His friend Sonia Bray told me he was so keen to join the Labour Party he applied at 16 when 17 was the entry age. He was one of the few in the agricultural union who devoted themselves to helping the party and he was the brains behind the memorable policy document Prosper the Plough, published with Hugh Gaitskill’s authority before the 1959 general election.When I was a very young candidate in the rural constituency of Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles, Prosper the Plough was my election bible. It called for a sound and efficient agriculture programme operating at a high level of production, which it saw as essential for the long-term economic stability of Britain. The Government could ruin farmers and farm workers by allowing artificially (and perhaps temporarily) cheap foodstuffs into the country.

On the other hand it could copy other countries and protect our agriculture by high tariffs – by letting in imports only at prices too high to compete with home production. This would lead to inefficiency and high prices which would be unfair to consumers.Another way of assisting agriculture was to have a system of guaranteed prices for home products that, combined with other forms of help, would give agriculture a high measure of assistance without isolating it from world events. It was this method of supporting agriculture that the Labour government decided upon when it was preparing the Agricultural Act of 1947, on which Bottini worked in a junior capacity.As this method involved the expenditure of public money in paying for subsidies, grants, administrative machinery and advisory services Bottini saw that agricultural policies inevitably and properly became subjects of political concern. The level of the guarantees and the method of implementing them; the quantity of production to which guaranteed prices should apply; and the encouragement of efficiency were all matters on which Bottini made himself an expert.It was partly on account of his mastery of these complex issues that he was chosen in December 1969 as General Secretary of the National Union of Agricultural and Allied Workers.

The other consideration was that he had become a leading member of the Agricultural Wages Board since 1963.My particular memories of Reg Bottini are of his annual contribution to the Labour Party Conference throughout the 1970s when he opposed British entry into the Common Market and his ringing chastisement of the community. In a small group he was superb on matters such as forestry and, when I had a constituency problem involving some forestry workers on a new plantation in West Lothian, he was an effective trade union official in getting the problem resolved.Reg Bottini was a man who would always help others and he continued this into a most worthwhile retirement, caring for his beloved wife, Doris, for her last five years. Sir John Farr, the former Conservative MP for Market Harborough, once told me he thought extremely highly of Reg Bottini’s voluntary work. It was a testimony to the regard for him in the agricultural community that the Farmers Club made him one of their honorary life members.Reginald Norman Bottini, trade union leader: born London 14 October 1916; General Secretary, National Union of Agricultural and Allied Workers 1970-78; married 1946 Doris Balcomb (died 1996); died Market Harborough, Leicestershire 5 May 1999.. AS POET, artist and above all film-maker Margaret Tait realised her vision of the world across many of the artificial boundaries in the arts. She was born in Orkney in 1918; her family sprang from a long line of seafaring merchants and as with most islanders her childhood had its share of drowning. The surrounding beaches lured children to swim and splash amongst the rocks but malignant undertows could often without warning sweep them out to sea.
A death-beckoning ocean would remain a powerful force in Tait’s work and provide the armature for her first feature film, Blue Black Permanent, made in 1992 when she was an energetic 71-year-old.