph of a female spectator with a knife sticking out of her head during an incident involving fans in an Aberdeen v Celtic match.
Because of the Royal Family’s connections with Balmoral, Hardie had close links with the House of Windsor, and at one point was rota photographer at the castle. In 1960, two of his award-winning royal photographs – of the Queen as a stall holder at a sale of work and Prince Charles holding his then baby sister Princess Anne – were included in a national exhibition on the decade’s pictures staged in London.
Hardie, who retired in 1984, is survived by his wife Rose and their three children.
Hamish MacKay
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