In Wilson’s debt

Gordon Wilson was MP for Dundee East from 1974 to 1987, commanding the respect – and votes – of the relentlessly conservative Broughty Ferry where I was parish minister.

A man of indisputable charm, he gave respectability to a party which, after the Second World War, struggled to shake off its association with the nationalist parties of 1930s Europe.

The SNP is much in Mr Wilson’s debt, for it was his honesty, integrity and common sense, as much as his political skills, that took the party from the lunatic fringe to the mainstream. (REV DR) JOHN CAMERON

Howard Place, St Andrews