Salmond 'wanted to be Church of Scotland minister'

AS FIRST Minister, he is not immune to a bit of preaching - and it may very nearly have been from the pulpit.

According to a new biography, Alex Salmond toyed with the idea of becoming a Church of Scotland minister as a young man - and also tried to get a job as a television reporter.

The First Minister applied for a job with the BBC after graduating from St Andrews in 1978, and was "devastated" when he failed to get it, the book reveals. It quotes Peter Brunskill, one of Mr Salmond's best friends at university, saying: "In the SNP at that time, were lots of people who'd been journalists and I think Alex thought it would be a good thing to build a public profile with.

"Alex wanted to be a journalist. He applied for a job with BBC television after graduating. He got a fairly long way along the process but didn't quite make it; he was devastated when he didn't." Mr Brunskill said Mr Salmond might have blamed a slight speech impediment for scuppering his chances.

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The book claims Mr Salmond also considered the Kirk as an option at one point. It notes his two middle names come from the minister who christened him. And it goes on: "The Rev Elliot Anderson appears to have made quite an impression on the young Alex, who later gave serious thought to becoming a minister himself."

After leaving university, Mr Salmond was unemployed for six months before passing the civil service exam and starting work in the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for Scotland at Chesser House.

The biography, Salmond: Against The Odds by former Evening News journalist David Torrance, describes how Mr Salmond was belted in his first year at Linlithgow Primary for making animal noises and how he stood for the SNP in a mock election at the school and won a landslide victory by calling for school milk to be replaced by ice cream. It says an enthusiasm for sport predated any interest in politics. "Despite his asthma, Alex played golf, usually every Saturday evening, from the age of five."

He travelled all over Scotland with his father to see Hearts and took a "trainspotter's delight" in memorising footballing facts and figures.

The book says the First Minister's love of racing was sparked at the age of nine by an uncle who tipped the winner of the 1964 Cheltenham Gold Cup, which they watched on a grainy black and white TV. He did a round for Vernons Pools to fund his flutters.

At secondary school, Linlithgow Academy, he was "confident, didn't go with the pack", according to a contemporary quoted in the book.

A spokesman for Mr Salmond said today: "The church's and the BBC's loss was Scotland's gain."