Alastair Borthwick

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Alastair Charles Borthwick

Second World War from the perspective of an infantryman.[1]

Biography

Borthwick was born in

Evening Times. Soon afterwards, he joined the Glasgow Weekly Herald, a smaller newspaper where, as part of a staff of five, he wrote on a wide variety of topics, including front page leads, the women's and children's pages and compiling the crossword.[3]

It was through writing for the Herald's "Open Air" page that he discovered rock climbing, an activity which had traditionally been the preserve of the well off, but was becoming increasingly popular with young, working-class Glaswegians. The nascent subculture of poor but resourceful people hitchhiking north, camping or "dossing" in caves and bothies became the mainstay of his Open Air columns, and later his first book, Always a Little Further, which was published in 1939.[4]

The book documented this social change, which

lorry full of dead sheep, all described in Borthwick's humorous style.[5]
It became a classic and has never been out of print since its publication.

During the Second World War Borthwick served with a variety of British Army units in North Africa, Sicily and Western Europe. Initially he served as a

lance-corporal.[6] His service number
was 104763.

He worked mainly as a Battalion

captain. He transferred to the Reconnaissance Corps on 14 January 1941, having by then being promoted to war substantive lieutenant.[7] He transferred to the 5th Seaforth Highlanders on 13 October 1944.[8] His most significant feat came in the Netherlands towards the end of the War, when he led a battalion of 600 men behind enemy lines in the dark, relying on his sense of direction as the maps were inaccurate.[4] The Germans woke up the next morning to find the British dug in behind them.[9]

After the War, Borthwick wrote his second book, Sans Peur (republished as Battalion in 1994), which was a history of his regiment during the second half of the war. Unlike many regimental histories written by committees or retired generals, it was written from the perspective of a junior officer who fought on the front line, and was highly acclaimed.[10]

For the rest of his career Borthwick worked mainly as a television and radio broadcaster, writing and presenting programs on subjects from

Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 1952 New Year Honours[11] for his part in organizing an engineering exhibition as part of the Festival of Britain.[4]

References

  1. ^ "ALASTAIR BORTHWICK". Undiscovered Scotland.
  2. ^ a b "No. 34723". The London Gazette (Supplement). 31 October 1939. p. 7400.
  3. ^ a b Perrin, Jim (9 October 2003). "Alastair Borthwick". The Guardian. Retrieved 11 October 2008.
  4. ^
    Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, online edn, Oxford University Press
    , Jan 2007
  5. ^ Wells, Colin (6 October 2003). "Alastair Borthwick". The Independent. Retrieved 11 October 2008.[dead link]
  6. ^ "No. 34846". The London Gazette (Supplement). 7 May 1940. pp. 2793–2798.
  7. ^ "No. 35216". The London Gazette (Supplement). 8 July 1941. p. 3975.
  8. ^ "No. 36743". The London Gazette (Supplement). 10 October 1944. p. 4676.
  9. ^ "Alastair Borthwick". The Daily Telegraph. 3 October 2003. Retrieved 11 October 2008.
  10. ^ "Alastair Borthwick". The Times. London. 18 October 2003. Retrieved 11 October 2008.
  11. ^ "No. 39421". The London Gazette (Supplement). 28 December 1951. pp. 12–13.

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