Alastair Charles Borthwick OBE (17 February 1913 – 25 September 2003) was a Scottish author and broadcaster whose books recorded the popularisation of climbing as a working class sport in Scotland, and the Second World War from the perspective of an infantryman.
Borthwick was born in Rutherglen but raised in Troon and later Glasgow where he attended Glasgow High School and was a member of the school's Officer Training Corps. He left school at the...
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Alastair Charles Borthwick OBE (17 February 1913 – 25 September 2003) was a Scottish author and broadcaster whose books recorded the popularisation of climbing as a working class sport in Scotland, and the Second World War from the perspective of an infantryman.
Borthwick was born in Rutherglen but raised in Troon and later Glasgow where he attended Glasgow High School and was a member of the school's Officer Training Corps. He left school at the age of sixteen to become a copytaker for the 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.
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...
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