Obituary: Brian McGuire, journalist turned public relations expert

For despite a successful career drawing attention to the achievements of others, Brian himself remained a private and very modest person.

The congregation at his memorial service – even more than is usually the case – must have learned some things about him which they didn’t already know.

Such as – his encounter with the Russian KGB.

Such as – meeting an archetypical gangster whose corruption was, in part, exposed by émigré novelist Graham Greene.

Such as – how a life-long involvement with the media began by filling pots of glue.

But, to begin at the beginning, Brian, the youngest of five children, was born in October 1939 in the family home – two rooms without running water at the top of a tenement in the Fountainbridge area of Edinburgh.