Former Largs ‘News’ editor Drew Cochrane has received the Scottish newspaper industry Lifetime Achievement Award.

In presenting Drew, 62, with the prestigious silver plate at the Press Awards at the Glasgow Radisson Blu Hotel Mr John McLellan, Director of the Scottish Newspaper Society said it was a unique and remarkable achievement for a journalist to edit a newspaper for 40 years.

As the Largs man stepped up on stage the background music was from The Full Monty show that he will be appearing in this week at Barrfields Pavilion Theatre.

Mr McLellan pointed out that not only had Drew written for and edited the Largs & Millport Weekly News since 1974 until his early retirement last October, but had been chairman of the Guild of Editors, the Society of Editors (Scotland) and chair of the Scottish Committee of the National Council for the Training of Journalists. He had even been locked overnight in his office toilet cubicle for ten hours on one occasion!

In accepting the award Drew said that most of the audience had not been born when he entered the hot metal world of newspapers in Ardrossan in 1969.

He quipped that when he was appointed as Britain’s youngest editor in 1974 it was the last time there was two General Elections in the one year.

It was also the height of the Watergate scandal when President Richard Nixon was forced to resign, and he joked: “My abiding regret is that the Largs paper didn’t have a Washington bureau, or we could have broken the story!” Other Largs men featured in the national press awards. Bryan Copland, who as a trainee did work experience on the local paper, was runner up in the Young Journalist of the Year for his work as news editor of the Dundee Evening Telegraph. Sean Guthrie, a former Largs reporter, was nominated in the Arts/Entertainment category for his column in The (Glasgow) Herald.

Drew Cochrane is editorial consultant with Romanes Media Group, publishers of the Largs ‘News’ for which he writes his ‘Editor’s Years’ series and a monthly Cochrane’s Column.