The Arnold Kemp archive you will find on the left hand menu on this page is an attempt to compile some of my father’s writing. For many years, he wrote reflectively and thoughtfully about many things. He had an international outlook and travelled widely. He was fluent in Fench, read Le Monde, loved Paris and often wrote about it. He was less confident in spoken German but made a habit of reading Die Zeit. He also spent time in Moscow, Berlin and New York and sent many dispatches back from the US, Germany, the former Soviet Union and Asia. He met many of the most important figures of the age: Margaret Thatcher, Nelson Mandela, the Queen and Ronald Reagan.
He saw himself a a European but also loved Scotland and he had an unusually deep knowledge of his country’s history, politics and culture. Over his more than two decades as deputy editor at the Scotsman and editor of the Herald he had a lasting influence as a advocate of devolution.
Towards the end of his life, Arnold Kemp found a new role as foreign news editor at the Observer in London, a role to which he brought a lifelong study of world affairs and his talents as an editor and journalist. He also wrote a column for the Scottish edition.
It is many years since his sudden death from a heart atack at the age of 63 in 2002. In that time, it has become more possible to seperate out the more ephemeral pieces from the ones that demonstrate Arnold Kemp’s value as a thinker, a writer and a chronicler of his age. A decade after his death, with the support of his partner Anne Simpson who is also now deceased, I produced an anthology of his work, part memoir, part anthology called “Confusion to Our Enemies”.