Lesley Riddoch: Different worlds, different problems: one solution

DUNDEE and St Andrews hit the headlines last week for all the wrong reasons.

In Dundee, a man was arrested for the murder of Paddy McDade, a Big Issue seller and irrepressibly cheery soul who used to stand at the back of M&S in the Seagate. A few days after McDade's death, a friend and fellow Big Issue seller, Lisa Mitchell, 25, died of pneumonia. Lisa – another bright, cheery figure, known to every rail traveller in Dundee – continued to sell the Big Issue at the train station even though she was ill, fearing she would lose her pitch if she took time off. Scores of wreaths, messages, flowers and cards bedeck railings at the station and the back of M&S. Their pitches stand vacant. Paddy and Lisa are missed.

Meanwhile, across the silvery Tay, the new principal of St Andrews University, Dr Louise Richardson has not been offered honorary membership of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club, prompting Alex Salmond and Jim Murphy to agree on something – that Scotland's oldest golf club should change its ways and celebrate 254 years in business by finally admitting a woman member.

It seems almost offensive to connect these two events. The "token" snub delivered to a university principal by a bunch of crusty old golfers is nothing compared to the deaths of Big Issue sellers in Dundee. And yet they are linked. Both stories demonstrate the heavy hands of prejudice and inequality at every level of Scottish society that still obstruct the flowering of talent.

The 50-year-old, Irish-born principal of St Andrews was the first woman in charge of an ancient Scottish seat of learning, when she succeeded Brian Lang in December after being head-hunted from Harvard. She is described as "a distinguished political scientist, equally at home addressing senators on Capitol Hill or viewers of Fox News. If Barack Obama were looking for a liberal equivalent of Condoleezza Rice, Richardson would surely be on the shortlist".

This is the profound change St Andrews University has embraced. And accepting her dazzling talent is the challenge posed to the sleepy, conservative backroom elite that tries to run Scotland as if talented, courageous women do not exist. They do – no matter how much it disturbs the R&A.

Meanwhile in Dundee, courage of another kind has been on daily display.

According to his sister, Victoria, Paddy McDade had finally come off drugs, got his own flat, and was back in touch with a 15-year-old daughter not contacted since she was two. Each part of that sentence tells a story of incredible personal growth. Coming off drugs, holding down a flat, restoring a broken relationship – all these "normal" human acts demand unbelievable focus and self-discipline for someone who's fallen beyond the support systems of "normal" society.

Lisa Mitchell was also extraordinary. Found destitute on the streets of Dundee four years ago, she joined the city's band of Big Issue sellers and appeared without fail outside the station. Staff there said Lisa should have been a counsellor because of the way she listened to everyone else's problems. She was a regular at Dundee's Steeple Church, where the Rev David Clark said she had "remarkable capacity to engage and connect with people from all backgrounds. She really was a gifted person in that she could relate so easily to people (and] gave a huge amount just by being who she was".

Lisa's determined, sympathetic and sunny nature could have given Dundee a young ambassador – one of a legion of peer educators, capable of leading generations of despairing unemployed people into a world of new opportunities. Instead, her determination to stick at her "job", in one of the draughtiest spots in the windy port of Dundee, gave pneumonia the upper hand.

Perhaps it's unrealistic to think everyone can be saved. On the other hand, perhaps it's unrealistic to think cities can progress with so much wasted talent. Undoubtedly, the city mothers and fathers of Dundee will want to sweep the cautionary examples of Lisa and Paddy under the carpet. The city wants to think positive, as it waits for news that Scottish Enterprise will approve the 22 million needed to kick start an ambitious Waterfront redevelopment. But until Dundee's civic leaders publicly mourn the loss of people such as Lisa and Paddy, their investment in bricks and mortar will simply fail to deliver.

People are the most precious civic assets. And paying only lip-service to that fundamental truth is not enough.

Dundee and St Andrews are flip sides of the same coin. But like coin faces, they never actually meet. More's the pity. St Andrews needs help to join the real world. Dundee needs help to survive it.

St Andrews needs an injection of the down-to-earth vibrancy and dynamism evident within minutes of setting foot in Dundee.

Dundee needs some of the confidence which saturates the old-moneyed, ivory-towered air of St Andrews.

Both need to escape their stereotypes – neither appears to have the civic leadership to start that task.

So here's a radical proposal. Dundee University offers mostly technical degrees; St Andrews offers mostly arts degrees. Numbers applying to Dundee are falling – academics quietly fear the image of the town and the relatively small size of the institution present insuperable difficulties. Meanwhile, St Andrews is about to invest in the construction of new science facilities, while Dundee is hoaching with them. So why not re-merge?

In 1967, Dundee University was the Queens College of St Andrews University – single university status was part of Dundee's bid to stand on its own two feet. But has it worked? St Andrews and Dundee are located in different councils. They show different faces to the world. But they both need change – and one merged institution might be a good place to start.