In 1981 the IRA prisoner Bobby Sands died after a long hunger strike. It was, Rowland thought, another nail in the coffin of British Imperialism. It was a position that often led him to heated arguments with some of his less radical Labour Party colleagues.

The Community Charge, universally known as the Poll Tax, was one of Mrs. It replaced the rates in Scotland and shifted the burden of local taxes from the rich to the poor. What followed was a series of mass protests. One held in Trafalgar Square ended in a riot as a consequence of police heavy-handedness. Rowland refused to pay the tax claiming that it was illegal and campaigned relentlessly against it.

This was a holiday well away from smoke-filled committee rooms. Rowland, May Chipulina, my sister Baba and me stayed in South Ronaldsay, visited just about every archaeological site on the various islands and played bridge every evening. The ferry from Scrabster was the SS Ola. The locals called it the Rolly-Poly Ola for reasons which we soon came to understand on the return journey after some very windy weather.

The Gulf War was a conflict between Iraq and a coalition force led primarily by the United States and The United Kingdom in order to return Kuwait to the control of the Emir. The war proved a one-sided affair in which about 100 of the coalition forces were killed as against nearly 200 000 Iraqis. As were most of the left, Rowland was against the Gulf War which he perceived as having little to do with the sovereignty of Kuwait and everything to do with oil.

We were determined that it would be a surprise. His Durham and Stirling family, his work colleaques, the Chilean community, his political and personal friends, everybody turned up.