The man who alerted the world to the Trainspotting generation is worried

What working for 40 years as a GP in North Edinburgh has taught Roy Robertson about addiction

Professor Roy Robertson - pioneer in the fight against addiction

I can’t remember the man’s name, it was such a long time ago, but his story has stayed with me across the decades since the 1980s. The utter senselessness of it beyond any normal comprehension.

I do remember he answered the door in his wheelchair to speak to me at his home in the West Granton scheme known as “The Ramps” because of its sloped and elevated walkways. It was a place that looked, and often felt, more like a post-apocalyptic ghetto than a residential area.

He told me his story - that, as he was recovering from having one leg amputated at the Royal Infirmary, mates smuggled in “smack” and a syringe. Despite the awful, brutal lesson he had been dealt, as he lay in his hospital bed he began injecting in his remaining limb. A little later, it too had to be removed. Both legs lost to repeated injections of cheap heroin with dirty needles.