When Trees Were Green
Following his untimely death in 2022, When Trees Were Green is a collection of 50 of Fordyce’s finest articles and serves as a fitting remembrance to a brilliant career and much-loved husband, father and grandfather.
Copyright of The Scotsman Publications and used with their kind permission
ABOUT
Fordyce Maxwell was born in Ellingham, Northumberland, on 21 August 1945. The eldest of nine children, he grew up on Cramond Hill Farm near Cornhill-on-Tweed.
After studying agriculture at Harper Adams Agricultural College (now university), he joined the Perth-based Farming News before moving to The Scotsman, becoming Farming Editor in 1975.
It was there that he met Liz, whom he married the following year and became a loving adoptive father to Susie. Following the death of his own father, Fordyce returned to Cramond Hill in 1977, combining freelance journalism with full-time farming alongside brothers Angus and Donald.
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He returned to The Scotsman in 1989 and, during his 17-year second stint, he also became a regular columnist and, among other accolades, was awarded an MBE for Services to Journalism in 1995.
Much to the devastation of his family and his many friends and former colleagues, Fordyce died of prostate cancer on 22 October 2022. He is survived by Liz, daughter Jacqueline, son Tom, and grandchildren Ebba, Isla, Sabrina and Thomas.
