Every cause needs a charismatic leader, Alex Salmond was ours - Christine Grahame

Alex Salmond and Christine Grahame campaigning

They will miss him above and beyond all the achievements and political possibilities he still had to come.

As a member of the SNP for over 50 years I came to know Alex from a distance and later when he helped me campaign in various elections, and latterly as First Minister.

I remember on one occasion campaigning and there were many like this, when he was supposed to meet some local dignitaries but was stopped as he often was by folk simply wanting to bend his ear, for better or for worse, or shake his hand.

He always made time.There were no cameras present he just liked to meet people, and chatted at length while his staff agitated as the day’s timetable went out the window.

Hardly surprising then that he was known for always being late. There were too occasions when I took a different view to him and said so, mostly in private and those deep brown eyes would narrow.

I swear they even turned a steely blue but even if he did not agree at the time, you would find later he might have reviewed his position.

On one occasion at a party conference when as chair he rebuked me for speaking outwith the motion, bold as brass I retorted that I had the mike, to audible laughter from the delegates. I avoided eye contact and kept going.

As First Minister he abolished tuition fees and famously stated that the “rocks would melt in the sun “before he would allow them to be imposed on Scotland’s students.

That was inscribed on a stone installed at Heriot Watt university on his last day as First Minister in November 2014.

He introduced free prescriptions. Today, both remain “free” whereas in England a student can run up a debt of at least £30,000 in fees and a prescription t will cost £9.90 per item.

His leadership in the Scottish Parliament was stellar but he took Scotland onto the world stage following in the footsteps of the late great Winnie Ewing

When I first joined the SNP in Galloway over 50 years ago it was on the fringes, laughed at. No-one was laughing in 2007 when under his leadership the SNP first took government, nor in 2011 when it won 69 seats, an overall majority in the Scottish Parliament. That had been thought impossible.

He did not squander that. By his sheer drive, political skill and astuteness he had David Cameron agree a referendum and from a low base Scotland reached 45 per cent in favour of regaining its independence, despite pensioners being told they would forfeit their pensions, some businesses would up sticks and flee South and we would be turfed out of the EU. Turn-out was over 80 per cent.

Politics mattered unlike the recent UK election with under a 60 per cent turnout. The support for independence still holds at around 50 per cent. All this due to Alex Salmond.

Every cause needs a charismatic leader persuading with heart but also with head. Clever, charming and demanding, it is a tragedy he has not lived to see Scotland achieve Independence but in his own words “The Dream Shall Never Die.”

Chrstine Grahame, SNP MSP for Midlothian South, Tweeddale and Lauderdale