Russell Stewart

Posted: August 3rd, 2022

RUSSELL Stewart originally joined the board as a trustee in 1996 before standing down eight years later, in 2004, when he left the Daily Record. He rejoined the MGNPS board as a member-nominated trustee in Spring, 2022, succeeding Alan Burns.

He said: “I know from my previous experience as a trustee that our pension fund has had its problems in the past and continues to be of concern to all the members of the Board. Things are getting better since Maxwell’s treachery more than thirty years ago, but the pressing matter of the funding deficit in the MGN Pension Scheme remains. And so does my desire to see the fund fully restored.”

Russell started at the Daily Record and Sunday Mail in Glasgow’s Hope Street offices as a 15-year-old publicity office junior in 1971, eventually becoming assistant manager of the department. After the workforce “Maxwell” strike of 1986, he moved to become a night librarian at Anderston Quay for the next 17 years. He then took advantage of a re-training scheme and became a sub-editor at the Daily Record’s new head office at Glasgow’s Central Quay.

Russell was Father of the Chapel of the Graphical, Paper and Media Union for ten years while at the Record, and also became a branch committee member and TUC delegate.

Following redundancy in 2004, Russell worked as a freelance journalist for a number of news organisations, including the Glasgow Herald, specialising in sport and motoring.

Russell lives in Glasgow and is married to Ginny, with five children and seven grandchildren between them. A keen sportsman, in his teens Russell played football for Queen’s Park FC for two seasons at the world-famous Hampden Park Stadium. He now swims three times a week and has been a member of the Erskine Golf Club since 1982.