ONE of Scottish Labour’s most ‘brilliant’ backroom figures, Mary Thomas of Greenock, has passed away at the age of 88.

She was Labour’s local election agent for council and Westminster polls from the late 1960s until the 1990s, and was well known to prime ministers and other national politicians.

Mary was close to prime ministers Gordon Brown and James Callaghan, as well as former Labour Cabinet minister Tony Benn and Scottish Secretary Willie Ross.

Her advice was sought by many other national figures in the party, and she was invited by other constituencies to work with them during elections.

It was a remarkable achievement for the girl from Broomhill Street — her family were bombed out of their house during the Second World War and were left only with the clothes they were standing in.

Mary became a butcher to trade, working for Gemmells in the High Street, before going on to other jobs and finally becoming a school attendance officer.

She was election agent as well as parliamentary assistant to the late Dr Dickson Mabon MP and his successor, Dr Norman Godman MP, running their surgeries and regularly visiting the House of Commons to meet them and other senior politicians.

Dr Godman paid warm tribute to Mary today.

He said: “For 18 years she was my formidable political agent but, much more than that, she was for the rest of her life, my confidante and closest friend.

“As an agent, she was brilliant — the best, perhaps, in the whole of Scotland.

“This was a view shared by many of my Scottish parliamentary colleagues.

“I often told her that she herself would have been an excellent MP for the Lower Clyde.” Dr Godman added: “Mary was a modest woman who was a great friend of my wife, Trish and myself. We always delighted in her company and readily welcomed her wise advice and her matchless comradeship.

“We also loved, and were much amused by, her honest and forthright appraisals of people and events.

“We will miss her sorely for her warm, abiding friendship above all else. She was a unique personality and, in every sense of the word, a Greenockian.

“She was the best.” Tribute was also paid by former councillor Alan Blair, who led the Liberal Democrats on Inverclyde Council.

He said: “Mary was a feisty and fair opponent. You could trust her. She was an effective and doughty agent, and was a very good person to work with as well as against.” Mary was married to the late Labour councillor, Jimmy McEwan, and then to the late Len Thomas.

One of her sons, Jim McEwan, was a councillor at the same time as his father — the only time a father and son have served on Inverclyde’s council at the same time.

Jim said: “She worked tirelessly to get women involved in politics long before this became the modern way of doing things.

“She was a very caring person who would go out of her way to help people.” Mary’s other son, Sam McEwan, worked for IBM and then set up his own political lobbying firm in Edinburgh.

Sam said: “Our mum was a highly intelligent person who was desperate to go to university, but her family couldn’t afford it. She was a firm political operator who was hugely successful at winning elections.

“She had no ambition to be a politician. Her skills lay in motivating people and being a great organiser.” The funeral service for Mary, who passed away peacefully at Inverclyde Royal on 4 September, was taking place today at Greenock Crematorium, where the eulogy was being given by former Inverclyde councillor, the Rev Jack Dyce.