GORDON Ross is described today as a campaigner for assisted suicide - I never saw him quite like that.
In fact when he decided to go to court seeking the right to help to die, his membership of Friends at the End had lapsed.
He probably spoke to me with more passion about Scottish and UK politics - which he continued to follow with interest - than he did about his legal challenge.
But he had the courage of his convictions, despite a body which shook so hard from Parkinson's disease he was unable to travel to Edinburgh for the court case about his own life.
When I first interviewed him almost two years ago, I said something at the beginning about him just letting me know if he had had enough. I was assured, with good humour, there was no danger of him holding back to be polite.
Fortunately for me he tolerated my questions on a number of occasions, even when his limbs would not stay still or speech was difficult.
Somehow the room in his care home, with its family photos and stream of visitors, had a warmth about it. One friend tells me the last time she saw Gordon they had a good laugh over some scurrilous gossip.
Mr Ross was never suicidal when I met him, he just wanted to know if he reached that point someone could help him and not be prosecuted. He was a real individual who in his last, difficult years took on a legal system which did not necessarily do a great job of recognising that.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here