Carl Gordon was born in Greenock

Greenock

Greenock is a town and administrative centre in the Inverclyde council area in United Kingdom, and a former burgh within the historic county of Renfrewshire, located in the west central Lowlands of Scotland...

 on 13 March 1931, and attended Mearns Street School and Greenock High School. His maternal grandfather was from Copenhagen

Copenhagen

Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...

 and when he left school at the age of 14 he had already started to teach himself Danish

Danish language

Danish is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in the country of Denmark. It is also spoken by 50,000 Germans of Danish ethnicity in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where it holds the status of minority language...

. His first job was as a railway clerk and he worked at various stations in the Greenock area before being called up for National Service

National service

National service is a common name for mandatory government service programmes . The term became common British usage during and for some years following the Second World War. Many young people spent one or more years in such programmes...

 in 1949. After training in the Royal Army Service Corps

Royal Army Service Corps

The Royal Army Service Corps was a corps of the British Army. It was responsible for land, coastal and lake transport; air despatch; supply of food, water, fuel, and general domestic stores such as clothing, furniture and stationery ; administration of...

 (now the Royal Logistics Corps) he was posted to the War Office

War Office

The War Office was a department of the British Government, responsible for the administration of the British Army between the 17th century and 1964, when its functions were transferred to the Ministry of Defence...

 (now the Ministry of Defence

Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom)

The Ministry of Defence is the United Kingdom government department responsible for implementation of government defence policy and is the headquarters of the British Armed Forces....

) and left with the rank of sergeant

Sergeant

Sergeant is a rank used in some form by most militaries, police forces, and other uniformed organizations around the world. Its origins are the Latin serviens, "one who serves", through the French term Sergent....

 in 1951.

He had announced at the age of 11 that he wanted a career as a journalist and in fact had to turn down the offer of a job as a reporter only a few months before beginning National Service. Within a week of leaving the Army, however, he began work with The Greenock Telegraph and eventually became the evening paper’s first deputy news-editor.

He left in 1967 on being offered the post of Greenock-based reporter for the Glasgow Herald and Evening Times. The area to be covered was the entire Lower Clyde

Firth of Clyde

The Firth of Clyde forms a large area of coastal water, sheltered from the Atlantic Ocean by the Kintyre peninsula which encloses the outer firth in Argyll and Ayrshire, Scotland. The Kilbrannan Sound is a large arm of the Firth of Clyde, separating the Kintyre Peninsula from the Isle of Arran.At...

 including Dunoon

Dunoon

Dunoon is a resort town situated on the Cowal Peninsula in Argyll, Scotland. It sits on the Firth of Clyde to the south of Holy Loch and to the west of Gourock.-Waterfront:...

 and Rothesay

Rothesay, Argyll and Bute

The town of Rothesay is the principal town on the Isle of Bute, in the council area of Argyll and Bute, Scotland. It can be reached by ferry from Wemyss Bay which offers an onward rail link to Glasgow. At the centre of the town is Rothesay Castle, a ruined castle which dates back to the 13th...

 and involved long hours of duty.

In the late 1960s an average of 12 ships of various sizes were still being launched each year from Lower Clyde shipyards. In addition there were calls by trans-Atlantic liners and the docks were also busy. The district had three town councils to be attended and the US base at the Holy Loch

Holy Loch

The Holy Loch is a sea loch in Argyll and Bute, Scotland.Robertson's Yard at Sandbank, a village on the loch, was a major wooden boat building company in the late 19th and early 20th centuries....

 and the beginnings of the oil industry were also sources of new.

With the eventual down-turn and closure of shipyards and heavy industry

Heavy industry

Heavy industry does not have a single fixed meaning as compared to light industry. It can mean production of products which are either heavy in weight or in the processes leading to their production. In general, it is a popular term used within the name of many Japanese and Korean firms, meaning...

, however, it became apparent after a few years that there was no longer a need for a journalistic presence and Carl Gordon transferred to Glasgow

Glasgow

Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...

 in 1979.

Among stories he covered from Glasgow were the sinking of the Kintyre

Kintyre

Kintyre is a peninsula in western Scotland, in the southwest of Argyll and Bute. The region stretches approximately 30 miles , from the Mull of Kintyre in the south, to East Loch Tarbert in the north...

 fishing boat Antares

Antares

Antares is a red supergiant star in the Milky Way galaxy and the sixteenth brightest star in the nighttime sky . Along with Aldebaran, Spica, and Regulus it is one of the four brightest stars near the ecliptic...

 with the loss of its four crewmen after the boat’s nets were snagged by a Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

 submarine

Submarine

A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below the surface of the water. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability...

 HMS Trenchant

HMS Trenchant

Three vessels of the British Royal Navy have been named HMS Trenchant:* Trenchant , a 1,085 ton modified 'R' class destroyer* Trenchant , a 'T' class diesel submarine...

, and the subsequent fatal accident inquiry.

He also covered the Arthur Thompson murder trial in 1992 which sat for 54 days over a three-month period at the High Court

High Court of Justiciary

The High Court of Justiciary is the supreme criminal court of Scotland.The High Court is both a court of first instance and a court of appeal. As a court of first instance, the High Court sits mainly in Parliament House, or in the former Sheriff Court building, in Edinburgh, but also sits from time...

 in Glasgow and was until the Camp Zeist

Zeist

Zeist is a municipality and a town in the central Netherlands, located east of the city of Utrecht.-Population centres :*Austerlitz*Bosch en Duin*Den Dolder*Huis ter Heide*Zeist- The town of Zeist :...

 trial, the longest in Scottish criminal history. It was not generally known that a few days after the trial concluded, he received a note of thanks for his reporting of the trial from Lord McCluskey, the presiding judge. Paul Ferris

Paul John Ferris

For other persons named Paul Ferris, see Paul Ferris .Paul John Feris is a Scottish businessman, author and former gangster...

, who was found not guilty of the murder, had written to The Herald

The Herald (Glasgow)

The Herald is a broadsheet newspaper published Monday to Saturday in Glasgow, and available throughout Scotland. As of August 2011 it had an audited circulation of 47,226, giving it a lead over Scotland's other 'quality' national daily, The Scotsman, published in Edinburgh.The 1889 to 1906 editions...

during the trial praising the newspaper’s coverage of the proceedings.

Carl Gordon retired in 1994. Afterwards he undertook frequent visits to Scandinavia

Scandinavia

Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...

, particularly Denmark

Denmark

Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

where he still had relatives and many friends. He wrote about his travels in The Herald, often choosing places little known to Scottish readers. He was a member of the Scandinavia Philatelic Society and the Greenock Philatelic Society. He married in 1965 Arline June Bloomfield who died, aged 37, in 1984. They had a son and a daughter.