Douglas was born in Aberdeen. He was teaching English in Germany when he heard about a new ITV station opening in Aberdeen.
He was one of the first announcer/programme presenters to appear on Grampian TV when it opened on 30th September 1961.
Recruited in August 1961, he was sent to Border TV, newly opened in Carlisle, where a newly appointed male announcer had a nervous collapse. Douglas deputised until they found a replacement.
He was the first voice heard on Grampian TV – prior to the station going on air, he provided the voiceover for a pre-recorded preview of the programmes that viewers could expect to see when the station launched.
He later joined former colleague June Imray to celebrate Grampian TV’s 30th anniversary in 1991.
In the early 1960s, he presented a quiz called A’ the Airts.
At the invitation of BBC Scotland’s head of news, who had seen his work while on holiday in the Grampian area, Douglas moved to Glasgow in 1967.
He was one of the first presenters of BBC TV’s Reporting Scotland from its Aberdeen studios in 1968 and moved to present from its Glasgow studios (1968 – 3rd August 1973).
Douglas spent six years with BBC News. After a Christian conversion, he left television to work for a year in Christian radio.
Returning to the BBC, he declined an offer to return to his old job, opting instead to work on the early morning radio programme, Good Morning Scotland.
He did this for four years, alongside fellow presenters John Milne, Magnus Magnusson and Mary Marquis.
When the programme moved to Edinburgh under a single presenter, he took to freelance work, writing talks, satirical contributions and a weekly light verse “which kept the wolf from the door for four years.”
In retirement, he has written four books in north-east Scots dialect Doric, including a dictionary. He is also the author of a comic history of Scotland, a humorous work of theology and two books of English verse.
Correspondence
Paul R. Jackson corresponded with Douglas in July 2019.
How did you get the Grampian TV job and who were your early announcing colleagues?
“I returned from a language school in Germany that summer and was unable to find a teaching post in my native city, I was delighted to join the new company and to discover that my university friend, June Imray, had also been appointed.
“Dundonian James Spankie was to join within a few months. Elizabeth Mackenzie, had been appointed, but never appeared on-screen. James Sleigh was an actor who worked in the studio, but was never on screen (as far as I recall). I believe he may have moved to Canada.”
How did you get the BBC Scotland job?
“In the first instance, I worked on the nightly news magazine, A Quick Look Round with Mary Marquis as presenter, but with a view to taking over as the Glasgow presenter of Reporting Scotland, when it began on April 1st 1968 and of Nationwide, when it began in September 1969. As it happened, things did not work entirely to plan.
“Reporting Scotland was to have input from three regional centres. Though the bulk of the programme came from BBC headquarters in Glasgow, there was also nightly input from Edinburgh and Aberdeen.
“As Donnie B. MacLeod, the man appointed to the Aberdeen studio, could not be available for the first few weeks, I then found myself having to go back to Aberdeen to fill in, leaving Mary Marquis to keep my chair warm in Glasgow till I was able to return there.”
Personal information
Clips of Douglas on The TV Room
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Online presence
Acknowledgements
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