Douglas Blackwood was a great-great-grandson of William Blackwood who founded William Blackwood & Sons the publishers and Blackwood"s Magazine. On completing his education, he had little choice but to follow his father into the family firm. However he held a short service commission in the Royal Air Force from 1932 to 1938 and had it not been for the outbreak of World World War II, he would have returned to Edinburgh to work for his father and uncle.
He was educated at Street Cyprian"s School, Eastbourne and Eton.
He rejoined the Royal Air Force in 1939 and, being a naturally gifted fighter pilot, commanded Number. 310 Squadron Royal Air Force a Czechoslovakian fighter squadron during the Battle of Britain. In August 1940 during the Battle of Britain, he was forced to bale out over Clacton.
After a night of German bombing of the City of London, he was on dawn patrol and from his plane at 25,000 feet over the North Weald he could see the thick smoke from the fires which destroyed Blackwood"s business premises in Paternoster Square.
He ended the Second World War as Wing Commander commanding the Czechoslovakian Fighter Wing in the Royal Air Force Second Tactical Air Force.
He was most comfortable in military company and never courted literary or political society. He had little literary pretension - when a reviewer asked if he had known George Orwell at Eton - he was six years his junior there and at Street Cyprian"s - Blackwood replied, "Oh, Blair, yes I remember him, he had a motor-bicycle." However Blackwood"s dismissive comment may have a different interpretation as he published an article in his magazine that vigorously refuted Orwell"s criticisms of their prep school.
Blackwood retired from the editorship in 1976, being the last member of his family to edit the magazine which bore his name.
