FAREWELL TO A FRIEND

Today I said farewell to a friend, Jimmy Reid, as I attended his funeral in Govan.

As I have commented elsewhere, he was quite simply a giant n every sense of the word.

A number of occasions stick out in my memory.  Firstly in 2000, at the Annual Conference, I chaired a fringe meeting with him and Roseanna Cunningham as part of the launch programme for the Scottish Left Review Magazine.  He opened his remarks by saying that he was convinced that Scotland was on the road to Independence.  This was a full five years before he joined the party.  Everytime Jimmy was speaking at a fringe event the room was crowded.

At the STUC in 2005 held in Dundee, my proudest moment being an SNP member arrived when Jimmy announced he had joined the party.  He was on great form and the pride of every SNP person in the room was simply uplifting.

For me, coming from a family involved in Shipbuilding this was a profound moment, Jimmy always has and always will be held n the highest regard with anyone who has a direct or indirect connection with shipbuilding.

When he joined the SNP it was only right and proper that we nominated him to be the President of the SNP Trade Union Group, along with Billy Wolfe who helped founded the Group in the first place. I and Malcolm Balfour had the honour of proposing and seconding both.

  

From then on, escorting Jimmy to SNP events was a massive honour.  I once joked with Jimmy that our members practically bowed when they shook hands with him.

One of my political highlights to date was chairing a fringe meeting in 2006 with Nerys Evans of the Plaid Cymru Trade Union section, and now an AM in the Welsh Assembly, Bill Speirs, and Jimmy.  Jimmy started by saying he was a proud member of the Trade Union and Labour Movement, not the Labour Party, and for half an hour, without notes, spoke about how Labour had destroyed their founding principles and how and why he had joined the SNP, as we hold those principles.  He was utterly convincing that night, and held the audience who were hanging on his every word.

Jimmy’s contribution to Scottish civic life will never be forgotten, and as his funeral showed today, just how admired he was from across the whole of Scottish society.

As a number of commentators have suggested over the last few days, his rectorial address in 1972 is as relevant today as it was then.

The best tribute we can pay him is to make sure we hold the principles of that address, or as the First Minister called it today a masterpiece, in our hearts and minds as we resolve the issues brought about by the current financial crisis. Far too many people try to tell us that resistance is useless, that the forces of global finance and faceless power brokers can’t be beaten and that workers need to “adapt” (code for accept what’s on offer whether it’s job loss or pay freeze). He and the workers of UCS showed that collective, disciplined, articulate resistance can deliver a result that’s right for the workforce, right for the industry and right for the economy and our country.

So long Jimmy, you and your principles will never be forgotten.