A WELL-known figure in Scottish weekly journalism who chronicled life in West Fife for almost half

a century has died in Queen Margaret Hospital, Dunfermline. James Ditchburn, of Iona Road, Dunfermline, who retired in 1985 after 33 years' service with the Dunfermline Press - the last 27 as assistant editor - was aged 78.

The professionalism of the man who played midwife to the new-style Press during its renaissance in the technological revolution of 1969 made him the mentor to many home-grown journalists now plying their trade in the newsrooms of

the national press.

Born in Pittencrieff Street, the son of a brassmoulder and the eldest of a family of four, Mr Ditchburn took a fierce pride in his Dunfermline roots. His father was for 25 years secretary and treasurer of Dunfermline's Holy Trinity Church, which he himself was to serve for a time as organist and choirmaster.

As the Courier's first trainee in its Dunfermline office, he brought to the job the intellectual gifts that made him dux of Pittencrieff School and winner of the Gifford Memorial Prize for excellence at Dunfermline High School.

Only two years after entering journalism, he was called up for war service as a Royal Artillery signaller. Captured at the fall of Singapore in 1942, he was liberated on VJ Day, 1945, after 27 months of forced labour as a prisoner of war in Japan. He returned to work with D C Thomson in Dunfermline in February, 1946, and in October of that year he was posted to the firm's Edinburgh office to cover the capital and

West Lothian for the Sunday Post, People's Journal, and Weekly News.

In July, 1952, Mr Ditchburn was invited to join the Dunfermline Press to extend the paper's district coverage. He was promoted chief reporter in 1957 and assistant editor the following year - exercising special responsibility for the paper's sports coverage during the Stein era and serving for more than 12 years as council correspondent.

During his Press service, which bridged the company's centenary and 125th anniversary, he served with four editors and three generations of the Romanes family.

In half a century of chronicling the developments in Dunfermline and district, Mr Ditchburn recorded the ecstasy - the Pars' 1961 and 1968 Scottish Cup victories - and the agony - the carnage of the first air raid on the Forth and the grief of Valleyfield as it mourned its dead in the colliery disaster of 1939.

Mr Ditchburn is survived by Mary, his wife of 51 years, and their two daughters, five grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.