Obituary : Francis (Frank) Dougan

Francis Dougan. journalist. Born: 1 October, 1929, in Glasgow. Died: 16 April, 2011, in Rutherglen, aged 81.

Francis Dougan, known to friends and family alike as Frank, has died aged 81. He was a newspaper reporter in Glasgow before joining Scottish Television, where he worked for 29 years.

Over those years, though, he had other roles and interests - as a publican, winning race-horse owner and businessman. In retirement, he retained his business interests as well as political ones. He was always a family man who enjoyed holidays in France, a country he first came to know during National Service.

His parents, Francis and Sarah Evers Dougan, raised him and his three sisters at Dixon Avenue on Glasgow's Southside. As a schoolboy he attended Holyrood Secondary School.

In 1945 his parents encouraged him to train as an optometrist, but after a year he gave up his studies - he wanted to be a newspaper reporter.

Freelance work ended in 1948 with National Service when he was posted to Shaef (Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force) at Fontainebleau outside Paris. There, he single-handedly produced a forces newspaper. Cpl Dougan toured France, a country he would return to repeatedly in later years, at the army's expense.

In 1950 Glasgow was a vibrant newspaper city. Competition between newspapers and their reporters was fierce and sometimes furious.

Joining the Govan Press in 1950, Dougan went on to work for the Glasgow Observer and Scottish Catholic Herald, finally joining the Bulletin in 1955.

Dougan had married Trudy Tomeny in 1952. They had met four years earlier at the Cameo Dancehall. She later said their eyes had met across the room, adding that she had arrived with one man and went home with another. Gerard, their only child, was born in April 1955, and by this time the family had settled in Rutherglen.

The Bulletin closed in June 1960, and Dougan became an early recruit to the Scottish Television news desk. 1Independent Television was not long established in Scotland. STV was the brainchild of Roy, later Lord, Thomson, and would become his "licence to print money".

Working alongside news editor Eric Wilkie, Dougan established a network of correspondents to serve the fledgling news service operating out of the Theatre Royal in Cowcaddens, in opposition to the BBC, as well as develop close relations with ITN in London.

Later, in a rare departure, he was assigned to produce the consumer affairs programme Raw Deal. It was both a personal and a popular success.

In 1972 Scotland Today was launched as STV's flagship evening news programme. Dougan was an essential part of the behind-the-scenes news team which went to turn the award-winning programme, initially fronted by John Toye and Bill Kerr Elliot, into ITV's top-rated regional news programme. It was rarely out of the top ten regional programmes across the network and more usually in the top five, with repeated appearances at No 1. In 1981 he helped establish ITV's first regional Oracle teletext service at Cowcaddens.

Somehow he also found time to run the Moy Bar, a small pub on Glasgow's Paisley Road, with the help of Trudy. Then there was his venture into glass ornament manufacture with Selkirk Glass in 1977.

In the early 1980s, Dougan and four friends decided to have "a bit of fun" and bought a racehorse. Fredcoteri, named from an amalgam of the owners' first names, was stabled in County Kildare with Arthur Moore.

Ridden by Tom Taffe, its first big win was the Irish Sweep Hurdles in 1983. Staff in the newsroom put money on the horse and those, such as sports reporter Jim White, enjoyed big winnings.

Dougan's son, working offshore, was another winner - paying for his bride's wedding dress from the proceedings - along with most of the workers on the platform. Fredcoteri won the same race the following year. Three more big wins followed finishing with the "Bic Lanzarote" at Kempton in 1988.

Retiring from Scottish Television in 1989, Dougan was a founder member of the Scottish Television Pensions Association and continued to devote himself to various business interests including Clan FM, a local station in Lanarkshire.

He was also an early member of the Scottish Senior Citizens Unity Party, campaigning for seats in the Scottish Parliament.

In 2009 doctors gave him one month to live. He was determined to prove them wrong, and did.

He is survived by his wife Trudy, son Gerard, daughter-in-law Marie, his grandchildren Laura, Callum and Lewis, and his youngest sister Ida.

Bob Cuddihy