Colin J. Bell (1 April 1938 – 9 October 2021) was a Scottish journalist, broadcaster and author. Bell was educated at

St Paul's School, London St Paul's School is a Selective school, selective Private schools in the United Kingdom, independent day school (with limited boarding school, boarding) for boys aged 13–18, founded in 1509 by John Colet and located on a 43-acre site by Rive ...

, and

King's College, Cambridge King's College, formally The King's College of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge, is a List of colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college lies beside the River Cam and faces ...

, where he graduated in 1959 with a first-class degree in the Historical Tripos. He went on to become a journalist with various newspapers, including ''

The Scotsman ''The Scotsman'' is a Scottish compact (newspaper), compact newspaper and daily news website headquartered in Edinburgh. First established as a radical political paper in 1817, it began daily publication in 1855 and remained a broadsheet until ...

'', and was once editor of ''

The Scots Independent ''The Scots Independent'' is a monthly Scottish political newspaper that is in favour of Scottish independence. It was formed in 1926 with William Gillies as editor, by the Scots National League (SNL) and switched its allegiance to the Natio ...

''. He made the transition to broadcasting with

BBC Radio Scotland BBC Radio Scotland is a Scottish national radio network owned and operated by BBC Scotland, a division of the BBC. It broadcasts a wide variety of programmes. It replaced the Scottish BBC Radio 4 opt-out service of the same name from 23 N ...

in 1984. Bell served the

Scottish National Party The Scottish National Party (SNP; ) is a Scottish nationalist and social democratic party. The party holds 61 of the 129 seats in the Scottish Parliament, and holds 9 out of the 57 Scottish seats in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, ...

(SNP) as Executive Vice-Chairman from 1978 to 1984, and was the party's Campaign Director for the European Parliament elections in 1984. In 1979 he stood as SNP Parliamentary Candidate for Edinburgh West, and also as the European Parliamentary Candidate for North East Scotland that same year. In June 1996, he was the 13th Scot to be presented with the Oliver Brown Award. He later left the SNP to join the

Scottish Socialist Party The Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) is a Left-wing politics, left-wing political party campaigning for the establishment of an Scottish independence, independent Socialism, socialist Scottish Scottish republicanism, republic. The party was fou ...

. Bell wrote ''Murder Trail: Death for a Living''. He served as Rector of Aberdeen University from 1991 to 1993. Bell died on 9 October 2021, at the age of 83.

Footnotes

1938 births 2021 deaths Scottish newspaper editors Alumni of King's College, Cambridge Scottish National Party politicians Scottish Socialist Party politicians Scottish radio presenters Scottish National Party parliamentary candidates {{UK-journalist-stub Rectors of the University of Aberdeen