Euan Ferguson was the best of us Scotland on Sunday journalists - Kenny Farquharson

Before lockdown, on the first Thursday of every month, three dog-eared journalists would meet at 6pm at a corner table in the Argyle Bar near the Meadows in Edinburgh.

Euan Ferguson. Picture: Alex Lake for the Observer

One was Willie Paul, then editor-in-chief of the Scottish government website. One was me. The third was Euan Ferguson, then TV critic of The Observer. We were old friends from our time at Scotland on Sunday in the late 80s and early 90s.

A pint for Willie, a non-alcoholic beer for me, a large glass of Merlot for Euan.

Each of these evenings followed a pattern. First we would update each other on our various life-threatening medical conditions. The novelist Bernard MacLaverty calls such conversations “the organ recital”.

Euan Ferguson. Alex Lake for the Observer

Then followed a discussion about the politics of the day. Euan was a passionate supporter of Scottish independence and was hungry for gossip about the SNP and the nationalist movement.

Soon the conversation would turn to war stories from our careers and Euan’s were always the best. Tricky encounters with Loyalist paramilitaries in Belfast. Trying to woo Nigella Lawson. On strike with Michael Gove at the Press & Journal in Aberdeen. A Sri Lankan beach after the 2005 tsunami. Flying first class to Los Angeles to interview some Hollywood starlet.

My favourite story was when SoS sent a team of reporters and photographers to Shetland to cover the Braer disaster in 1993: a massive oil tanker had run aground, shedding 85,000 tonnes of crude. A staged photograph exists of the SoS team, four of them, naked from the waist up, sitting in one hotel bed, grinning at the camera. At least I think it was just from the waist up.

Euan’s long read on the Braer had an audacious five-word intro: “It started with a kiss.” What on earth was he on about? You had to read on. It was a kiss of a breeze in the Azores that became a gale in the Atlantic that became a storm in Shetland that ran the MV Braer onto the rocks.

Euan’s writing was a bravura, seat-of-the-pants demonstration of the power of language. Encouraged by editor Andrew Jaspan, the SoS of the late 80s and early 90s was staffed by young men and women who saw themselves as the renegades of Scottish journalism. We were given the freedom to write as we wished, and we took full advantage. There was a sense that we were equal to anyone, anywhere.

We knew Euan was the best of us. He was soon picked up by The Observer and his Sri Lankan tsunami report is a good example of his writing style at that time: lyrical, unpredictable, a combination of taut and expansive, always with a reporter’s eye for detail: “A beach made suddenly wrong. You expect the sandals, the flip-flops, the polystyrene gunk; you don't expect 12 lone, different high heels, and a bunch of onions, and Christmas baubles, and a dog brush, and an expensive set of kitchen scales.”

His love life was baroque. There was an early marriage, seldom mentioned. There were some long and cherished relationships. But he was generous with his twinkly charm and there were a few car-crash break-ups.

Euan may have been the first errant lover undone by innovations in late 20th century telecommunications. In 1994, shortly after BT introduced the 1471 feature, Euan phoned his then girlfriend in Edinburgh. He was in Dundee, he said. He was meeting old pals from the band in which he used to play saxophone. He would see her tomorrow.

After hanging up his girlfriend dialled 1471. The robotic voice intoned the phone number of an Edinburgh pub 300 yards from where she was sitting. She wandered over. There in a snug was Euan with an attractive young woman. “Euan,” said the girlfriend, “this isn’t Dundee.”

Euan’s best stories tended to involve drink. His fondness for a good red was apparent in some of the social media tributes to him this week: “a great friend of the world’s vintners”; “somewhere in writers’ heaven the barman is busy”.

These were of course euphemisms. Euan had an alcohol problem. Drink oiled a tremendous social life but ultimately had consequences for his career and his health. Also, he was a heavy smoker. Living alone in Hove, aged 50, he had a stroke. In what is probably the most Scottish male thing ever, he decided to do nothing about it.

Only after two days, when he struggled to make sense during a phone call, did a friend call an ambulance. Later Euan would compare his stroke experience with that of fellow journalist Andrew Marr: “I have been so much luckier than him, and not just in my possession of the normal size of ears.”

Euan moved back to Edinburgh to be close to his parents and we began our monthly get-togethers in the Argyle, in part to keep an eye on him. During lockdown he found a cafe where the owner would surreptitiously serve him a teacup of Merlot.

I last saw him late last year smoking outside a New Town bar in one of his natty tweed suits. I asked if he had changed his email address as he hadn’t replied to my messages suggesting a cuppa. Too many hospital appointments at the moment, he said. Some time soon, he said. And we’ll put the world to rights, he said.