SIR KENNETH Alexander, whose death after a long illness was announced yesterday, was rarely out of the headlines or off the television screens in a public life which stretched more than 30 years from the 1960s.

His academic roles included the chancellorship of Aberdeen University and a successful

period as principal and vice-chancellor at Stirling University.

He was, from 1963 until 1980, professor of economics at Strathclyde University, but for four years he had leave of absence, and an opportunity to put theory into practice, when

he served as chairman of the Highlands and Islands Devel-opment Board.

He claimed then that his ownership of a holiday cottage at Ardnamurchan ,where he cut, carted, and stacked his own peats, gave him a right to be regarded as more than ''just an incomer''. His appointment was no surprise.

He had been a member of the Labour Party/STUC group which thrashed out the original con-

cept of a fairly autonomous development agency for the Highlands. In 1967 the then

secretary of state for Scotland, Willie Ross, had appointed him as an economic consultant to the Scottish Office.

He came with experience

as a director of the Fairfield experiment in shipbuilding

and as a director of Upper

Clyde Shipbuilders. He also had a spell as chairman of Govan shipbuilders. All of that stemmed from his interest in new techniques of produc-

tivity and schemes for guaranteed employment and union-management co-operation.

He was always regarded as a ''practical'' economist and, when he retired from Stirling University, he accepted the challenge of acting as chairman of the Standing Commission on the Scottish Economy. The aim then was

to stop the rot in Scotland's

manufacturing base.

His reputation as a practical man and as someone who had a concern for the workforce led to his being sought to champion the case of the steelworkers at Ravenscraig when the steelworks was under threat.

The broad-based Campaign for the Defence of the Scot-

tish Steel Industry had singled out Sir Kenneth to be their

representative on the board

of British Steel. However, the British Steel chairman, Sir Robert Scholey, successfully resisted his appointment.

Sir Kenneth argued that there was a need for more openness so that all the information about Ravenscraig could be properly assessed before any decision was made on the closure of the hot-strip mill.

Away from the political football that the steel industry had become, Sir Kenneth'S skills

were sought after in the boardrooms of some of Scotland's leading companies.

He served for 10 years as a director of Scottish Television and was also on the board of the then Stakis hotel chain and was a director of Glasgow Chamber of Commerce. He also had a spell as a director of the Scottish Daily Record and Sunday Mail during the reign of the publisher Robert Maxwell.

That directorship brought him some grief in the wake of the Maxwell pension scandal. Some critics suggested that the non-executive directors should have been more aware of the brewing financial scandal.

Sir Kenneth denied that the non-executive directors at Record headquarters at Anderston Quay in Glasgow could have prevented thefts from the pension funds.

The picture of the rampaging, plundering Maxwell, he said,

did not come out until after the publisher's death.

Away from the world of business, Sir Kenneth served as chairman of the environmental body, the John Muir Trust, and of the Edinburgh Book Festival. He was also a trustee of the National Museums of Scotland.

Sir Kenneth was born on March 14, 1922. He is survived by his wife, Angela, one son, and four daughters.