Margaret Ewing,
1 st September 1945 - 21 st March 2006

'She always was able to think of others before herself. She demonstrated her own approach to leadership in the way she motivated people, with warm and kind gestures.' Ex SNP leader, John Swinney MSP, 9 th April 2006.

MSP leads tributes to a 'principled nationalist'

From the Press & Journal 10 th April 2006

Margaret Ewing was remembered as "a charming, vivacious, principled nationalist" at the conference yesterday.

Mrs Ewing, who was MP and MSP for Moray for nearly 19 years until her death last month, was recalled in a tribute led by North Tayside MSP John Swinney.

He described her progress from fly-posting for a 1960s by-election campaign in Glasgow to a parliamentary career spanning four decades.

Mr Swinney recalled that, after losing in North Tayside in the 1992 general election, he received an encouraging phone call from Mrs Ewing which helped to sustain him until he won the seat five years later. This, he said, told all that needed to be known about her.

"Although she led a frantic and a busy life, she never forgot those small, generous touches," he said.

"She always was able to think of others before herself. She demonstrated her own approach to leadership in the way she motivated people, with warm and kind gestures."

Mr Swinney hailed her "much-respected" work in Malawi and described her as a constituency servant without equal, who had "a rare ability to speak from the heart and from the head at the same time."

Mr Swinney added that Mrs Ewing's husband, Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber MSP Fergus Ewing, had been "literally overwhelmed" by messages of appreciation for his wife's life and aimed to return to work soon.