SCOTLAND'S top politicians gathered at Dalgety Parish Church to say farewell to West Fife MSP Helen Eadie.

Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, First Minister Alex Salmond and former First Minister Henry McLeish joined hundreds of mourners to pay their respects.

Scottish Lib Dem leader Willie Rennie, Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson and Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont also attended as all parties paid tribute to the life and achievements of the Labour stalwart.

Mrs Eadie (66), who had been a member of the new Scottish Parliament since its inception in 1999, died earlier this month shortly after being diagnosed with cancer.

The eulogy was given by Gordon Brown who said she was a “woman of the people” from her earliest days, sacked at the aged of 15 for joining a trade union, right up to the end when facing death she was still working for constituents from her hospice bed.

Mr Brown said, “Helen Eadie, whose death we mourn today but whose life we celebrate, is admired, respected and loved by the people she represented and by all who know her.

“No-one had a greater zest for life, no-one had as large an enthusiasm for the best of causes, no-one a bigger heart than Helen Eadie.

“No-one I know lived her life with more sympathy for people in need, no-one tried harder for the people she served and no-one was more committed to standing up for the weakest, the frailest, the most vulnerable.

“And it was her warmth in her dealings with everyone she met that marks her out as so special and we will never forget that friendly, broad, welcoming smile that radiated across all the communities of this diverse constituency.

“It is fashionable to say of individuals that they touched the lives of people but the truth is that Helen not only touched the lives of thousands of us over the years but she enhanced and enriched our lives.

“And right to the last, even in her final days, knowing she only had a few precious hours to live, she was helping people - dictating from her hospice bed a resolution that was submitted in her name to the Scottish Parliament just before she died, still e-mailing colleagues with unfinished work from her hospital bed and, even as she was in desperate need of care herself, she - who needed care - was caring for her carers, helping her night nurses get fairer conditions from the NHS." Mr Brown went on, “And Helen born in Stenhousemuir, schooled in Larbert, college educated in Falkirk and then at the London School of Economics and 17 years a Londoner, came to adopt and love Fife and Fife adopt and love her.

“1984 in Fife brought a baptism of fire, as she herself recounted, ‘I married into a family that had mining in the blood... and I remember the strike in 1984 very well. I was working from the High Valleyfield social work office. There was no better place to hear, almost instantaneously and blow by blow, about the moments when miners on picket lines were lifted by the police. Some of the police behaviour in those days was I believe well below that which was acceptable and certainly would not be tolerated by senior officers today.’" He continued, “And just as - as the years pass - we will remember how Helen taught us a lesson in the virtues of compassion, warmth and friendliness by the way she lived, we will remember how Helen has also taught us all a lesson in courage by the way she died.

“Facing up to news of her terminal illness with the greatest of bravery confronting her failing health - and that her time left on earth could be counted not in weeks or even days but in hours - with no complaint but with great dignity, calmly talking through the future with her daughters and Bob.

“And even as she faced her last few hours making preparations for this service so that everything you hear today - the hymns, the prayers, the readings, the speeches - are what Helen wanted. Helen showing the same care, the same consideration of others, the same compassion, the same warmth as she faced death that she showed in life.

“Helen with that great way of making everyone she met feel special - but with a great humility that made her too modest to see just how special she herself was - typically telling a friend who visited her in the hospice just ‘I just tried to always do my best’.”