Brian Wilson: Father of the nation deserved a better end

IT'S curious how my first sighting of Donald Dewar stuck so firmly in my memory. It was the General Election campaign of 1966 and I accompanied my father to a Labour meeting in the Burgh Hall, Dunoon. Characteristically, Donald was supporting a university pal, John McFadden from Barra, in the challenging task of contesting Argyll.

As this gangling, very un-Sixties figure rattled out the case for Harold Wilson's government, my father observed to me quietly: "That's the kind of Labour man I like".

Many times in the decades that followed, I had reason to recall and better understand that note of approval. By and large, Labour voters reserve their respect for Labour politicians who can deliver Labour governments. That means loyalty, moderation, intelligence. Particularly in Scotland, it came to mean Donald Dewar.

Through the 1970s, Donald was out of politics but never far away from them. His friends made sure he stayed in the loop until a seat could be found. When I knew him first, he was presenting the weekly politics programme on Radio Clyde, then the fiefdom of Jimmy Gordon, one of his old Glasgow University mates.

Our friendship was consolidated during the Garscadden by-election, which Donald entered into as sacrificial lamb but emerged from as Labour's hero. There was a little informal team who worked on taking the fight to our opponents, which Labour had almost forgotten how to do. Donald knew very well that he was battling for his political life; there would not be another chance.

By the end of that campaign, I knew that working with Donald was not only good politics but great fun. And there was no correlation between campaign highs and peaks of humour. Quite the contrary. Donald could be at his funniest in adversity and his most pessimistic when things were going well.

Over the next 20 years, he was a big part of our lives. We offered one of the safe houses where he could be fed and watered without notice. And whoever happened to be around - for Donald didn't really do discretion - would be entertained to a feast of hilarious gossip, absurd tales from the Labour movement and gloomy prognoses of the latest crisis to afflict our electoral prospects.

When he left, it always saddened us to think that it was to go home to an empty house - a reality that he felt more than he ever said.

The workaholicism of politics, and particularly of representing his constituents, became the substitute for domestic life.Never did an MP give more assiduous attention to his mail or his surgeries. Donald would seek out people's problems in order to resolve them.

The demands placed on him, not least by me, were ridiculous. On dozens of occasions when I was fighting seats no more promising than Argyll or pursuing esoteric causes, Donald would loyally turn up to address the faithful and the curious. I always claimed that he was adequately compensated with good food and stories to dine out on for months to follow.

Donald liked his football almost as much as his food. He and I were invited once to a Scottish Cup final between Rangers and Aberdeen. He turned up at our door, straight from Drumchapel, wearing a bright red tie. I suggested that this might not be diplomatic. "I see what you mean,' he conceded. "Do you have anything better?"

As it happened, I had the very thing in the drawer of unworn ties - Scottish Nuclear's was made up of royal blue and red stripes. "Ideal," he declared and off we went. But Donald being Donald, the tie stayed round his neck for months thereafter. Scottish Nuclear were grateful for such high-profile support. What they didn't realise was that once Donald had hold of any garment, he would wear it until it fell apart.

Looking back on these years compounds my sadness over what happened next. Donald was a top-flight politician at Westminster as well as in Scotland; a classy operator behind the scenes and a superb debater in the House of Commons chamber. But while others moved on to grander roles, Donald could never break the umbilical cord with Scottish politics. Others espoused devolution, but it was left to Donald to deliver it.

Probably, it is what he wanted to do. But maybe he should have been given more choice. Maybe he would have lived a bit longer if he had been spared the bear-pit that devolution immediately became. What I am certain of is that those of us who had been close to him for a long time should have been more aware of, and sensitive to, the change that had gradually come over him.

Donald had been unwell for many years. He had a back operation at Killearn in the 1960s and suffered near permanent leg pain thereafter. As he grew older, his lifestyle caught up with him - irregular meals, interminable hours of work, sparse attention to his own creature comforts. He became wearier, testier and generally worn down in both appearance and motivation.

Donald had been used to flying by his own political instincts, which were pretty acute. Suddenly, in 1997, he found himself surrounded by advisers - special advisers, civil service advisers, unsolicited advisers by the bus-load. Gradually, wearily, he became submerged under this lather of competing advice.

The delivery of devolution was his primary objective, but it dragged him into interminable Cabinet committees which had the added joy of having Derry Irvine in their midst.Donald, who should have loved being in office as the fulfillment of a lifetime's work, became grossly overburdened by its anxieties, while all the time his physical health was deteriorating.

Things got worse, not better, after devolution. Donald was shocked and bewildered by the unthinking venom which the Scottish media unleashed against the new parliament and every action that came out of it. He was always wary of the media, but naively expected that those who had banged the devolution drum for so long would at least give the new order a fighting chance.

He also found to his distress that some around him had feet of clay or, worse, a penchant for briefing against their colleagues. By then, my own contacts with him were less frequent, but in each conversation, the laughs were fewer and the desire to get out of all this, spend time with his children and a new grandchild, read his books, reconnect with old friends and places, more apparent. He was weary of it all.

For some benighted reason, I was on a ministerial visit to Slovenia when the news reached me of Donald's death. That night, I had intended to watch Scotland's World Cup qualifier in Zagreb. Instead, I headed for Vienna airport and a dazed journey home. On the plane, I wrote an obituary while the tears flowed and the question kept recurring: "Why did we allow him to do this to himself?"

I wrote: "In a world of happy endings, Donald would have accepted the accolades of the crowd on the day when he walked with the Queen to the opening of the Scottish Parliament. That was the summit of his life's work and the happiness in his face that day is the image that should be preserved of him. He should have flourished as a much-loved national figure, dividing his time among royal commissions, football and antiquarian bookshops… He should, he should, he should. But politics is a brutal business that does not believe in happy endings."

Instead, the image that we have is a battered statue at the top of Buchanan Street that I prefer to hurry past without a glance. There are still too many memories, too many regrets, too much sense of unnecessary loss.

• Brian Wilson held five ministerial posts in Labour governments between 1997 and 2005, including that of minister of state in the Scottish Office under Donald Dewar.