END OF AN ERA

COMPARED to the local government set-up contrived, appropriately enough by Ian Lang & Co, to fall upon us on April 1, the 1974 reorganisation was to a large extent both wanted and needed. Even though there had been a fair bit of lobbying of both Houses of Parliament and some quite fancy footwork by a number of their members, the wide research and consultation by the Wheatley Commission ensured the few accusations of gerrymandering were, unlike today, more in jest than in anger.

I doubt if many would disagree that Wheatley's vision of Strathclyde, to be large enough to be its own physician, was powerful and timely foresight indeed.

The West Central Scotland Plan team had already anticipated the loss of the machine tool and heavy engineering industries; they had discussed the approaching ``rationalisation'' of shipbuilding on the Clyde and shared the concerns of many who recognised that coal mining and steel production might wane at an alarming rate, as indeed they did.

Even so, there were those of us who had yet to learn to be more outward-looking and less parochial. Bill Paterson of Ayr and Dick Stewart of Lanarkshire pleaded that those two counties could stand alone; while Glasgow's leader, who, it was rumoured, aspired to be Strathclyde's first convener, called for a regional council with the city at its heart. His ambition was thwarted by his untimely death a few months before vesting day.

After the new local elections in 1974 and Strathclyde's majority (Labour) group formed, the leader, Dick Stewart (his deputy was Bill Paterson), declared with the typically honest candour which became his hallmark: ``Well, some o' us disnae want it, but we've got it, so we're going to mak it work!''

The Rev Geoff Shaw from Glasgow was convener and, although very different from Stewart, together they made probably the most able and formidable local government team in the UK. From the start they recognised that geographical balance was needed in the appointing of chairs, but they always ensured they got the most able. Glasgow got education, Ayrshire finance and water and drainage and social work, Lanarkshire got planning and personnel, Renfrewshire got highways and transport, and so on......

Shaw was that rare animal among politicians, an honourable compassionate and sincere Christian with a fine sense of humour. Amusingly prone to forgetfulness, he sometimes forgot to pick up his meagre expenses so that his bonny missus, Sarah, had to create a meal out of very little even when Shaw had brought chums home for tea.

I was his vice-convener then and he would often put his head round the door and ask me to ``watch the shop'' while he popped up to Barlinnie or out to a List D school to visit some of his less fortunate parishioners.

Approaching the end of our first term, Shaw seemed to be driving himself to greater effort to ensure the smooth operation of our new region-wide policies which, based largely on the indices from the 1974 census, would last almost until the present day. These were policies to improve the region's economy and identify those areas which required special priority treatment by, among other things, bringing in welfare rights officers, more teachers and social workers and starting the later very successful community police service.

For about the first time ever the council consulted widely with the business community as well as the new Scottish Development Agency to set up local enterprise projects and, with this type of partnership which brought in the district councils as well, imaginative and remedial projects in Lanarkshire, Ayrshire, Renfrewshire and Glasgow, which had GEAR in the East end, helped to bring about economic and social change which are still seen today.

Shaw suffered a serious heart attack after, unknown to his colleagues, enduring days and weeks of chest pains to which he had given only a nuisance value. Memory of his sudden death still deeply saddens me, although the genuine display of immense public grief, much of it from his unfortunate friends, makes me feel the better for having known him. Only a few of us knew that another, but more material sacrifice he had made a month or so before his death was to turn down a knighthood and the chairmanship of a new town development corporation.

Dick Stewart soldiered on until 1988, although his state of health was very fragile having lost a lung as an overworked young miner. He brought to fruition many of the good services people have come to take for granted and which are under threat today. When we interviewed for the post of chief executive and Laurence Boyle was appointed, Stewart shook hands with him and, brusque as usual, declared: ``Ah didnae vote for ye, but thegither we'll mak a guid team.'' Indeed they were; the best, and remained firm friends until Sir Laurence's death.

Stewart's pawky humour was catching. When the Property Commission were still trying to carefully allocate buildings to the new authorities he jokingly evinced an interest in the city chambers to a journalist. As anticipated, there was a photo in next day's papers of the Lord Provost threatening to man the battlements against all invaders.

For all his dour, matter of fact and occasionally sweary language, I can disclose that Stewart was really putting on an act. Having been a loyal family friend since my youth, I knew a man who possessed a well-read and loved collection of fine volumes; histories, biographies, poetry, great novels, the classics and an equally fine collection of classical music.

Claude Thomson of the Glasgow Herald once told me he had almost fainted with surprise when he advised Stewart that, as he was retiring, the press corps wished to give him a farewell gift which he should choose, and no expense would be spared. After much demurring Stewart said he would love a collection of Mexican symphonies as he had got pally with the Mexican ambassador who had told him about his country's wealth of music. And so the astonished Thomson, being unable to find anything of that sort in either Edinburgh or Glasgow, had to travel to London to buy them!

Stewart's poor health made him somewhat short tempered, but we could thole it so long as we could read the signs. His door was aye open but once a case was stated, a report or plea made, when he glanced at his watch it was time to take leave of him unless one was prepared to linger and risk a much hastier and less dignified retreat.

There is more than a grain of truth in the suspicion that he would meet the Tory Jean Armstrong to discuss the format of the full council's agenda so as to make it more interesting and out of this came sound agreement on what might be described as a kind of compendium of innovative and compassionate policies, social work being the favourite service of both Stewart and Armstrong, compared to what lately has looked like a ragbag of not too well researched bits and pieces.

Fortunately, after agreeing to endow a Strathclyde chair for the handicapped at one of our city universities, something which will let us take our leave on a high, the council was barely spared the ignominy of granting planning permission for a multi-million development on part of the floodplain of the Clyde. It saddens me that against every conceivable sound argument in planning guidelines, and in daft defiance of the council's own structure plan, we were idiotically driven to the brink of granting permission. What a way to end 22 years of good quality governance.

It would be wrong to claim a record without mistakes, but almost all we made were well-intentioned, and not many were expensive. Maybe the 20-odd of us who served from the first day might be excused a memory-laden thrill of pride in what we helped to start: Strathclyde was the first council in the UK to voluntarily compile a register of members' declaration of interests and the first to consult with the business community on budget preparation.

It was the first to appoint a full-time rep in Brussels so that for nearly a decade it was the EEC's biggest local government customer, tapping into the Regional Development and Social Funds and the European Investment Bank and influencing the EEC to agree, again for the first time, a corporate cocktail of these funds to create what was to become the powerful Strathclyde European Partnership which is the envy of regional and local government throughout the European Union.

As a result, many townships have bypasses; railway lines and stations closed by Beeching were reopened and the Ayr line electrified; hundreds, maybe thousands of jobs were created through our innovative Employment Grants Schemes, copied all over the UK; training and retraining grants to small and medium sized industries helped retain jobs which had been threatened; community grants brought aid to dozens of local voluntary organisations serving the under-fives, the handicapped and elderly; and one grant even brought colour TV to New Lanark which had missed out because of the unusual topography.

Strathclyde's investment in Culture City 1990 may well have exceeded that of the district's: Scottish Ballet's Peter Pan was commissioned by the council, as were the Maxwell-David Strathclyde concertos. A goodly dollop went into the funding of the Royal Concert Hall (murals and all!) and Rennie Mackintosh's Scotland Street school and lamp standards cost more than a well-worth #1m.

And what about that fabulous Fair week of lovely weather when the Special Olympics brought tears of joy to thousands of handicapped youngsters from all over Europe? We more than doubled a Government grant to bring a second language, and Gaelic, to many primary schools. The Strathclyde Youth Jazz Orchestra is unmatched in Europe, as is the Schools Symphony Orchestra, and it was a group of ordinary young folk from Strathclyde who made such an impression in their plea for the environment at the Rio Earth summit.

There are so many things which were done by Strathclyde which are unknown: its officers' contribution to Europe on consumer protection, drugs, the social work aspect of the treatment of Aids, and the region's influence in the writing of EU legislation, all without comparison with the work of any council in the EU.

So, what if it was big, brash, incautiously boastful and occasionally bothersome? Didn't it have a heart? Wasn't it for the most part compassionate, concerned for others and caring? Would that its successors be half as good!

n.Charles Gray was Leader of Strathclyde Regional Council from 1986 to 1992.

Former leader of the council, Charles Gray, reflects on the lives and times of a giant which looked beyond its own horizons