By James Campbell

Over the last few days there have been many fine obituaries about Alasdair Grey, written by people with a greater gift for the art form than I can emulate. They have spoken of his magnificent writing, his majestic art work and his many other achievements with far greater eloquence than I possess. It would therefore be redundant of me to praise Alasdair Grey the Artist and writer, but he was more than that, he was also a man, a proud father and, to me, a good friend.

Alasdair and I first met over 40 years ago, when we were introduced by a mutual acquaintance, the writer Chris Boyce. I was a brash young man without an artistic bone in my body; Alasdair was twice my age and already recognised as a magnificent artist. We had very little in common but weirdly, that didn’t matter. So when People talk of him, it is not the literary or artistic giant that I remember it is the man who was my friend.

We drank together, went for long walks, and talked about nearly every subject under the sun. We discussed the Architecture of Glasgow, Philosophy, Science Fiction, History and, on a theoretical level, Politics. No matter what we discussed, one fact remained constant, we never fell out, we might agree to disagree, but our discussions always remained courteous and civilised. Because that was the very core of Alasdair, courtesy! He was polite and kindly to everyone, unless they inspired a different response, and even then he never reacted with anger or violence. Because Alasdair Gray was above all things a civilised man. He was kind, generous, considerate and loyal; he maintained great pride in his son Andrew, and talked about him often. He was a lifelong socialist who would give away his last shilling or bite of food if asked, and would have given a beggar the shirt off his back.

I remember when the BBC transferred a 60s documentary to video tape and proudly gave him a copy. Alasdair had to explain that he didn’t have a video player, or for that matter a TV. These items were quickly delivered to the Grey residence, thereupon I was summoned to plug them in and press play. Because the subject of the documentary was a man who had never owned or gained the knowledge of how to work such devices.

I last saw Alasdair about two weeks before he died, He had asked me to bring round the new book “The Unforgiven King” by “L.M. Affrossman” , saying that he was looking forward to reading it, as he had enjoyed her last book so much. (Lesley and Alasdair are old friends). I now know that he was already ill, but insisted on hiding it from everyone for as long as he could. We talked about various things, including His Saltire Prize award, (he joked that he would believe it when the cheque arrived). For some reason we also discussed alien societies in literature, I recommended a book that he said sounded interesting, and then discovered that one of his favourites was “The Mote in God’s Eye” by “Niven and Pournelle”. I managed to surprise him by revealing the existence of a sequel which he knew nothing about, and promised to find out the details and forward them to him.

We arranged to meet again before New-year and I said goodbye not knowing that we would never see each other again.

I phoned back a week later with the details of the books that I had promised, and Alasdair was his usual cheery self. He thanked me for the information and said that he would order both volumes and looked forward to discussing them with me once he had read them. He asked me to tell Lesley than he was over half way through her book and was “enjoying it very much; it’s a magnificent achievement. Tell her she must come and see me”. I promised to pass the message along and that sadly was the last time I spoke to him.

So, it’s only right that the world will remember Alasdair Gray for his many achievements, but I will remember the man who spent his last conversation with me passing on congratulations and encouragement to another. A man whose enthusiasm and love of life was only surpassed by his love for his family. A man I was proud to call......My Friend.