Conrad Wilson
Conrad Wilson was educated at Daniel Stewart's College, where he wrote reviews for the school magazine.
On leaving school, he trained as a journalist with the Edinburgh Dispatch. The Dispatch’s editor Albert Mackie gave him plenty space to hone his critical skills, sending him to review performances as far afield as London’s Covent Garden. National Service took Wilson to Paris, an eye-opening experience that made the resumption of his traineeship in Edinburgh seem like a step backwards. Before long he was off to Amsterdam as programme editor for Philips Records, writing with equal ease on jazz and pop.
After a spell as sub-editor in the BBC’s London newsroom, a conversation with The Scotsman’s London Editor, Eric Mackay, resulted in his appointment as the paper’s London-based Cultural Correspondent.
When Christopher Grier resigned in 1963, Conrad snatched the opportunity to head back north. “To be music critic of The Scotsman in its heyday was the job I had envisaged since boyhood,” he recently reminisced.
After retiring from The Scotsman, he continued as a freelance critic for the Herald.
Wilson is survived by a son and daughter from his first marriage to Ruth, and by his second wife Sue and their three daughters.
Abridged from Watson's obituary in The Scotsman.
On leaving school, he trained as a journalist with the Edinburgh Dispatch. The Dispatch’s editor Albert Mackie gave him plenty space to hone his critical skills, sending him to review performances as far afield as London’s Covent Garden. National Service took Wilson to Paris, an eye-opening experience that made the resumption of his traineeship in Edinburgh seem like a step backwards. Before long he was off to Amsterdam as programme editor for Philips Records, writing with equal ease on jazz and pop.
After a spell as sub-editor in the BBC’s London newsroom, a conversation with The Scotsman’s London Editor, Eric Mackay, resulted in his appointment as the paper’s London-based Cultural Correspondent.
When Christopher Grier resigned in 1963, Conrad snatched the opportunity to head back north. “To be music critic of The Scotsman in its heyday was the job I had envisaged since boyhood,” he recently reminisced.
After retiring from The Scotsman, he continued as a freelance critic for the Herald.
Wilson is survived by a son and daughter from his first marriage to Ruth, and by his second wife Sue and their three daughters.
Abridged from Watson's obituary in The Scotsman.
