Elizabeth Maginnis

Family, friends and colleagues of Councillor Maginnis, who had distinguished herself particularly in the field of education, serving as Cosla's education convener in the 1990s, were stunned as only recently she had made a brave and successful recovery from cancer.

Maginnis was no run of the mill politician, noted for her feisty manner, her willingness to take difficult decisions and to express her opinions forcefully. An erudite woman who never lost her love of literature since graduating from the University of Edinburgh, she was an internationalist who at the same time remained close to her working class roots in Granton.

Elizabeth rose to prominence in the party during the Thatcher era when she was a prominent activist, devoting enormous energy and passion to campaigns such as Hands Off Lothian; Nursery Concerned; Save Our Services; Coal Not Dole; Save Henry Robb's and Campaign Against Reductions in Expenditure (CARE).

She was elected to the then Lothian Regional Council in 1986 for the Trinity/Granton division. Her natural ability ensured that she was immediately elected a vice-convener of Lothian's education committee, chairing the resources sub-committee, the engine room of the education service. In 1988 she became the senior vice-convener and in 1990 became the convener of the committee, and then convener of education for Cosla.

She oversaw pioneering work integrating special needs youngsters into the mainstream service and introduced nursery education for all three and four year-olds and primary school classroom assistants, policies which have now been adopted throughout the whole of the United Kingdom.

The most ambitious education building programme for a generation in Lothian came under her remit, including the new RC school St Margaret's at Livingston, a new St Thomas's on its original site at Chalmers Street and a new Leith Academy School.

More recently she focused her energies on the Waterfront development in Leith. The young woman who worked on the Leith History project in the early 1980s lived to see the largest planning application ever approved by Edinburgh since the New Town.

One particularly memorable event she prided herself on was a special piece of music she commissioned for the historic meeting of then South African president F W De Klerk and Dennis Goldberg of the ANC at the University of Edinburgh.

As a politician, Elizabeth was always somewhat impatient with the constitutional technicalities that obsess others. In the ongoing battle to win hearts and minds, the exact interrelationship between local and national government bored her stiff. Elizabeth would challenge her colleagues: what are we doing to deliver social care, attainment in education and safer communities? How can politicians present themselves to the public if we don't like people and support them? Why should they like and support us? Be prepared to display your vitality and win their trust by reasoned discussion."

When I nominated Elizabeth to be Lord Provost of Edinburgh, a post unfortunately she never got to fill, I described her as "krassivy", Russian for both red and beautiful, which I feel is the most fitting eulogy for her.

Maginnis was the beloved matriarch of the extended Maginnis/Scammell/Harrison family. She was devoted to her husband Michael Maginnis throughout a long marriage and their children Stuart, Ann and David.

Eric Milligan Former Lord Provost, leader of Lothian Region and Cosla convener