Harry Cousin

Born 23rd December 1929

died September 3rd 2015.

Harry Cousin, who has died aged 85, was an advertising executive in the newspaper industry, latterly working for The Glasgow Herald and Evening Times.

He was the youngest of four children, born in Calton, Glasgow, before the family moved to Scotstoun. His father, Bernard, was a driver.

Harry was 11 when he went to the cinema in March 1941. When he returned by tram he found all of Scotstoun and Clydebank bombed to rubble. Only seven houses were left undamaged and over 500 people had been killed.

He was always grateful to two strangers who took him from the tram stop and sheltered him in a communal tenement doorway until the bombing stopped. All his life he wondered whether these men lived or died on that night.

The family settled in Shawlands, and Harry passed the qualifying exam for Shawlands Academy, and although gifted was compelled to leave at 14 to contribute to the family finances.

His first job was as an apprentice draughtsman at Glasgow civil engineering firm Sir William Arrol. He saw National Service with the Royal Air Force, and excelled at football. Once demobbed he went into sales, initially selling Betterware, and insurance.

By now his father, Bernard, was running a pub, The Wee Hoos, in the Gorbals, and Harry worked there in the evenings. Some regulars, like Jimmy Boyle, went on to achieve notoriety.

In 1958 he started in circulation at Beaverbrook’s newspapers, who printed the Scottish Daily Express and Evening Citizen. Whilst there Harry developed a new style of advertising called the shopping tour.

Instead of just buying advertisements, regular advertisers were offered what was really the forerunner of the celebrity infomercial. Celebrities from show business or sport were taken around the advertisers’ premises and introduced to staff and customers, who had their pictures taken with the stars. The resultant story of the shopping tour was published. As simple as it sounds now, this was a very successful format.

One of his highlights was being involved with the prelaunch activities for the QE2.

When these papers shut down, he was one of only a handful of staff taken in by the rival George Outram’s who published the Glasgow Herald and Evening Times. In doing so he had declined the post of head of advertising of the Scottish Daily News, at the time hoped to be a phoenix rising from the ashes of the other papers, and run by Robert Maxwell. Always a good judge of character, Harry presciently turned this better-paid offer down, as he did not trust Maxwell.

Harry invented newspaper bingo, having been at a children’s party and seen how involved they became in the game. He was paid £10 for his trouble.

He rose again to senior positions in the Herald and Times, and contracted Legionnaire’s Disease in the Glasgow outbreak of 1984, when contaminated water vapour from a cooling tower at a nearby brewery entered the air conditioning system of the office in which he was working. This was the first outbreak of Legionella originating in Scotland, and not contracted by travellers who returned to the country.

Harry survived; some colleagues did not. He had another brush with death in 2004 when he had a heart attack in Malta. He declined to call for an ambulance as he did not want to make a fuss and travelled to the hospital instead by taxi.

Definitely a family man, after marriage he lived in Pollokshields and then Newton Mearns. He enjoyed walking his rough collies and meeting people, and followed Glasgow Rangers. After retiring he had more time for travelling with his wife, Marie, and family.

He is survived by his wife, Marie, a retired defence procurement executive, and three sons. Gary who is an oral and maxillofacial surgeon, Derek who is an advertising executive, and Ross an engineer who now teaches. Harry has nine grandchildren.