As told to Callum Macdonald
Andrew Drummond was born in Denmark and educated in Scotland. His father was a war-time RAF Squadron Leader flying B17 ‘Flying Fortresses’ for the RAF. He is the youngest of three sons. His mother Kirsten Vibeke Drummond, was variously, nurse, teacher, and conference interpreter.
While his father was flying with British European Airways (BEA), he attended The Abbey School at Fort Augustus on Loch Ness. On leaving school he joined the Berkshire Mercury and Reading Chronicle in Reading as a trainee reporter.
He left the ‘Chronicle’ on completion of training and passing National Council for the Training of Journalists exams, heading to London and the Fleet Street News Agency.
Shortly afterwards he took over as News Editor at Thames Valley News Service, which he left to work on the Evening News (by day)and the Daily Mail (by night). In 1973 the Daily Mail invited him in full time.
For the next 13 years he worked in Fleet Street until it disintegrated as a press centre after the Wapping industrial dispute of 1986.
Right: Squadron Leader R.P. ‘Roddy’ Drummond, D.F.C.