Obituary: David Donald, journalist and corporate PR expert

Edinburgh was a major newspaper city, boasting two evening papers, two major dailies, and a plethora of branch offices representing all the major Fleet Street titles, when David Donald left George Watson’s College, his heart set on a career in journalism.

His father was news editor of the Evening News, which might have provided the start he needed.

A charge of nepotism, real or imagined, could have followed him for years. However, Donald sidestepped the problem by obtaining a job as a copy boy on the News’s arch rival, the Evening Dispatch; before switching, in the course of his training, to its sister paper The Scotsman.

Being a copy boy in a working daily newsroom, in the early 1950s, was the classic start to a newspaper career, interrupted, in his case, by two years’ National Service in the Royal Air Force; most of which time he spent at a base in Norfolk, developing his shorthand and typing skills.

His demob, when it finally arrived, coincided with a period of major editorial change at The Scotsman, initiated, in 1953, by the paper’s new owner, the Canadian newspaper magnate Roy Thomson.

Alastair Dunnett, previously in charge at the Daily Record, arrived as editor. To head the newsroom team he hired another old Record hand, a man famous in newspaper circles as the reporter who broke the story of Rudolf Hess’ wartime flight to Scotland, Max McAuslane.

David Donald thrived under McAuslane’s demanding, no-nonsense leadership, first as a general reporter, covering all kinds of events and happenings believed to be of interest to the paper’s six-figure quality circulation; then, as industrial correspondent, covering a period of massive industrial and social change throughout Scotland.

It was a surprise, even a shock, when David Donald decided to abandon frontline reporting for a role at the Scottish Council (Development & Industry) where his duties included editing Scotland magazine, and helping to organise overseas trade fairs.

Television, then in its infancy in Scotland, offered an alternative career, either working as a freelance or full-time. Instead, his time at the Scottish Council honed his liking – and lasting talent – for marketing and corporate PR, first in Edinburgh, later in Glasgow, and finally in London where his client list included a number of corporate giants.

In 1988 his connections helped save the Scottish Junior Cup final. This was an event with a history going back more than a century, involving teams from cities and towns all over Scotland.

Even with the promise of live TV, the SJFA had been unable to obtain a sponsor. It was David Donald, following a chance conversation with a friend at Scottish Television, who introduced them to OVD Rum. To many people, it was ‘a commercial tie-up made in heaven’. The partnership lasted 18 years and without it who knows whether or not a competition which last year attracted more than 100 teams from locations all over Scotland would have survived into the millennium.

Always interested in sport as a spectacle, though never a serious participant, David Donald was an early advocate of sport, supported by commercial sponsorship, as a vehicle for social improvement, with special reference to football, where he championed the rights of fans, and major events, such as the Grand National, with its close ties to Merseyside.

On April 5, 1997 his corporate duties, as well as a deep personal interest in horse racing in all its forms, took him to Aintree for the Grand National. Among the always starry crowd filling the corporate boxes attached to the main stand, there was no-one starrier than the Oscar-winning actor, Gregory Peck, then aged 81, and his wife, Veronique.

The TV audience worldwide was vast when, shortly before the race was due to start, a confirmed IRA bomb threat forced organisers to abandon the event. More than 60,000 racegoers, ordered to evacuate the course, threatened chaos.

Unable to reach the actor’s pre-arranged transport, after a long search, David Donald spotted a passing taxi, which he waved to a halt and ‘filled the driver’s hands with cash’; accompanied by instructions to head for Manchester Airport with all possible speed, putting as much distance as possible between his cab and Aintree.

As he also liked to recall: "The man’s face was a picture when we introduced him to his special fare.”

Following his retirement in 1992 he and his wife Jean, a former journalist, lived in the Perigord region of France, where they immersed themselves in village life, until 2019, when they returned home, to live permanently in the UK, where they settled in West Kilbride.

David Robert Donald, journalist and marketing executive, was born in Edinburgh on 27 May 1934 and died in hospital in Ayrshire on 1 November 2025.

He married twice, first to Sheena Lyle with whom he had two sons, David and Jonathan; second to Jean Nicol with whom he had two sons, Nicholas and Ruari, all of whom survive him; together with five grand-children, Lorenzo and David who are based in the United States, Camas, Marlow and Daisybell. His sister, Joan Donald, a retired head teacher living in Edinburgh, also survives him.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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