News
A tale of living your dreams
August 1st 2024
The moment that sparked off a lifetime career in journalism for our associate editor and chief correspondent, Tom Ballantyne, was a school guided tour of Edinburgh’s Scottish Daily Mail newspaper. Read More »
“It was one of those light bulb moments,” Tom said. “The news room was alive with the rapid click-clack of typewriters, the air heavy with smoke from cigarette puffing reporters, telephones ringing with a sense of urgency, the constant noise of the tele printers spitting out news from across the globe.
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“Sub editors were scribbling away as they fine-tuned copy, yelling for copy boys to collect the finished product and rush it down to the typesetters.
“Then the rumble of the massive printing presses as, late in the evening, they began spewing out the next day’s newspapers then being loaded onto waiting trucks for dispersal all over Scotland.
“It was an unbelievable buzz, an incredible atmosphere packed with excitement and anticipation.
“That was it. From then on, all I ever wanted to do was be a journalist.”
Tom began his career doing the hard yards as a 16-year-old copy boy at the Daily Mail’s Scottish subsidiary, progressing to cub reporter at the Stornoway Gazette and West Coast Advertiser in the Outer Hebrides - yes - to covering guerrilla conflicts as a war correspondent in Southern Africa, most particularly Angola, Mozambique and Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).
Tom’s fifth book, Flying High and Low: A Reporter’s Journey, is a paean to the people and experiences he has met on the path from humble copy boy to one of the aviation industry’s most respected and informed reporters.
In his latest book, Tom describes umpteen unforgettable times as a cub reporter, war correspondent and aviation reporter. He recalls some highlights below.
Southern Africa
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“We always carried paper replicas of the flags of each of the warring groups. As you approached a roadblock, you had to quickly decide whether it was manned by FNLA, MPLA or UNITA, grab their flag and slap it onto the windscreen. Pick the wrong flag and you were more than likely going to end up at the wrong end of a salvo from a Kalashnikov,” he recounts.
“These roadblocks were manned by fighters, many of them little more than kids. Some as young as 13 or 14 and trigger happy. We also carried a Polaroid camera. If you could take their pictures and give them instant snaps, they were as happy as kids in a toy shop.”
The airline industry
“In my career, I have been fortunate to have met and interviewed some extraordinary men (airline CEOs). I say men because only a handful of women are in charge of airlines around the world. It is a situation the industry is working to correct,” he said.
“These brilliant chief executives include Sir Rod Eddington at Cathay Pacific Airways and later British Airways, Idris Jala at Malaysia Airlines, Sir Tim Clark at Emirates Airline, James Strong, Geoff Dixon and Alan Joyce at Qantas, Chew Choon Seng and Goh Choon Phong at Singapore Airlines, Jaime Bautista at Philippine Airlines and Tony Fernandes at AirAsia.
“All these people, and many others, inspired me. They worked relentlessly, solved major problems and steered their companies through crises. And all of them, as did others, gave me their time.
“Some became friends. People often say to me I am an aviation expert. True, I’ve certainly picked up a lot of information over the years and can discuss the industry’s issues at length.
“But I tell them I am not an expert. I am just a reporter who interviews the experts and turns what they say into readable copy.”
