TV weatherman; Born November 9, 1923; Died November 11, 2008.
Jack Scott, who has died of cancer aged 85, was a BBC weatherman and one of the best-known faces on British television in the late 1960s and 1970s. He was the first to use a collection of magnetic icons that replaced technical meteorological symbols in 1975. He also paved the way for the computerised displays used today and his avuncular style made him popular with viewers.
John Scott, always known as Jack, was born at Ferryhill, Co Durham, and educated at Spennymoor Grammar School. On leaving Nottingham Technical College in 1941 he joined the weather service as a meteorological assistant and during the war he served on RAF stations at Sullom Voe in Shetland, North Africa and Malta. Later he worked at RAF Watnall in Nottinghamshire, in Nairobi and at RAF Uxbridge.
In 1968 he successfully auditioned to become the BBC's 20th on-air forecaster alongside the likes of other household names such as Bert Foord.
He was central to the BBC's weather department for 14 years and also made regular appearances discussing weather topics on daytime Pebble Mill at One and on John Dunn's teatime show on Radio 2. He also fronted the television series Under the Weather.
After his departure from the BBC, Scott worked for Thames Television between 1983 and 1988 and then went on to present Channel 4's magazine programme for the over-60s, Years Ahead, in 1988-89.
A keen golfer he was a former captain of Burnham Beeches Golf Club in Buckinghamshire.
Fellow members included two other former BBC weathermen, George Cowling, who proposed him for the club, and the late Foord, whom Scott proposed. As well as golf, he numbered collecting weather-related cartoons among his hobbies.
Scott's wife, Marrion, died in 2000. His son, David, survives him.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article