WHEN Alex Salmond was elected as MP for Banff and Buchan in 1987 it sent shock waves through the North-East of Scotland.

The countryside around Aberdeen had been traditionally conservative and Conservative MP Albert McQuarrie had become a weel kent face in the area.

At the time I was a reporter working for the evening paper in Aberdeen with politics as my remit and I became Mr Salmond's point of contact for the readers of a paper which covered the North-East of Scotland.

The MPs tended to be remote creatures based in Westminster who felt they needed little or no contact with their local papers.

But Mr Salmond was a different beast and over the 11 years he was MP for Banff and Buchan he was in regular contact about his constituents problems.

He impressed me as a hard-working politician who genuinely cared about the people he represented.

In the 1990s, many politicians were in it for the glory and expenses but Mr Salmond was one of the area's most committed politicians. It is no wonder the new boy held his seat for more than a decade.

Mr Salmond and I lost contact when he and I moved to different parts of the country but almost 20 years later I bumped into him in George Square and decided to say hello.

I suspected he would have forgotten who I was. I was wrong. He remembered immediately who I was, where I had worked and that I had moved to the Evening Times.

Of the many politicians I have dealt with over the years, Mr Salmond was one of the most impressive, not because of his national status but because of his drive to fight for the people he represented and his astounding memory.

vivienne.nicoll@ eveningtimes.co.uk