My father, Frank Chalmers, was a journalist and political activist who also achieved a degree of fame as a wild swimmer.
Always keen to take to the open water, Frank never missed the New Year’s Day “dook” in the River Tay near Dundee, where he was born, and in his 40s embarked on a series of intrepid swimming feats.
In 2003 he became the first Scotsman in 50 years to negotiate the notorious Corryvreckan whirlpool off the island of Jura, and he marked his 50th birthday in 2005 by swimming the Channel. In 2008 he very nearly swam all the way across the treacherous Pentland Firth from Orkney to the Scottish mainland – a pioneering escapade that was the subject of a documentary, Crossing Hell’s Mouth, shown on the BBC in 2009.
On land Frank, who has died of cancer aged 69, had a long career as a subeditor and later editor, including at the Morning Star newspaper, Health Service Journal (HSJ) and the Food Standards Agency. He was also a union representative (father of chapel, FoC) for the National Union of Journalists (NUJ).
Growing up in Dundee, Frank was profoundly affected by his family’s stories of poverty in the 1920s and 30s, and learned to be an activist through following his plumber father, Frank, and mother, Daisy (nee Clarke), into the Communist party. He and his three brothers, Douglas, Iain and Scott, attended Kirkton high comprehensive.
Frank organised his first protests at school, including against corporal punishment, and continued on that path while studying economics at Dundee University, where he campaigned against rent rises in student accommodation. In 1976 he began a PhD, but decided to abandon it after two years to work for the Young Communist League, first as its Scottish secretary and then as national organiser.
In 1981, with my mother, his then partner, Helen Whitelaw, he moved to London – where I was born – to become south-east region TUC campaign organiser for the Jobs for Youth campaign. Not long afterwards he made it on to the front page of the Guardian – and into a Steve Bell cartoon – when he outwitted security guards to harangue the prime minister Margaret Thatcher from the pulpit of a London church.
The same year Frank switched to working for the Morning Star newspaper as an editorial assistant, training up to become a subeditor in 1983 before moving in 1985 to HSJ. Four years later he went freelance, working on various health publications before spending 14 years at the Food Standards Agency, where he edited its magazines from 2001 until his retirement in 2015.
Throughout his time in journalism Frank was the most patient subeditor and editor imaginable, but also a formidable negotiator for the NUJ, including as FoC at Macmillan publishing, which owned HSJ. It was at an NUJ meeting in 1997 that he met his new partner, Ros Bayley, a fellow journalist.
Frank’s greatest talent was bringing people together with his humour, compassion and love of music. A keen guitarist and songwriter, he organised community events at Lissenden Gardens in Kentish Town, north London, where he lived with Ros, hosted a monthly music event entitled Thank Frank It’s Friday, and brought out an album, Lissenden, with his band This Is the Story in 2023. His Burns Nights celebrations were famous.
Frank is survived by Ros, me and his brothers.
