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New frontline role for Army Reserve major, author and former Highland journalist following appointment as deputy lord lieutenant


By Val Sweeney

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Mike Edwards in the film Dementia: The True Cost which he helped to make as an ambassador for Alzheimer Scotland.
Mike Edwards in the film Dementia: The True Cost which he helped to make as an ambassador for Alzheimer Scotland.

Mike Edwards has been appointed the deputy lord lieutenant of Dunbartonshire.

The 56-year-old retired journalist is now an author, charity trustee and an Army Reserve major.

“I am humbled and deeply honoured to have been appointed to this role and I will do my level best to serve the community,” said Mr Edwards who now lives near Helensburgh.

A former pupil of Inverness Central Primary, he retired from frontline journalism in 2019 after a 40-year newspaper, radio and TV career.

He then became a full-time carer for his mother, Margaret – a former Raigmore-based nurse and tutor – who was living with a diagnosis of dementia.

Mr Edward’s father, Donald, a former railwayman who served in the Royal Navy in World War II, died in 1987.

Mr Edwards is a trustee of the Erskine charity, an ambassador for Alzheimer Scotland, a caseworker with the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association and a volunteer with Crimestoppers.

He is also on the board of the Highlanders Regimental Museum at Fort George.

"My life and career were hardly altruistic and I was all about working on the big stories and getting my next book published and studying towards my next Army promotion," Mr Edwards said.

"All that has changed and I am now doing all I can to give something back.

"I have time and energy and want to help people who need it, rather than write stories about them."

His first novel, Friendly Fire, was published in 2006 and a volume of autobiography, The Road Home, in 2018.

He is currently working on his next book and plans to write a series of novels.


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