If you liked the home screen when drama from Scotland meant quality, when comedy had character, and the Hogmanay hour meant lilting music, colourful kilted dancers and Andy Stewart as host, then you must have known John Grieve, he of the sad and plaintive voice, who has died at 78.

He was distinctive. Few could put on so effective a vocal tone as did Johnnie (as his friends knew him).

Grieve was a man who nearly always, on screen or stage, seemed to be grieving or greeting. The twist is that, in private life, he was far from being the lugubrious Scot looking to doom and disaster. He loved the fun side of life with friends and family.

He was a natural for the traditional roles of old-style clerics, homely crofters, eccentric villagers, rural lads, and the type of Scot who was dreamed up by playwrights adding relish from past centuries to the modern-day stage.

But it was his role as the thrawn Dan MacPhail (''I'm an engineer, not a stoker, and I've the papers to prove it !'') joining actors Duncan Macrae and Roddy McMillan, in two separate Para Handy series, that made Grieve a household name and voice.

The fictional Clyde puffer Vital Spark, based on and using a vintage cargo boat, was to its motley crew ''the smartest ship in its trade'' as she clanked her way at five knots (or was it six?) to and from every point on the coastline from Ardrishaig and Ardlamont to Tarbert and Tobermory.

Still remembered and talked about is a scene filmed on the brae leading down to Brodick Pier, on Arran, when the hapless MacPhail whirled recklessly down on a runaway trolley and into the water. A stuntman did the final plunge, but actor Johnnie found the hilarious episode from the mid-1960s still a talking-point in this new century.

Apart from the ''seagoing'' comedies based on the Neil Munro West Highland tales, Grieve did much commendable work in theatre, ranging from The Thrie Estaites at the Edinburgh Festival to parts in The Bevellers, The Good Soldier Schweik, The Flowers o' Edinburgh, and Waiting for Godot.

He once teamed on television with the comedienne Gracie Clark, playing the browbeaten son of a domineering mother, in To Gracie A Son.

Popular in pantomime and Christmas shows in Glasgow, he became familiar to thousands in the Hogmanay programmes that once graced TV in Scotland. His traditional wry humour and characterisation were natural assets for programmes that welcomed New Year, even including one that was rashly televised live from an entirely inappropriate setting with well-heeled guests sampling a Scottish Hogmanay at the posh Gleneagles Hotel.

Grieve was a late entrant as a mature student at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, where he was a James Bridie gold medallist. From here it was straight into professional theatre and five full seasons at the Glasgow Citizens' Theatre, then in its early heyday as a nursery of both Scottish drama and upcoming Scottish actors of the 1950s.

The London theatre beckoned but he opted for the Scottish arena, his homes in Hillhead and Maryhill (where he had grown up) and the opportunities of the mid-twentieth century years to forge his way in drama at home.

In the Glasgow West End, where he lived, he was a popular figure and well-known to swimming and keep-fit enthusiasts at the Western Baths.

An ex-Royal Navy man, he had spent the last 18 months after a stroke as a resident in Flanders House, Glasgow, He died peacefully in hospital.

At his funeral today the tune of Oh the Crinan Canal for Me! will be played at the crematorium service in his beloved Maryhill. The memories will be both of Para Handy's thrawn engineer Dan MacPhail and of a popular all-round actor who loved his home city.

John Grieve, actor; born June 14, 1924, died January 21, 2003.