31 December 2007

ON CHRISTMAS Day Shetland unexpectedly lost a unique and remarkable public figure. The week before Cecil Eunson was taken ill saw him entertaining neighbours, striving to make sure the charitable trust properly consider his proposal to build a new hospital and planning how to brighten the festive season for those closest to him. He died in Aberdeen, five days before his 79th birthday, 28 years to the day after his wife Beth.

Cecil Eunson's life very nearly didn't start at all. His pregnant mother fell into the sea during a 'flit boat to ship' transfer off the Fair Isle on her way to Lerwick in case of complications.

That Cecil should have developed a passion for the underdog was unsurprising. As a youngster he was brought up in one half of an impossible to heat, corrugated iron house - tied accommodation shared with another farm labourer's family. His mother shopped last thing on a Saturday night to eke out his father's poverty wage as a dry stane dyker. His father was told if he wanted a rise he'd need to get a new house!

Financially further education was not an option, but Cecil's rise from farm hand at Berry to successful butcher was due to hard work, his personable nature as well as his natural wit. After working for a while in the Scalloway butcher's he paid every penny back on the personal loan he got to buy his first butcher shop in Lerwick - no easy money back then.

Cecil understood business and "knew how to turn a penny". On securing Norwegian fishing customers for Shetland mutton he realised Lerwick bankers collaborated to pay less than the going rate for kroner so he exchanged his south by post. Business success saw him able to take his daughter Karen to America on the QE2 and back by Concorde in the early 80s. Some turn around in one lifetime this.

Even before becoming a public figure as a councillor in 1986 Cecil had touched many lives as a butcher, sheep buyer and sociable character, entertaining with his wife Beth in their home on Breiwick Road. He was widowed in 1979.

Cecil relished telling a good story and many tales involving him will have been recalled. To meet up with Cecil, for me, either for a family roast, at election night, the Alting, the fisheries college or (regrettably not often enough) at his house in East Voe of an evening, was to be regaled by anecdotes and acute observations. As a neighbour, host and family friend he was welcoming, generous and entertaining. As a critic of those fellow councillors and of senior public servants who too easily forgot whose interests they were meant to serve, he had an able turn of phrase. Whether you agreed with him or not, he took a clear and forthright stand - no fence sitting for Cecil.

In his early years on the council Cecil often supported Bill Smith, and, despite some differences, broadly shared his maxim that the council first and foremost was there to look out for those who could least look out for themselves; the young and old, the disabled and those with special needs.

As a politician Cecil was very honest, saying what he felt such that his sincerity was never in doubt. He would champion causes by describing issues in blunt terms and bidding high. This often produced unexpected victories but when he lost he was not vindictive or spiteful, instead eager to find the next cause. For all he may have enjoyed his "loose cannon" reputation, I know he took as much satisfaction from the many smaller victories he quietly achieved for his constituents.

A recent victory saw him again collaborating with Bill Smith to look out for pensioners. Cecil successfully moved standing orders be suspended and Bill presented a petition with the result that charges for meals and wheels and lunch clubs were held down and the home-help service was kept free. Cecil understood that those who most needed these services would stop accessing them if charges were applied, causing needless personal tragedies and greater expense to the authority in the long term.

Cecil was a family man, proud of his children and very fond of his grandchildren. He strode between eras in Shetland, often championing causes fellow councillors would rather have seen fail. His passion for social justice saw him famously determine pensioners should receive direct benefits from the oil wealth via the pensioners' Christmas bonus. He wanted to see arguments contested and his short stay in the Gilbert Bain Hospital added to his determination to press for a new hospital for Shetland. Such passions kept the gleam in his eye.

Cecil's many public achievements included improving disabled access to public buildings. He was credited in 2006 as having been instrumental, as a result of his tenacious questioning, in the setting up of a national register of people with multiple sclerosis. The Shetland branch of the MS society is currently raising money to fund local research and donations made at the funeral will go to further this.

Peter Hamilton