I cannot claim to have known John Durkan well, but our paths crossed on several occasions - the first when I was a young teacher in the east end and was grateful for his support and guidance as a colleague, and the last four years ago when he was awarded a Lord Provost's medal for his services to Glasgow's heritage. I remember the latter occasion vividly and will always regard it as one of the highlights of my career as a councillor.

John was probably best known as the last surviving founding member of the Scottish Catholic Historical Association, and as a contributor to its publication, the Innes Review. However, John's open-minded approach to Church history brought him recognition in the academic world and from other churches. His first article in the Record of the traditionally Presbyterian Scottish Church History Society appeared in 1978, and from 1982 onwards he served this magazine both as a contributor and as a member of the editorial board, while continuing to play the same role with the Innes Review.

Despite the wide range of his work, Glasgow was always close to his heart. His 1986 article in the Record on the Bishop's Barony of Glasgow in pre-reformation times is one of the best introductions to this complicated subject. He was also associated with the Friends of Glasgow Cathedral, who published some of his work on the cathedral. In recent issues of the Innes Review he dealt with a "lost" life of Saint Kentigern discovered in Rouen, and the interpretation of some of the more obscure place names in the inquest of David, the oldest-known Glasgow document.

John Durkan, like John Wheatley before him, was a miner's son from Shettleston. That in itself is now history - how many of us think of Shettleston as a former mining community? He loved life, he loved his church, and he loved his city. He wanted us to enjoy its past as something which would hold its citizens together, not tear them apart. We need others to continue his work.

Councillor Catherine McMaster Chair of History and Archaeology Working Group, Glasgow City Council

John Durkan's contribution to modern Scottish scholarship cannot be overestimated; he was the last surviving member of a generation that changed the study of Scottish history and Scottish culture forever. To meet and work with him, as I did, when he was already in his eighties, was to receive the full impact of 50 years of unremitting research which since the late 1940s had opened up vast landscapes hitherto shrouded in darkness.

It was also to encounter a mind of startling objectivity. John was no polemicist pushing any "a priori" party line and using historical data selectively to back his case. For him, what mattered was that the data existed, however little it might have been consulted before he sat down to wade through thousands upon thousands of handwritten pages in libraries and archives all over Europe, searching out the names and details of countless Scots who had made some impact on the lives of their contemporaries, and fitting them into the web of European cultural history - John's Scotland was not in any way insular.

I came to Glasgow to work with John on researching the Renaissance in Scotland, and to learn about how to do such research. His fame and his colossal scholarly achievement were daunting to say the least, and the reality turned out to be even more awe-inspiring than the reputation: as a professor of medieval literature once observed, a propos the failings of the human memory, "John Durkan will forget more than we have ever known there was to know".

But as I worked, lunched and sometimes dined with John, day in and day out over those several summers, it quickly became clear that what most stirred Dr Dr Dr (sic) Durkan was human life, as lived by human individuals. John loved life, all life, and that was the only reason history mattered. God grant that we who have the benefit of his research, in a hundred odd publications, use all the data that he identified to build a better Scotland, a better Europe, a better world for those coming after us.

Dr Jamie Reid Baxter

Many have noted the academic achievements of John Durkan and his erudition as a scholar, but it was his infectious laughter and human kindness which endeared him to all who crossed his path.

John enjoyed life to the full and relished the company of past pupils and colleagues. He would never get very far on his travels in the city centre without encountering the legion of Glaswegians whose lives he had touched in some way. Using public transport meant he appreciated the eccentricities of ordinary individuals, and these encounters with the citizens of his native city provided the backdrop to many of his wonderful anecdotes.

Students will remember John's lectures were always spliced with these recollections, puns and anecdotes that enlivened the dullest of ecclesiastical matters. He often poked fun at himself and delighted in the tales of his exploits during the war, such as the lengths he went on one occasion to purchase a bottle of perfume for his landlady.

On Saturday mornings he would travel from Lenzie to Newlands via public transport to lecture students of St Peter's College, the then archdiocesan seminary. Lectures over, he would enjoy the banter at lunch with the students before repairing to the Blue Chip pub in Buchanan Street, where many former school pupils would gather on Saturday afternoons for a drink and a chat with their old teacher.

The respect and affection in which John Durkan was held by these pupils is almost impossible to overstate.

He retained a deep interest in the future careers of his charges and was keen to hear how life had been for them.

Kipling's words could have been written for John: "If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, or walk with kings . . . nor lose the common touch."

The bishops of Scotland paid him a well-deserved compliment by inviting him to the breakfast summit with the late Pope John Paul when he visited Scotland in 1982. John was the only layman at the meeting.

Many former pupils attended his funeral and heard the Archbishop of Glasgow, Mario Conti, pay tribute to John in recognition of his contribution to education in Glasgow and beyond.

As John's coffin was placed in the hearse, many remarked that they were witnessing the end of an era. He was a giant of a man both intellectually and pastorally.

Michael McLaughlin