Actor Tom Conti writes an appreciation of the life of Scots scriptwriter George Byatt, who died at

the weekend

GEORGE Byatt was educated at St Mungo's School, Glasgow, but stipulated there should be no mention of religion at his funeral. In 1950 he married Margaret Anderson Coady with whom he had four children who nursed him tirelessly through the final weeks of his life and were with him at the moment of his death.

George was, in his youth, a member of the Tory party. Upon the outbreak of war, despite having completed only his first year at Glasgow University, he enlisted was placed in The Scots Guards. He trained at Sandhurst, passing out captain, became a paratrooper and ultimately served in India in the Governor General's bodyguard; his time there was to influence his thinking through all of his life.

Back in mufti, George started a book shop in Glasgow, but he probably spent more time reading them, so liquidation soon followed. He made ends meet by selling vacuum cleaners, encyclopaedias and paint, though not at the same time.

It was clear by now that the literary life beckoned, so with Jack McGavigan and others, the magazine Outlet was produced. His first association with the theatre was as press officer for the Glasgow Citizens' in the fifties, and from there he moved to BBC Glasgow as a news copywriter. There, he learned of the tremendous power of the electronic media.

I met George in 1963 when he devised, with Janet Carey, Variations, a series of TV shows in satirical mode, incorporating sketches, poetry and jazz. It was at this first meeting that I experienced what I consider to be his finest talent. No-one was ever a stranger with him, because he really understood that ``we're a' Jock Tamson's bairns'' and he knew that what bairns needed was a smile and a word of support.

It didn't matter whether you played the fiddle, or sat at the checkout at Waitrose, five minutes with George and you felt that what you were doing was worthwhile. He believed passionately in the encouragement of talent and spent much time during the last years of his life organising workshops for young writers. He was a philosopher and a prophet, his conversation peppered with such names as de Chardin, McLuhan, Russell, Chomsky, Sartre.

In the early seventies he resigned his staff appointment with the BBC to become a freelance story editor in the drama department. There, with Sinclair Aitken, he devised a drama series set in a comprehensive school; originally titled Tomorrow's People, it was, with due corporate lack of imagination, renamed This Man Craig. In addition, he wrote scripts for shows of the time such as The Troubleshooters and Softly Softly.

A mutual disenchantment occurred though, between George and the television drama departments. They set, by his way of thinking, too many rules.

Life with George was never simple. ``I'll be round about nine.'' At 10.30 he would arrive with five people, all strangers who he had been picked up

during the course of the day and had now bonded under George's spell. ``This is Alice, she's a croupier. Claire is working at Marks & Spencer just now but she's really a ceramic artist. She's also a Mao-ist though she doesn't realise that yet. Zoran has just arrived from Yugoslavia.''

He wrote eight stage plays, all experimenting with new forms of presentation. One of them, The Clyde is Red won the Prix Italia. He believed that no one person could be the author of a dramatic work. One of his well-used phrases was ``co-operative creativity''.

George travelled very far from his early Tory membership. In the 33 years I knew him, he was a socialist, a Marxist-Leninist, and finally, an anarcho-syndicalist. Whatever he was, or said he was, he was one of the best people I ever knew. His understanding of human frailty made him completely forgiving. His condemnation was never for individuals but for the structures which they, in their unwitting folly, designed.

I hope that he knew as death approached, that those of us who knew him well had our lives enriched by his presence. One of my last memories of him was in our garden this summer with three or four of my daughter's friends sitting around him, thrilled and smiling as he filled them with excitement for their lives.

Kara and I had George with us through every important part of our lives together; there will be a corner in each of our minds that will be forever dark for want of him, but the greater part of our minds forever brighter because of him.