Just three weeks ago Alex Salmond was in Holyrood’s public gallery, watching as the King paid tribute to the Scottish Parliament's first 25 years.

The former first minister cut a lonely figure. His two living predecessors didn’t turn up and his three successors, all MSPs, were on the floor of the chamber.

He was squeezed behind some quango bosses.

I looked at him from my seat in the press gallery on the other side of the debating chamber he had dominated for years and wondered what was going through his head.

For all his faults, he was one of the most significant Scottish politicians of my lifetime, of the parliament’s lifetime.

But there he was, in the corner, far away from the action. It would be unfair to call him diminished, but while the other elder statesmen of devolution were given their due on the day, he was sidelined.

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I first interviewed Alex Salmond in 1998. I was 16 and writing for Quartet, the Mintlaw Academy school newspaper. He was our local MP and I and my fellow child reporter, Fiona, were absolutely terrified.

We needn’t have been. He almost certainly had better things to do, but he was generous with his time, patient with our basic questions and forgiving of our inexperience.

I interviewed him many times over the years, most recently in May. He was often less patient and forgiving, and if you asked a question he didn’t like, less generous with his time.

But what shone through in every single interview, was the passion for his cause.

It was a passion that helped take Scottish independence from a niche concern - even in the SNP heartland of Banff and Buchan where I grew up - to the opinion of roughly one in two Scots.

It was a passion though that could often turn to anger.

It wasn’t that he didn’t suffer fools gladly, but colleagues, civil servants, party staff, and anyone who underperformed, underprepared or wasn’t at the very top of their game would feel the brunt of his temper.

When he left office after falling short of winning the referendum, he was still a relatively young man.

If he’d been in Labour or the Tories they would have put him in the Lords and kept him busy.

Instead, he ended up being a talk show host for the Kremlin-backed TV station, RT.

He was genuinely proud of the show and the work he did and insisted that he had never been asked to alter his editorial line.

His position with the channel became untenable after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Mr Salmond's final years will be remembered for the sexual misconduct allegations, the Scottish Government’s unlawful investigation, and a later trial in which he was acquitted of all charges.

It was unfinished business, as far as he  was concerned.

He was taking the SNP government to court, alleging "malfeasance" by various former and current officials who he argued had "conducted themselves improperly, in bad faith and beyond their powers.”

That wasn't his only unfinished business. Just moments before he died, Mr Salmond was on X criticising John Swinney for taking part in Friday's meeting of the Council of Nations and Regions. 

He said the meeting of devolved leaders and metro mayors organised by Sir Keir Starmer was "designed to diminish the status of our Parliament and the First Minister."

"Part of becoming independent is about thinking independently, not subserviently.

"Scotland is a country, not a county," he added.

What will happen to Alex Salmond's unfinished business now?