IT is very fitting that Ian Bell's funeral cortege will pass by the Scottish Parliament today (“ Funeral procession for leading journalist Bell is to pass Scottish Parliament building”, The Herald, December 18) but there are many monuments to hard rational thought in Edinburgh that might equally have been graced by his last ride. He added lustre to the fourth estate like no other of his generation, although, let's be honest, Scotland has a matchless cadre of good journalist-intellectuals. Erudition and a distinct literary style gave him the edge, and for all his apparent modesty and avoidance of limelight he was a statesman of the mind no less than the many past politicians and philosophers who gave Scotland its reputation for Enlightenment.
I hope that his collected journalism (and reviews) is not too long appearing, (as a proper book, not online) to place him in the company of the great Scottish writers whose legacy he took forward. He indubitably wrote "first drafts of history", as all good journalists do, but there was acumen in his work that deserves to be pondered more than once.
Mike Nellis,
Emeritus Professor of Criminal and Community Justice University of Strathclyde School of Law,
50 George Street, Glasgow.
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