James Cameron (journalist) - Career

Career

Cameron began as an office dogsbody with Weekly News in 1935. Having worked for Scottish newspapers and for the Daily Express in Fleet Street, he was rejected for military service in World War II. After the war, his experience reporting on the Bikini Atoll nuclear experiments turned him into a pacifist and a founding member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. He continued to work for the Express until 1950, when he briefly joined Picture Post, where he and photographer Bert Hardy covered the Korean War, winning the Missouri Pictures of the Year Award for "Inchon". Picture Post editor Sir Tom Hopkinson lost his job when he defended the pair over their Pusan U.N. atrocities coverage, as publisher Sir Edward G. Hulton opted to censor the story.

In 1952, Cameron wrote an obituary essay for The Illustrated London News, "The King Is Dead", about the passing of King George VI. Cameron then spent eight years with the News Chronicle. In 1953 he visited Albert Schweitzer in Lambaréné, in French Equatorial Africa (now Gabon) and found flaws in the practices and attitudes of Schweitzer and his staff. This was the subject of The Walrus and the Terrier a BBC Radio 4 Afternoon Play by Christopher Ralling, broadcast on 7 April 2008.

Cameron also did illustration work, especially in his early career. Working in Scotland for D. C. Thomson, he drew for sensationalist items in Thomson's publications. He rebelled when asked to draw a murder of a young girl, embellishing it with excess blood and grisly detail. Called to Thomson's office, he was rebuked merely for exposing her underwear.

He was married three times, to Elma, Elizabeth and Moni; and had three children, Desmond, Elma and Fergus. Cameron's first wife, Elma, died in childbirth near the start of World War II.

Cameron wrote two volumes of autobiography: Point of Departure, a chronicle of his life, and An Indian Summer, about his relationship with India; his marriage to Moni, an Indian; and his serious car accident and near death in Calcutta.

With television, Cameron became a broadcaster, presenting BBC series including Cameron Country. He also wrote a radio play, The Pump (1973), based on his experience of open heart surgery, which won a Prix Italia award in 1973. In his last years, he wrote a column for The Guardian.

James Cameron died on 26 January 1985. He was 73.

Among his better known literary relatives are the Gighan poet the Rev Kenneth Macleod - of "The Road to the Isles" fame - and the writer the Rev Dr John Urquhart Cameron of St Andrews.