Bill Grant MP didn’t need a spin doctor at the opening of his new office in Ayr.

For it was legendary medic Dr John McClure who did the honours.
Dr McClure, 74, told the gathering: “I’m not a political person, but I’m here as a friend and admirer of Bill.

“We first met when he was a young fire officer, and I watched with pleasure as he worked his way up the ranks.

“Later, as a councillor, he personally did something about the mess on the beach - with a litter grabber and a black bag.

“Now he’s pulled off a quite outstanding achievement by winning the Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock seat.”

Retired consultant paediatrician Dr McClure was the face of Ayr’s former Seafield Hospital for a generation.

And the bow-tie wearing doc became an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in June.

Dr McClure was brought up in Auchinleck and Cumnock, where his father was a GP.

He recalled starting school in 1949 – the year of Auchinleck Talbot’s first Scottish Junior Cup triumph.

Dr McClure also recalled some of the eminent MPs for the old Ayr and South Ayrshire constituencies, who have gone before Bill Grant.

He told the MP: “I’d like to quote Sir Isaac Newton’s inscription on the milled edge of the £2 coin: “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants’.”