Best of friends.. and just terrific company
Actor’s pals pay tribute to global star who never forget where he came from
kept in touch. I was never sure when he was coming but my receptionist would get these calls from Sean.
“She would think it was someone else and he would say, ‘ Well, just say it is someone impersonating Sean Connery’.”
Grossart, a former vice-chairman of Royal Bank of Scotland, told how he would meet up with Connery when he returned to Scotland.
He said the star would often talk about his younger days growing up in Edinburgh’s Fountainbridge.
He added: “He was very rooted in the values of his upbringing and would very regularly come back to Scotland until recent years because he was unwell.
“It was almost as if he was refuelling himself.
“He had a small circle of close friends with whom he was entirely himself.
“As a Scotsman, he wanted to know what was happening. He was very observant.
“Al l the ordinary things he picked up on and it was almost as if he was recha rg ing his memory.
“What came out of it so frequently was h is recol lect ions of his youth and his upbringing, which he was very proud of. He had a very modest education but through his life he read more and more.
“He became extremely well read but his affinity with Scotland was really quite acute.
“Putt ing aside any pol it ical dimension of it, he had a great knowledge and love of the heritage and history of Scotland and he engaged with that in many ways.
“He was so unassuming. There was no sort of logistics or actor or stage person about him, he was a real human being who was entirely himself.
“That’s why he loved to come back because it was the one place he wasn’t besieged by his reputation and almost
I’d say a prisoner of it. A lunch with him or a day spent was a real joy to his friends.
“He was terrific company and he would always lead the conversation. He was a great conversationalist.
“His sense of where he had come from gave him great pride and gave him a great anchor in a career where he could easily have been seduced by glamour and become somebody different.
“He was the best of friends and the most loyal. That side of things should be told.”
Inverness- born f ilmmaker and writer Grigor, 81, co-wrote Connery’s book Being A Scot, which was p published in 2008.
The pair had
previously worked together on the 1982 documentar y Sean Conner y’s Edinburgh.
Grigor said one of the actor’s greatest achievements was establishing the Scottish International Educational Trust, which helps children from poor backgrounds.
Connery donated his $1million fee for the 1971 Bond film Diamonds Are Forever to help set up the charity. Grigor said: “He was one of the greats, he was the most personable person and he helped so many people in Scotland.
“The Scot t ish Internat ional Educational Trust set up by him has helped so many people over the years. “It has changed so many people’s lives, including mine.
“We did Sean Connery’s Edinburgh together and we had a ball making that film. There was a lot of input from him. He said to put things in it that most people don’t know about.
“He jjust wanted to do something differently. He knewk that a film had to show ththings rather than just tell te things. He had an extraordinary ex life. “Before he made Marnie, M he called the di rector Alfred Hitchcock Hi and said, ‘I’d like lik to see the script please.’ ple
“We l l appa rent l y nobody nob asked Hitchcock for tthe script. No actor in Hollywood Holl would dare but he gogot the script. He always spoke spok with a Scottish accen accent. He never wanted to loslose that. That was part of whwho he was.”
FROM FRO SCOTLAND WITH W LOVE 12-pagep tribute inside
Secret plans to roll out a Covid - 19 “mass vaccination” programme across Scotland in midDecember are being drawn up by senior NHS directors and council managers.
The inoculation shots are expected to be available in just six weeks’ time and trigger “the most important public health goal in our lifetimes”, according to a leaked email.
The memo sent by NHS Lothian director David Small called for meetings with Health and Social Care Partnership (HSCP) heads and local authority executives “as early as possible” to prepare.
Small, director of primary care and execut ive lead for vaccination programmes at NHS Lothian, wrote: “NHS Lothian is planning for the delivery of a vaccine for Covid-19.
“Timescales are uncertain, but we are working to an assumption that a vaccine will be available from mid-December 2020.
“This w i l l be a ma s s vaccination programme to achieve the most important public health goal in our lifetimes.
“We would like to meet with HSCP and council leads in each area to brief you on the likely shape of the programme, discuss delivery options and agree how we can work together to achieve success.
“Given the tight timescale I hope you will be able to meet us as early as possible.”
We can also reveal that earlier this month, the NHS’s National Services Scotland signed a deal with an English f irm to buy fridges to keep the Covid-19 vaccine.
The £ 329,000 contract with Labcold resul ted in the Basingstoke-based firm being hired to store and transport the refrigeration equipment needed.
Scotland will have access to millions of doses pre-ordered by the UK Government.
New drugs usually take years to develop and be passed as safe to use. But teams of scientists have been working around the world at unprece-p dentedpacedentedpace to find a way of conquering
TIERS
Sturgeon urged
Scots not to twist rules