| At the time Mr Letford said, “It wasn’t a joyous occasion, which took the shine off it, in a way. Nevertheless, it is a great honour and a privilege to be Lord Provost and to work with the people of Dundee.”
Mr Letford was born in Dundee’s east-coast neighbour and economic rival Aberdeen. His parents separated when he was five and, at 10, he moved to stay with aunts in Glasgow, then Fife, and then Tealing. He attended Den o’ Mains and Logie schools.
After Trades College he was advised to take his sheet metal work skills to the Caledon shipyard. He ended his apprenticeship in 1956 earning £5 a week as a tradesman when National Service intervened. For the next two years he served with the RAF.
He returned to Dundee, to the Caledon, and to an active role in local sport. He played football at junior level, refereed, and then, in 1965, organised football training for boys. Within a year, Dundee Sunday Boys’ League was formed.
His interest in politics began at the Caledon when he became a shop steward, and from then on he was a shop steward in just about every place he worked — Robert Kellie’s in Dock Street, NCR, and Nasbrit at Wester Gourdie.
He was also a Labour Party activist in the city’s Charleston Ward. He became chair of the local Labour committee, and put his name forward in the late 1980s to stand for the then Tayside Regional Council.
He became a full-time councillor and stood successfully for the revamped Dundee City Council after local government reorganisation in 1995. He was appointed convener for personnel and management services.
In February 2001, he hit national headlines when he was ejected from the Scottish Parliament after branding the Scottish transport minister Sarah Boyack “a disgrace” over plans to award contracts for maintaining Scotland’s trunk roads to the private sector, a move which risked jobs at Tayside Contracts, an organisation he convened.
He describes himself as a “man of conscience” and said he voted with the SNP before when he thought it was the right thing to do. |
