Obituary: Norman Adams, author and journalist

Norman Adams, the Aberdeen-born author and journalist, who has died aged 74, had a passion for ghoulish and military subjects. He was working, almost up to his death, on his latest book on body-snatchers and scripts for the Commando magazines, published by the DC Thomson group.

Paying tribute to Mr Adams, fellow journalist Ninian Reid, who collaborated with him on a number of books and film scripts, said: "All his working life, Norman was a wordsmith of extraordinary range and talent.

"The thread of Norman's literacy legacy - and it's a formidable one - could be woven round two predominant but far from exclusive themes: body-snatching and the unsettling presence of ghosts, down through the cob-webbed centuries. Much of Norman's huge talent, for flawless and engaging writing, was influenced by masters of the craft of journalism, who have long since parted company with us but who may well be gathering to welcome Norman's return to their heavenly domain."

Adams started his working life, appropriately enough, doing a newspaper round and then worked as a delivery boy for the Seaforth Laundry of Aberdeen, in the days when laundry was delivered by horse-drawn cart.

He started his career in journalism at the Aberdeen office of the DC Thomson group, before two years' national service, with the 1st Battalion The Seaforth Highlanders, which took him to Egypt and then Gibralter.

When he left the army he returned to DC Thomson in Aberdeen, where a respect for accuracy and getting the facts right was undoubtedly instilled in him by his mentor, the kenspeckle boss of the Aberdeen newsdesk, Charlie Easton.

Those qualities were further impressed upon him by Adam Borthwick, when he later joined the Aberdeen office of the Scottish Daily Express.

He worked also for the Scottish Daily Record and spent a year in what is now Zimbabwe, in the mid-1960s, with The Rhodesia Herald. After being made redundant at the Express he and two former colleagues formed a successful news agency.

He was later also editor of the north-east based Leopard Magazine and, for more than 20 years, was an associate of the Aberdeen public relations consultancy, Logik Image Management.

He collaborated also with his step-son, Mark Forbes, in producing several short films that have been screened at UK film festivals.

Said Ninian Reid: "For me, the lasting legacy of my friendship with the 'Master of Deeside Fact and Fiction' was the completion of our 1976 published novel, Bloody Tam.

"However, we have collaborated on several other projects, including a movie screenplay called A Little Life, the true story of a child murder in Aberdeen in the mid 1930s.Watch this space, because it is my intention to get this film into the movie theatre - if only to reward Norman for the two years of his precious life I managed to steal from his loving family."

Adams married Edith Garrow and they had two sons, Norman junior, a photographer with Aberdeen City Council; Kenneth, a freelance journalist; and a daughter, Eleanor, who lives with her family in Houston, Texas.

After Edith died, Norman married Moira Forbes - whose first husband, Raymond, had died in a light aircraft crash at Scone airport - and they made their home at Auchattie, a hamlet near Banchory in Kincardineshire.