John Junor
Sir John Donald Brown Junor (15 January 1919 – 3 May 1997) was a Scottish journalist and editor-in-chief of the Sunday Express between 1954 and 1986, having previously worked as a columnist there. He then moved in 1989 to The Mail on Sunday, where he remained until his death. Noted for his deliberately provocative views, Junor was described by the Conservative MP Julian Critchley as "possibly the best-known Scotsman in England" during the 1980s and as "an ill-natured populist with a taste for common-or-garden abuse." Early life

Born in Glasgow into a "Scottish Presbyterian, respectable working class" family, Junor was raised in what he later described as "a red-stone tenement in Shannon Street in Maryhill... [in] a two roomed-flat without indoor sanitation." He attended North Kelvinside Secondary School (later merged into Cleveden Secondary School) before proceeding to study English Literature at Glasgow University. As a student he was "violently anti-Fascist, anti-Franco, above all anti-Hitler", and in 1938 he became president of the university's Liberal Club. Shortly before graduation, Junor was recruited by the Liberal Party activist Lady Glen-Coats to accompany her on a fact-finding tour of the Third Reich; they reportedly only managed to escape Germany days before the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939. During the war Junor had a commission in the Fleet Air Arm, where he edited a station magazine which so impressed the Admiralty that he was invited to become the assistant editor of a new magazine intended for the entire branch of the service. After the original choice for editor, A. P. Herbert, declined to take up the role, Junor was appointed in his place and named the magazine Flight Deck. Following demobilisation, he worked for a time in The Sydney Sun's London office before joining the Daily Express in 1947 as a reporter on a salary of 18 guineas a week. Politics
Ambitious for a parliamentary seat, in the 1945 General Election Junor contested Kincardine and Western Aberdeenshire in the Liberal interest, losing to the Conservative candidate by only 642 votes. He then unsuccessfully fought Edinburgh East at a by-election in 1947, and finally was beaten once more at Dundee West in 1951. From that point on he moved away from the Liberals (breaking with the party completely over the Suez crisis) and into the orbit of reactionary, traditional Toryism. He was a vigorous supporter of Margaret Thatcher during her time as Prime Minister, and was knighted on her recommendation in 1980. Journalism
His Sunday Express column (which he continued to write in his years as editor-in-chief) was noted for recurrent catchphrases, two of them being "pass the sick-bag, Alice" and "I don't know, but I think we should be told". Junor frequently mentioned the small town of Auchtermuchty in Fife. Junor could be brutally forthright in his column. In 1984 he wrote: "[W]ith compatriots like these [the IRA Brighton bombers] wouldn't you rather admit to being a pig than be Irish?" Following complaints that the comment was racist, Junor was censured by the Press Council in May 1985. He was often lampooned in Private Eye, which nicknamed him 'Sir Jonah Junor' and described the Daily Express building on Fleet Street as 'the Black Lubyanka'. Contempt of Parliament
On 24 January 1957, Junor was called to the Bar of the House of Commons to be reprimanded for contempt of Parliament – the last non-politician to be so called. The matter concerned an article about petrol allocation that appeared in the Sunday Express on 16 December 1956. Junor apologised:

Personal life
Junor married Pamela Welsh in 1942, and had two children. The journalist Penny Junor is his daughter, and the journalist Sam Leith his grandson. He was a lifelong supporter of Partick Thistle. Works
The Best of JJ (1981)
Listening for a Midnight Tram: Memoirs (1990)

References
Penny Junor (2002): Home Truths: Life Around My Father, 
Graham Lord (2012): Lord's Ladies and Gentlemen: 100 Legends of the 20th Century

Notes

1919 births
1997 deaths
Journalists from Glasgow
Alumni of the University of Glasgow
Daily Mail journalists
Scottish columnists
Scottish newspaper editors
20th-century Scottish autobiographers
Scottish knights
Artists' Rifles soldiers
Scottish Liberal Party parliamentary candidates
Fleet Air Arm personnel of World War II