He was known wherever he went. He was elected as a Labour councillor to the former Lothian Regional Council in 1990. He was Vice Convener of Economic Development and Chair of Water and Drainage, and also served on the Finance, Transportation and Education Committees and the Police Board.
He was elected to the new East Lothian Council in 1995 as councillor for Musselburgh South. He became Chair of the Environment and Education Committees. He was particualrly proud of a multi-million pound modernisation project for the County’s six Secondary Schools. He was also the first Chair of COSLA’s Development Forum and was a board member of Lothian and Edinburgh Enterprise.
John was committed to working people, to their right to dignity. He was a proud socialist. Other people’s hurt gave him pain. Other people’s achievements gave him joy. He wanted a better life for everyone.
Of course he didn’t always get it right. But there was always a scheme being planned. There was always some wheeze that would improve the lives of people in East Lothian as a councillor or in Edinburgh as a UNISON member.
He would stand at the bar in deep thought, then snap his fingers, thump me with not inconsiderable force on the back and shout, ‘I’ve got it!” as he launched into some cunning plan or another – some more realistic than others.
You were often not quite sure what he was up to. But you could at least be certain he was up to something.
I remember a long negotiation trying to resolve a dispute when management agreed to come back to the table if we dropped the overtime ban.
What overtime ban? It was the first I’d heard of it. I looked along the table to Rossi and saw the familiar wave of the hand and ‘shoosh’ expression I got to know so well.
Many of us will know just how far he went out of his way on so many occasions to help us in his political, union and personal life. We also know the difficult things we asked him to do on our behalf because people would ‘take it from Rossi’.
People confided in him. He had a way with him that people would open up, would seek out his help and would remember his warmth. He was the same with the cleaner or the chief executive.
He created things that made a real difference to people’s lives but so often preferred to stay in the background in the media. He leaves a legacy of many things being better in the union and in East Lothian’s communities that few will actually know he was responsible for.
He had a great sense of fun. Sometimes his jokes were funnier to him than the rest of us, right enough, but he was the master of the one-liner.
On one side, John had a command and control approach that would make the best of control-freaks look positively laissez-faire.
On the other, he was gentle, sensitive and genuinely interested in other people, their lives, their sorrows and their achievements. He cared deeply about people, even those he was in conflict with at times.
He had a substantial intellect. He could read and analyse a document in seconds flat. He could calculate your pension by mental arithmetic.
He had an encyclopaedic knowledge of music with the most eclectic taste I’ve ever come across. He was an ardent Elton John fan. He once fell asleep at the front of an all night queue for tickets for an Elton John concert only to find himself waking up way down the line.
But he reserved the deepest of his wisdom and knowledge for Heart of Midlothian football club. Sitting up in the Wheatfield Stand with his son David, analysing every move, fine-tuning tactics and sharing his analysis as he gubbed everybody at pool after the game.
And it was following the Hearts that led to the surreal and now legendary journeys abroad with his son David and the late Jocky Mulgrew. Flights to Majorca that took longer than it would take to get to Australia with a stopover. And the great adventure to Stuttgart which is too full of incident to relate here.
I learned never to ask Rossi the score of some game in the past because you wouldn’t only get the score, you’d get the team, the subs, the weather that day and which teams all the players had transferred to.
He wasn’t totally reconstructed, with that old-fashioned chivalry that worked for him but wouldn’t have worked for the rest of us.
But he was also the man that put together one of the first motions to UNISON Conference on discrimination in pension schemes against non-married partners. He put through motions on disability leave, on rights for same sex partners and many other equality issues alongside the pay and conditions stuff. In fact, without him, we would rarely have put through policies to Conference at all.
John lived in a point in time before computers. He was the master of the glazed eyes whenever you mentioned anything technical. This was the man who used to print out emails and post them to me!
However, I once thought I had a breakthrough. He phoned me to say that the report he wanted me to check was on his computer and I could access it when I got into the office.
“Yes”, I thought. At last he’s using the computer. Imagine my disappointment when I got into the office to find the report, in hard copy, sellotaped to his computer screen!
He often said he was ‘unelectable’ as a branch officer. We never had to test that because in 15 years, even at the high points of political tensions, no-one ever stood against him. They knew, like we knew, that the branch would struggle without him.
In recent years, John had not been well but the drive and passion for justice remained. The fun remained even through the pain. The caring remained and the planning and scheming remained. Most of all, the dedication to working for our members remained.
He had immense pride in his children and grandchildren. One of the few parts of his personal life he would readily and voluntarily talk about.
He was known mostly because of how he engaged with people. So often his name opened doors for us. So often he was relied on by those who would otherwise have opposed him. So often he was there when we needed him.
He leaves a legacy with so many of us of fun, of frustration at times, but most of all, of wise counsel and warm friendship. For many people and communities, he made a difference. Not many people can boast that.
John Stevenson