GOD Bless Mrs McGinty!, by Bill Anderson, is published this week by Waverley Books.
This memoir is entertaining, lively, informative and direct – about his life and times – from the man whose drive, passion, tenacity and campaigning journalism led The Sunday Post to be recorded in The Guinness Book of Records as having the highest per capita readership anywhere in the world.
Bill joined The Sunday Post in 1958 and soon became The HON Man.
Explains a spokesperson: “The HON Man idea started in a Dundee tearoom where Bill’s predecessor, John Martin, was fussing over a lightly poached egg on toast when the conversation turned to holidays, clearly overheard by the harassed waitress, who, on looking at JBM’s tanner tip, remarked, ‘You can’t have a holiday on nothing.’
“The tip was not increased but JBM said, ‘That’s a good idea’ – and The HON Man was born.”
Bill was The HON Man for seven years, a role which took him across the world. In 1968, aged 34, The HON Man became the editor.
His target reader was an imagined ‘Mrs McGinty’ and Bill would challenge his reporters: “Would Mrs McGinty want to read that?”
In 1990, Bill became managing editor at DC Thomson – awards and appointments followed.
Foreseeing the impact that the internet would have, he set up Scotland Online in the early 1990’s.
He died in 2012, but had written his story in 1982, recovering from a near-fatal accident.
His wife, Maggie, discovered the manuscript in 2014 when she was clearing out her desk. “Not before time,” Bill would have said.
This book will fascinate Post readers past and present and anyone with an interest in media, particularly in Scotland.
God Bless Mrs McGinty ! Published March 1st 2016, by Waverley Books, price £9.99 and is published simultaneously in Braille, by The Scottish Braille Press.
The book will feature at the Aye Write! Festival in Glasgow, on March 11th, 2016.
Alex Gordon and Maggie Dun – The Heyday of Scottish Newspapers
7:30pm – 8:30pm – Mitchell Library, Glasgow
Join Alex Gordon and Maggie Dun for a look behind the headlines of the biggest stories of the last 50 years in Scottish journalism.
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Waverley Books contact details…
Contact: Ron Grosset
Phone: 01413751997
Email: ron@waverley-books.co.uk
Website: http://www.waverley-books.co.uk
