Journalist.
Born: October 3rd 1936; Died: December 2nd 2013.
Hugh Quinn Farmer, who has died aged 77, was one of Scotland's most prolific and hard working journalists and former editor of the Scottish Catholic Observer. He enjoyed a career spanning five decades and enthusiastically covered every aspect of Scottish life.
He began his career on The Eastern Standard before graduating to The Daily Express, the Daily Record and The Sunday People where he remained for 27 years.
A devout Catholic he still found time in his life to assist with Flourish, the paper produced for the Archdioceses of Glasgow. Over the years, he worked closely with the bishops helping the hierarchy with media relations.
On leaving The Sunday People, he ran his own successful news agency working for all the national papers. For a long time, he was editor of the Scottish Catholic Observer.
He was the only child of Tom and Ann and grew up in Riddrie, Glasgow. He was educated at St Mungo's Academy and was also a seminarian and studied at college in St Peter's Cardross.
In 1964, he married Sheila in her home town of Ayr and the couple started married life in Clarkston. He and Sheila had three children, Tom, a newspaper photographer, Deirdre, who works in education, and Michelle, who lives in the Middle East after a career in the airline industry.
His life was informed by his strong faith and he was delighted when The Sunday People granted him sabbatical leave in order to help with the media planning for the highly successful visit to Scotland of Pope John Paul 11 in 1982. He was regularly at the Pope's side both in Glasgow and Edinburgh.
His work at this time gave him tremendous satisfaction both professionally and spiritually. It was undoubtedly one of the many highlights of his career. He was very active within the church in Scotland and forged many close and lasting friendships with people far and wide as a result.
Away from the media circles, he and his wife enjoyed family life with their children.
He was also a proud and encouraging grandfather of eight, keenly following all progress and development. He shared great times sitting telling tales of his many adventures.
In earlier years, he was a keen golfer and a fervent football fan especially of Celtic. He loved good wine and good company but travelling was one of his greatest joys and he always looked forward to breaks in Dubai and Spain. Overall France was his favourite destination though; he loved nothing better than to fly to Nice to stay at his bolthole near Antibes on the French Riviera.
For almost 25 years, he battled several health issues. He survived several heart attacks and laterally a series of strokes which eventually led to residential care before his death in Glasgow Royal Infirmary.
He is survived by his wife Sheila and their three children Tom, Deirdre and Michelle.
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