Poet, broadcaster and critic; Born July 21, 1918; Died April 30, 2009.

Maurice Lindsay, who has died aged 90, was the grand old man of Scottish letters who, with his leonine head, trademark bow tie and sonorous voice, had seemed a virtually indestructible part of the Scottish cultural scene for more than 60 years.

In a career stretching back to the Second World War, he had been a poet and friend and anthologiser of fellow poets, violinist manqué, War Office minion, journalist and music critic, BBC broadcaster and editor, programme controller at Border Television, first director of the Scottish Civic Trust and honorary secretary-general of the international heritage body, Europa Nostra.

He wore as many cultural hats as Renaissance Man. And this perhaps posed a problem for his credibility in some critics' eyes. He complained once of an inbuilt Scottish suspicion that "if you do more than one thing, they think there must be something wrong with you". People may also find it disconcerting for a successful public figure to be a poet. Poets are, after all, expected to be bearded, radical, and impecunious. Lindsay, the scion of a prosperous Glasgow west end family, was none of these.

Nor could he be dismissed as a voice of the Establishment, being a man of independent judgment and instinctive agnosticism not just towards religion but received wisdoms generally. "I've a hostility to dogma of any kind," he told one interviewer.

That did not make him immune to the Protestant work ethic, for he was not only immensely productive in print - with more than a dozen volumes of poetry to his name, as well as a clutch of anthologies and numerous prose works, ranging from his Burns Encyclopaedia to his autobiography, Thank You for Having Me - but pursued his various non-literary careers with energy and aplomb.

Schooled at Glasgow Academy and the Royal Scottish Academy of Music, Lindsay was caught up in the Second World War, volunteering for the Cameronians. A wrist injury, which also affected his original ambition to be a violinist, precluded active service and he was seconded to the War Office. There, one of his functions was to brief Winston Churchill on Asian intelligence and he recalled incurring the wrath of the premier on one occasion by describing the Burmese city of Mandalay inaccurately.

Though he did not experience front-line service, his early wartime poems told of the rigours of the Blitz and the painful partings of service men and their families.

In the later stages of the war Lindsay also embarked on another literary preoccupation: championing fellow poets. Having read an anthology of modern Irish poetry published by Faber and Faber, he decided to propose a similar compilation for Scotland's contemporary poets.

An invitation to afternoon tea with T S Eliot, the commissioning director at Faber, ensued. He persuaded Eliot to accept his idea. Lindsay's groundbreaking Modern Scottish Poetry: An Anthology of the Scottish Renaissance 1920-1945 duly appeared in 1946 under the Faber imprint. It included a galaxy of Scottish talent from Hugh MacDiarmid and Edwin Muir to Sorley Maclean and Norman MacCaig. George Bruce of Fraserburgh, another contributor, would later become a collaborator in literary and broadcasting projects.

Lindsay's War Office post might have been succeeded by a career in broadcasting in London but he chose to return to Scotland, where he became a music critic and leader writer for The Bulletin, The Herald's long-defunct sister paper.

In a 10-year association with BBC Scotland, spanning the 1950s, he confirmed his versatility by working both in radio and television, and in news and cultural affairs For two years, he introduced the monthly television programme Counterpoint, of which he was co-editor, and played a similar role in the esteemed radio programme Scottish Life and Letters.

His postwar poetry includes an encomium to Hugh MacDiarmid, the most powerful and disturbing voice of the new Scottish Renaissance, written in English. But it was inevitable that Lindsay would undergo a Lallans period - with variable artistic success.

Within a few years he had become sceptical about the attempt to resuscitate the Scots language. The subject of Scottish language and identity are, of course, interlinked and here Lindsay, who said he defined himself as "an international Scottish Nationalist as a young man", always felt very strongly part of European culture. Scots are, he believed, a great deal more European-minded than the English and more easily accepted by Europeans. "They don't do this patronising here-the-conquering-hero-comes rubbish. They're perfectly open, frank and natural," he pronounced on his seventieth birthday.

In spite of his sense of nationality, Lindsay spent a successful and innovative six years in Carlisle from 1961-67 as programme controller and then programme-maker for the Border Television. However, TV's satisfactions could not compare, he said, with writing a good poem. When he was offered the post of first director of the newly-created Scottish Civic Trust he moved north of the border again.

His first crisis arose within two weeks. Stranraer Castle was threatened with demolition. Lindsay and a local architect agreed on the strongest protest against demolition and the castle was saved.

Lindsay saw attitudes to conservation transformed into a renewed awareness of architectural heritage. Bodies such as the New Glasgow Society reflected this and he played a significant role as an eloquent advocate of projects, not just in his native Glasgow but throughout Scotland. Perhaps the biggest of these was the restoration of New Lanark, which has now the status of a World Heritage Site.

The constant creative thread running through Lindsay's life was his poetry. His writing tended to get a mixed reception - partly, one may guess, because of a certain envy, though his old friend George Bruce thought Lindsay was occasionally not critical enough of his own writing.

Be that as it may, Lindsay's output cannot fail to impress with its intelligence and civilised attitudes as well as its conscious crafting, often in sonnet form. He wrote memorably of Glasgow and the Clyde. He also had the courage of his own lack of convictions and excoriated religious hypocrisies. Indeed a late collection, published in 2006, bears the challenging title Looking Up Where Heaven Isn't.

He also saw the publication in 2005 of The Edinburgh Book of Twentieth-Century Scottish Poetry, which I co-edited with him on his invitation. This comprehensive anthology of 158 poets brings up to date the celebration of Scottish poetic talent that he first embarked on with the Faber collection more than 60 years ago. Its scope and lack of stuffiness are typical of the man himself.

Maurice Lindsay, who died in Erskine Hopital, was awarded a CBE in 1979 and a Doctorate of Letters by Glasgow University in 1982. He leaves Joyce, his wife and helpmate of more than 60 years. They had four children. A daughter died in 2006.