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0 Comments | Sunday Herald, The, Oct 10, 1999

FLEET Street's most famous Scot - lampooned in Private Eye magazine as William McHackey and boasting more lawsuits to his (dis)credit than most of us have had hot dinners - is the gregarious bon viveur Peter McKay.

Now he is one of the journos spilling the beans in The Secrets Of The Press, a new tome edited by Stephen Glover. McKay reveals a few tales about how the gossip columnists - he calls himself a diarist, mind you - manage to get those saucy scoops.

"In the first years of my own career, in the north-east of Scotland, the most juicy stories about lairds, bishops, judges and MPs came from police sources," he reveals But he also recalls the legendary John Junor of Auchtermuchty, who edited the Sunday Express and who gave McKay his first break on the newspaper's diary.

"He had a simple rule, which he outlined to me after I'd discovered that a household name and showbusiness personality had a full-time mistress. "Peter, all f***ing is private. Always remember that. But if your man's marriage is coming to an end as a result of it, that's a different matter."

There was a sad farewell to one of Scotland's finest journalists at Logie Kirk in Bridge of Allan last Friday. A splendid turn-out of former editors and broadcasters attended the funeral of Alastair Hetherington, who edited The Guardian from 1956 until 1975, when he became Controller of BBC Scotland.

Alan Rusbridger, the Guardian's present editor, described him as "one of the greatest post-war editors", while Peter Preston, who succeeded him in the chair at The Guardian, also paid tribute, saying he was "the man who brought the paper to London and saved it from collapse".

He was a man of integrity and fierce principle, who made you proud to be a journalist, added Preston.