Speaker John Fernie - 'Once a Geographer, always a Geographer'

An unexpected but welcome addition was the arrival of eight members of Plaza Rotary Club of Kansas City, Missouri, USA, in Scotland on a golfing and whisky-tasting holiday.

The guests and club members were treated to a fascinating presentation by club member John Fernie, entitled “Once a geographer, always a geographer”. John wasted little time before explaining the enigmatic nature of this description of his career. Having graduated in geography at Dundee University, John had moved to Edinburgh and added a PhD in economics.

After about a decade teaching and lecturing in Yorkshire, John turned to the teaching of the logistics, resources and locations associated with the wider aspects of geographical studies. Only to discover there were no publications devoted to this aspect of his work.

His solution? Write the books himself, the first of which concerned the geography of energy use and sources in the UK and was published in 1980. Since then, John has published numerous books on a wide variety of subjects, including nuclear waste, the sources of energy in the UK, and the application of geographical studies to retail planning, marketing and management. Appropriately for a geographer, many of his reference works have been translated globally into Japanese, Russian and other languages.

He continues to publish to this day and his most recent book concerned the geographical logistics of the retail fashion market.

During what was clearly a complex and intriguing career, John has variously held positions at Heriot Watt University, in 1996 as Director of the Institute of Retail Studies at Stirling University and is currently an Honorary Professor at St Andrews University lecturing in marketing logistics.

The vote of thanks was given by John Spittal.