The Sapphire
conditions in the North Sea can be harsh, and it was a race against time.
Raising the money was the easy bit as donations poured in. The fund stood at £500,000 within 10 days.
A huge lifting vessel from Rotterdam, the Taklift 4, sat in Peterhead Harbour for weeks waiting for a weather window.
Salmond said: “I went down every day to look at the water vapour from Peterhead power station and it was always blowing in the wrong b ***** direction. The Taklift 4, support and safety boats were sitting there costing the company money, although harbour dues were being waived.”
By the time of the actual lift, it had been replaced by the bigger Taklift 7 in a bid to cope with the prevailing sea conditions and ensure success.
After 11 weeks, under cover of darkness on Sunday, December 14, 1997, the Sapphire finally reached home and the families’ prayers were answered.
Police Superintendent Donald Struthers said the bodies had been found in the wheelhouse and the accommodation area.
Four funerals were held over two days just before Christmas – and that was the point when Salmond felt vindicated.
He said: “It was the most emotionallycharged campaign I’ve ever been involved in.
“As a constituency MP, it’s the most difficult thing that I was engaged in. It
took two months and more, and it was constant.
“The reason I supported the appeal was because the families wanted it. I regarded myself as representing their interests and determination.
“When I went to the funerals just before Christmas, that was the moment I was absolutely convinced we’d done the right thing.”
Salmond admitted: “I did have doubts, huge doubts, but I was committed to it because that’s what the families had asked me to do.
“I had genuine doubts about whether it was something that could be done. What would happen if we weren’t successful? How would that impact on the families?
“But the issue really became the determination and resolve of the families to achieve their wish – their drive and compulsion to return their men for burial.
“It really became a story about courage more than anything else, and I follow courage.
“As the weeks went on, I regarded it as my absolute obligation to make sure the conclusion was in the favour of the people who had fought so hard for it.”
Salmond recalled the last press conference with the families in Peterhead’s Palace Hotel, when they told the world’s media the lift was on.
He said: “Isabelle, Patricia, Shirley, Wilma and myself were saying the Taklift 7 was on site and we were hoping for a lift that day.
“It was extraordinary – four Peterhead quines sitting in front of what was really the international media by then.
“One journalist – who wouldn’t win any gold medals for diplomacy – asked the widows, ‘What happens if you don’t get all the bodies back?’
“There was a silence as hardened hacks looked sideways at each other, astonished by the question, and Wilma Cameron said, ‘If we get one body back, it will be a triumph’.”
Salmond added: “There’s still a huge bond between all the people who were involved in the Sapphire campaign.
“It’s a story really about four families and their determination to have their loved ones returned – it’s a story about courage.
“Well done to the Record. It was in the best tradition of newspaper campaigns, and we don’t have many of them now – not good ones anyway.
“The campaign the Record ran was in the absolute best tradition of a campaigning issue responding to a public need.
“Opinion wasn’t unanimous but it was a majority of decent people believing that the right thing should be done.”
There’s still a huge bond between all the people who were involved ALEX SALMOND A WIDOW’S STORY PAGE 36