Limited-edition book by Torquay author David Scott reveals a life shaped by journalism and family secrets

The golden years for local newspapers before their sharp decline are vividly brought to life in an autobiography published this week by well-known Torquay author David Scott.

'Born 2B Different' tells the story how for more than 30 years owning a newspaper was almost like having a licence to print money before the internet and social media brought about a cataclysmic collapse. Newspapers which once sold hundreds of thousands of copies a night, now barely sell a few thousand.

The book is full of stories about Torquay over the last 35 years, the people he has met and some of the political battles he has fought.

David began his journalistic career straight from school as a junior reporter on the wonderfully named Barnoldswick and Earby Times – a small weekly paper on the Yorkshire/Lancashire border. He did an old-fashioned three-and a-half-year apprenticeship after which he was rapidly promoted to sports editor and then deputy editor of an Essex newspaper.

By the age of 27, he was Editor of the Romford Observer and five years later Editor of the Banbury Guardian. After being head-hunted by Reed International, he became the launch Editor and then Managing Director of Britain’s first free daily newspaper the Birmingham Daily News which delivered 300,000 copies four days a week to homes in Birmingham.

He surprised the industry when he left the comforts offered by a large company to set up his own business training more than 9,000 journalists over a 30-year period in journalism, management and law. This took him to the Falklands on three occasions to train staff on the Penguin News and local radio station.

In between his newspaper career and his meetings with people like tyrannical Burnley Football Club chairman Bob Lord, Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe and comedian Jasper Carrott David nearly became an MP, lost a council election by one vote and then won by 700 votes in a by-election in the same ward a few months later. This led to him becoming the youngest-ever Mayor of Maldon in Essex.

'Born 2B Different' is peppered with stories about a violent childhood, what life was like in Britain in the 1960s and 70s and how when he was 63-years old, he discovered the most shocking answer to a family mystery.

David is also the author of The Funk Hole Myth – the story of Torquay in World War Two, The History of Upton Vale Baptist Church and a trilogy of novels set in Torquay between 1922 and 1943.

The book is a limited edition and only available direct from David who can be contacted via email at DScottTorq@aol.com