Alasdair Riley has died after a long and distinguished Fleet Street career. He was 78.
Alasdair began his career as a reporter on The Kent Messenger in Maidstone where he also worked shifts for the Kent News Agency filing news stories, features and diary items to all the national newspapers.
Alasdair’s industry, enthusiasm and prolific flow of stories soon earned him shifts on the Londoners’ Diary column on the London Evening Standard and subsequently a staff job there under Jeremy Deedes.
He joined at a time when the Evening Standard under the editorship of Charles Wintour was a highly respected newspaper publishing several editions a day with a paid-for daily circulation of between 600,000 and 800,000.
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With his innate, self-deprecating charm, his genuine interest in people and his love of the Arts, Alasdair was the perfect diarist, always a popular invited guest at book and record launches, society cocktail parties, theatre first nights, film premieres and after-parties, and he delighted in chronicling London’s nightlife for his readers with an observational eye and a sense of humour.
Alasdair moved into television when he was head-hunted by David Bell, head of entertainment at London Weekend Television, to help launch a new magazine-type TV show for Scottish Television where he was an on-screen reporter covering local news and interviewing celebrities.
But he missed the life of working on newspapers and returned to London specialising as a television correspondent for several Fleet Street papers, including The Sun, before being hired as a commissioning editor at the Mail on Sunday’s You magazine.
Eventually Alasdair went fully freelance contributing features to a wide range of publications, notably The Times where his travel articles in particular caught the eye.
Close friend and former colleague Tim Ewbank said: “Alasdair was a lovely writer. Working closely with photographer Chris Smith, he covered the Cannes Film Festival every year where his reputation as one of Fleet Street’s good guys earned him interviewing access to some of the biggest stars of the day.”
Alasdair’s funeral will be held at 12pm on Friday 20 September at Mortlake Crematorium in London.
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