Dates, places and responsibilities are listed but no CV listing can ever tell us about the person and their human qualities and frailties, what motivated and energised them, what brought them joy and what saddened them. This is an attempt to find something of the character and the motivation of the man. The difficulty is that so many people had knowledge of him and experience of life in his company that any reflection such as this is bound to show only a mere fraction. His life and the story of that life has been the subject of a number of articles and books and to recapitulate that here would be of little value. This therefore must be, at best, a personal reflection.

Commentators have reflected on his political and ecclesiastical leanings - was he a left winger or a right winger? He was often summed up as being left wing on social issues and right wing on moral ones. The same categories were applied to his politics - did he vote with Labour for social policy reasons or was he really a Nationalist in Conservative clothing? No one ever caught the truth or the complexity of the man.

The same dichotomy was evident within Church circles - was he truly dedicated to dialogue and co-responsibility or was he simply an unreconstructed Prince-Bishop who was just like those of the past except he did not use a chauffeur nor a cappa magna?

The truth, of course, was much more complex. He was none of these things and at the same time he was all of these things. He judged situations not in some cold, calculating way against a rigorous worldview, but against the message of Jesus Christ. It was the gospel that shaped his views and his outlook, it was the Christian way of life that affected his standpoint and it was his own personal experience that had shaped all of this into a mindset that was in its time to bring Scotland and her Catholics into a prominence on the world stage that could never have been foreseen by the previous generation of Scottish Bishops.

His motto "Caritas Christi Urget nos" was not simply a nice "sound-bite" from the scriptures, but a reflection of the way in which Thomas Winning strove to live his life. If he did not always achieve this in the eyes of some it was not due to his failure to try. His willingness to put himself out for the sake of others was legendary and his availability to people far beyond what was needed. Someone wanting to talk to him only had to get out the phone book and look up "Winning, Thomas, 40 Newlands Road" and the likelihood was that he would answer that call himself. Sometimes it was a source of fun for him, as Bishop Devine recounted at the Funeral Mass, at other times it was a source of great stress as hurt or damaged or angry or bitter people felt free to phone him at any hour of the day or night. Every priest can tell stories of the 2 a.m. call wanting to know the time of the ten o'clock Mass, but even as a Cardinal he was willing to let this kind of thing happen to him. Only very reluctantly and in the light of a series of particularly difficult people calling him was he persuaded to change his telephone number to an ex-directory one a couple of years before he died.

That same interest in people was evident at parish events. He was usually last to leave the hall and he always left with amusing or interesting stories to share about the lives of people he had encountered. (It is said that a quarter of the world's population was born in China - it often appeared that another quarter was born in Craigneuk!) He had a genuine interest in the stories people told him and that made it easy for him, he was relaxed and comfortable in the social ambience of people having an enjoyable time. Indeed, one of the first signs of his being unwell was that, following a Mass in Saint Albert's Parish on the night before his first heart attack, he left immediately after Mass and did not go to meet people in the hall. It was only after his heart attack that he admitted he had, in fact, been feeling unwell.

His sense of humour was evident to all and he enjoyed sharing a joke - the simpler the better. The playground jokes his grandnephew Thomas brought home gave him hours of amusement as he told them again and again to the people he met. A good comedy was far more likely to get him to spend a little time in front of the television than anything else. "Yes Minister" was a favourite and he sometimes saw reflections of the administrative life that a bishop must be part of as he watched the comings and goings of the Hacker ensemble.

He watched very little television, although he tried always to catch "Newsnight" and any football match involving a Scottish team whether the National Team or one of the other Premier League Teams. His preference, though, was to be at the game and it was the one regular relaxation that he allowed himself. A quick meal at home with his nephew Edward and off to cheer his team along in the company of those seated nearby him who were another community for him. Here too the humour was evident. Once a fellow handed him two hot pies and mugs of Bovril telling him they had come from "Father Ganonzanti". He had no idea who this priest could be and had worked out that with a name like that he must be a new member of the Comboni Fathers Community. It was only much later that he discovered that the pies and Bovril had been a gift from Father John Gannon's auntie.

One reason he watched so little television was that he was a voracious reader. He devoured books and articles and had a memory that would allow him to delve back into this material and bring it to bear on a particular topic that was under discussion. He read in English, Latin, Italian and French; German was slightly harder for him, but he was able to keep up with it. He learned languages in the same way as he did everything else, by sheer determination and hard work. He was willing to challenge himself at every stage in his journey through life and was never too old to learn new things. He had never been able to swim and this was a source of irritation for him so, in the last year of his life, he had taken up swimming lessons and had been looking forward to showing off his new-found skill to the family during the summer holiday they had planned for August. Few 75 year-olds take up swimming for the first time, but it demonstrates his determination never to let the grass grow under his feet.

This willingness to apply himself to learning helped him greatly throughout his life. When appointed Spiritual Director at the Pontifical Scots College in 1961, he felt completely unequal to the task. He was not immediately comfortable at being asked to undertake the post believing that, if the Bishops had wanted him to be on the seminary staff, he would have been better at an academic post. He did not believe he had much to offer the students in the post he had been asked to undertake. Nevertheless, he had been asked to undertake this and, as a dedicated servant of the Church, he accepted the role out of the love he had for his Church and the faith he had in his bishop. This loving and trusting acceptance of a new challenge was to be as much a hallmark of his ministry as his determined resolution to do every job as well as he could. As he did with every task, he laid his hand on the plough and, refusing to look back, did everything he could to fulfil the role properly and well. At the same time as working hard to gain the skills required to be a good Spiritual Director, he also, with Bishop Scanlan's encouragement, challenged himself academically by studying for and qualifying as an Advocate of the Sacred Roman Rota, the highest marriage court of the Church.

The appointment to the College also meant that he would be in Rome during the heady and exciting days of the Second Vatican Council which Pope John XXIII had called and which would soon be beginning.

Looking back, we can see that the life of Thomas Winning is balanced around the pivotal event of the Second Vatican Council. He lived roughly equal periods of life before and after Vatican II: 37 years before the Council from 1925 till 1962 and another 36 years after the Council from 1965 till 2001. This symmetry is but an accident, though it does provide an excellent standpoint from which to view his life, his ideals and his vision. The Second Vatican Council was to change his life forever, both as a Catholic and as a priest.

The Bishops of Scotland used Father Winning's secretarial services during the Council and so he was uniquely placed to be a part of the events that were taking place, hearing the stories and reflecting on the debate. The bishops also got to know him and his skills and in the latter days of the sixties, when the newly created Bishops' Conference required a Minutes Secretary, they turned almost naturally to Father Winning.

Being so close to the events of Vatican II shaped Thomas Winning's ministry also. He began very quickly to see the implications of the Council for the Church in Scotland, for his own parish and for his life as a priest. The renewal of the Church, and of himself, in the spirit of Vatican II became the aim and object of his life. This was as true as a Parish Priest in Saint Luke's, Motherwell as it was when he was Archbishop of Glasgow. A page of notes (which must have been written before 1969) detailing the role and the purpose of Parish Councils was found among his papers after his death. In 1969 it would be fair to say that many of his contemporaries had never even heard of a Parish Council, yet here was an exposition of a theme that some believed had only been created by "The Pastoral Plan".

"The Pastoral Plan" of course never existed except in the vision the Church had expressed for herself at Vatican II. It was pastoral planning as a method and an approach to living the Christian life that motivated him: discovering new and better ways of living out the gospel, of building a Church of tomorrow, of going together into the future. It was at times a lonely vision that brought him misunderstanding and sometimes even hostility, yet it was a vision that he hoped would shape his ministry and be the most important thing for which he would be remembered. It gave him no little pleasure when some ten years ago the Holy See began to require of local bishops an account of their pastoral planning in the five-yearly ad limina report.

The Holy Father's plans for the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000 likewise gave the newly announced Cardinal Archbishop another personal and pastoral boost. The letter Tertio Millennio Adveniente, published just ten days after the Papal announcement that Archbishop Thomas Winning was to be raised to the College of Cardinals, laid out for the first time a pastoral plan for the Universal Church. The years leading up to the Jubilee were to be spent in preparation for the Jubilee, in following a plan. In fact, the Holy Father's plans for the Universal Church were easily incorporated into the diocesan planning and this incorporation decisively approved by the Diocesan Pastoral Council of 1995. It was a sure sign to him, as it was to many, that we had come a long way since the approaching Papal Visit of 1982 had first given the impetus needed for pastoral planning to become a reality in Glasgow.

His pride in what Glasgow had achieved, in spite of the readily acknowledged obstacles and failures, was given another boost by the Holy Father in January of 2001. The Pope's letter Novo Millennio Ineunte, reflecting on the just finished Jubilee Year, once again highlighted the need for pastoral planning and the goal of building a Church of Communion. No matter the difficulties of the reality of pastoral planning, the Pope was making it clear to the whole Church that this type of planning was not an optional extra tagged onto our faith, but a fundamental aspect of the life of a diocesan community in the new century. Glasgow was well down that road thanks to the vision of Thomas Winning.

To those who shared his vision, it is a matter of great regret that Cardinal Winning did not live to see the next stage of the planning taking shape. The Diocesan Pastoral Council of 2001 took place under the leadership of the Vicar General, Mgr. James Clancy, since the day before it took place the Cardinal had the first of his heart attacks. The Cardinal insisted that the Council go ahead in spite of his illness and was somewhat annoyed that he was given no details about the Council until some days after it, since his doctors did not want him discussing business. However, the day he was released from hospital he insisted on seeing Fathers Cappellaro, Conroy and Murray to discuss what had happened and what was next. The three priests refused to bring any paper work for him and made the meeting into a social call which, while pleasing him with their company, made him long for more information.

He was never to see that detail as two days later on June 17th 2001, he suffered a massive heart attack which resulted in his death. The shock that had been felt when he suffered his first heart attack was as nothing when word began to spread of his death. His robust good health and determined hard work had made him into someone who seemed inviolable. He did not look like a man in the latter half of his seventies, nor did he behave as such. In these days of early retirement he was still working at seventy-six years old. He had dutifully submitted his resignation to the Holy Father when he reached his seventy-fifth birthday in June 2000. The resignation was submitted in good spirit and good faith, willing to have the offer accepted and yet willing to continue as Archbishop if that was what was asked of him. He was, of course, asked to continue for "some years" and in return allowed to continue the process of seeking out an auxiliary bishop.

Neither of these was to come to pass. He continued as Archbishop for just one more year beyond his seventy-fifth birthday and the still unfinished process to choose an auxiliary stopped when he died. He had observed that when he was in his fifties he had two auxiliary bishops and now in his seventies, and a member of the College of Cardinals with international as well as national and diocesan responsibility, he carried the burden alone. It was a burden he carried willingly out of the same loyalty he had lived all his life as a priest. Nonetheless, he was becoming more and more exhausted by the demands that were placed upon him and yet he never did learn to say no. He did not let that tiredness slow him down - "You are a long time dead!" he used to say, the implication being that you had to make sure you used up every minute of your life. That he surely did.

When he had been released from hospital, the doctors had given instructions that he was to have no engagements for twelve weeks and only after that take a month's holiday. His diary had been cleared through the following November - it would be the longest break he had had since 1961. He said that he looked forward to all that free time: his family, friends and co-workers knew fine well that would soon wear off. The idea of Cardinal Thomas Winning as a retired Archbishop emeritus or as a man incapacitated by ill health is not an image that springs easily to mind. That he died at the peak of his influence on Scottish society and with a profile in the public arena that made the world sit up and take notice when he spoke seems, in hindsight, somehow fitting.

He worked every day of his life for the Kingdom of God, may he now rest in peace for all eternity.