"An interesting trek" – those were Jimmy Reid’s words to me summing up his extraordinary life. My own "trek" to complete his full-scale memoir has been no less adventurous. I began it as a 22-year-old student in awe of the peerless figure steeped in the mythology of Red Clydeside and the labour movement.

Thirty-two years later, I peruse the galley proofs of the book, Walking with History – The Autobiography of Jimmy Reid. The realisation of a long-held objective. Sir Alex Ferguson, Professor Sir Tom Devine and Michael Parkinson are among the figures who provide testimonials to the great man. Gary Hart, former presidential hopeful and a long-time friend, told me: "This is a social history, and one rarely so eloquently written." Jimmy’s early years in Govan, the cradle of his commitment to social justice, are so vividly described that Gary thought it was a film script.

The book has a surrounding cast of formidable characters: His parents, Leo and Isabella. His siblings, John, Betty and Isa. His lifelong pal Freddie Shiach, whom he met at a pre-school hut called The Bungalow. Joan, his wife and "rock" who sustained him through a tumultuous life. Tales of a master storyteller. Which, indeed, he was.

Film footage, speeches and headlines formed Jimmy’s place in my early consciousness. Images more loaded than the microchip. His brilliance as a platform speaker was shared with the world. That impromptu speech, beginning the Upper-Clyde-Shipbuilders work-in? The rallying call that sent a current through the crowd: stepping onto that platform at John Brown’s shipyard in 1971, he caught the light of history in one frenetic moment. Leading that celebrated work-in, his heart beat in harmony with a people. Then there was his address, a year later, marking his inauguration as Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow. Those who heard it felt the air electrify; "A rat race is........

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