TRIBUTES have been paid to a drug rehabilitation expert and Yes activist who has died from Covid at the age of 71.

Rowdy Yates MBE drew on his own experience of heroin addiction to become a respected voice in treatment and recovery across a career spanning more than 50 years.

After beating drugs in the 1970s, he co-founded the Lifeline Project and went on to become an honorary senior research fellow in the Faculty of Social Sciences at Stirling University.

The grandfather was also the executive director of EWODOR (the European Working Group on Drugs Oriented Research) and honorary vice president of the EFTC (European Federation of Therapeutic Communities).

Living near Trinity Gask in Perthshire, he was also an active campaigner for Scottish independence.

Yates earned his nickname as a child thanks to his exuberant demeanour and the popularity of the TV show Rawhide, whose popular character Rowdy (played by Clint Eastwood) shared his last name. He used the moniker throughout his life and died surrounded by family at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee on Valentine’s Day.

His wife Kathleen, who is supported by sons Sam, Christy and Calum, told how he spoke on Facetime with his granddaughters from hospital, managing to have a joke with them. The five girls – Faith, Hope, Grace, Serena and Zoe – helped keep him active in his later life.

The couple met in Manchester, where the Lifeline Project was based. “He always shot from the hip,” she says. “He was a very straight-forward person. He just wanted to do the best and the most he could for people whose lives were affected by addiction.”

A founding member of the board of Phoenix Scotland, Yates left Lifeline in 1993, becoming the director of the Scottish Drugs Training Project (SDTP) at Stirling University. This closed in 2001, after which he became a member of the faculty specialising in teaching and researching in addictions. He authored more than 40 papers on theory and practice and continued publishing after his 2016 retirement and until his death.

A keen musician, he recorded songs to raise funds for the EFTC and took his expertise across borders. Members of Fédération Addiction and the World Federation of Therapeutic Communities are amongst those to have paid tribute to him.

Yates was awarded with an MBE for services to the prevention of drug addiction in 1994. He routinely questioned the effectiveness of drug policies and championed an approach centred around health and treatment for users. And he spoke out against the reactions by some politicians to calls for a new focus, telling The Herald in 2012: “Any time a politician mentions anything about reform of drug laws, they are instantly given the white feather as a conscientious objector to the war on drugs. That becomes an embarrassment. That is not serious political debate.”

His determination to do the right thing continued in hospital, where, before his transfer to intensive care, the behaviour of another patient drew his attention. The man was being disrespectful to nurses, Kathleen explains, and Rowdy told him to “effing stop treating the nurses like that, stop treating this place like a hotel and show some respect”.

“As Rowdy was being moved,” Kathleen says, “the charge nurse gave him a big hug and said ‘thanks so much for saying that, because we can’t say it’. That’s just how he was; even though he was very ill, he couldn’t stand by without trying to help.

“He was passionate about good drug services for drug users because everyone deserves a chance to change their lives.”