It was a who’s who of the Scottish political scene, including First Minister Alex Salmond and former First Minister Jack McConnell.

Iain Gray, leader of Scottish Labour, MP George Galloway, former Scottish Labour leader Wendy Alexander and former MSP Tommy Sheridan were also there.

Hundreds packed inside the upper chamber in Renfrew Town Hall until there was only standing room, while the celebration of his life was broadcast to hundreds more standing outside.

They heard Mr Galloway, a colleague and friend for over 30 years, liken Speirs to a great oak who had fallen and left the political forest sparser. “I think he would probably say that the establishment of the parliament of Scotland was the greatest achievement of his political life. The presence of the First Minister and his parliamentary colleagues here today is testimony to that.

“It was the case back in the 1970s that the majority wanted nothing to do with home rule. But Bill, with his spirit of inclusiveness, managed to edge it ever closer.”

They had met, he said, when Speirs was 26 and he was 24. “I immediately felt I had found an older, wiser, cannier, more worldly and more sophisticated brother. I deferred to him on that day and throughout the 30 years I knew him.

“I called him Golden Eagle. He was an eagle, a leader.

“There are people as far away as South Africa, Palestine, many parts of the third world, the former Yugoslavia, the former USSR, whose lives have been touched, graced and improved, who are today mourning his passing.”

The family had included a photograph of Speirs with the late Palestinian leader, Yassar Arafat. “Bill and I were extremely close on the subject of Palestine,” said Mr Galloway. “There was nothing he didn’t know on the subject.”

But he also raised a laugh when he recalled how they once had to share a narrow bed in a B&B in Blackpool at a Labour Party Conference.

“We carefully tucked our vests into our underpants and hardly dared to fall asleep lest our bodies touched and there be any impression of impropriety.”

Each had thought the other had settled the bill until a few weeks later, the late Party leader John Smith approached them uncomfortably with the bill for the double room.

Former general-secretary of the STUC Campbell Christie spoke of an outstanding trade unionist, an internationalist, an evolutionary, and a campaigner against injustice.

He had a first in politics from Strathclyde University, and could, said Campbell Christie, have had many other options for a career, but chose to join the STUC.

“It was 1979 and we had just come through the so-called winter of discontent.

“He argued that the country’s economy wouldn’t be sustainable if we didn’t have a substantial industrial base, that we could not rely on service industries and the financial services alone.

“How right he was and how much better our position would have been today if we had kept and maintained our manufacturing base.”

“Scotland has lost a special son this week and we have all lost a special friend,” said Mr McConnell. “We will all miss him and his huge contribution to national life.”

To applause around the hall, he said Speirs was respected across the political spectrum for his commitment to bring all parties together. It was his special belief, he said, that ordinary people, mobilised and organised, could effect change for themselves and others.

He spoke of how Speirs was in the vanguard of the campaign for home rule, always putting the national interest before any party interest. “He built bridges between people, not walls to keep them apart.”

There were fine words from the politicians and trade union colleagues, but it was the quiet words from his family that touched the hearts of those present.

Speirs leaves a widow, Pat, and a son, David, and daughter, Jaki, by his marriage to his first wife, Linda.

His sister, Seonaid, Jaki and his widow all paid moving tribute to the family man they loved.

Sheila Hamilton