Thomas (Tom) Chalmers Steel

1943 - 2007

Television producer and author. Born in Edinburgh, the son of a journalist, Steel was educated at Daniel Stewart's College and Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He joined Rediffusion Television as a researcher in 1965 but was producing and directing current affairs programmes such as This Week and Today for Thames Television by 1968. He is principally remembered for his documentaries A Far Better Place (1972), on the evacuation of St Kilda in 1930, Destination America (1976) on American immigration, and Spring Queen on the life and work of Naomi Mitchison (1984), together with the epic 24-episode series Scotland's Story made for Jeremy Isaacs at Channel Four television in 1984. This was widely respected and comprehensive history of the country. His books included The Life and Death of St Kilda, on which his documentary was based and Scotland's Story, which resulted from the series, but well before the book-of-the-series was the expectation.

He died in London.

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