David Robert Rollo, 24th July 1919-18th September 2006: soldier, engineer and poltical activist

David Robert Rollo was born in Springburn. From age 4 to age 6 he was in India, where his father worked as a civil engineer. He began formal education at Lenzie Primary and then Lenzie Academy. After leaving school, he worked as an apprentice at British Thomson Houston in Rugby. On returning to Scotland he played for Lenzie Rugby Club and started a course in electrical engineering at Glasgow University. This was interrupted by wartime service which saw him joining the local Anti-Tank Regiment and eventually the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. In December 1943 he married Marie Thorburn. Secondment to the Sixth Airborne Division meant fighting in the Ardennes and eventually reaching Wismar in Germany. He rose to the rank of Sergeant.

J Troop, 54 Anti-Tank Regiment, Royal Artillery, October 1939.
David Rollo is on the right of the seated row. (D. Rollo collection)

A colourised photograph of Sixth Airborne Division troops in Belgium. 

David Rollo is on the extreme right of the group. (D. Rollo collection)

Following demobilisation in 1946, he started an engineering course at Glasgow University which was again interrupted this time by his contracting tuberculosis. He spent several months in Hairmyres hospital in 1947. On recovery, he again matriculated at Glasgow University. Grants were made available for returning war service personnel, but, because his various interruptions meant that he did not fit into any neat categories, his grant application was passed from the Education Department to the War Office and back again. This was resolved by a letter on his behalf from his MP, David Kirkwood. David Rollo graduated in 1949 with a BSc in electrical engineering and subsequently became a chartered member of the profession.

He did not become active in the SNP until 1952 and gained confidence to speak in public by being active in the Kirkintilloch Toastmasters Club. In 1953 he became National Treasurer of the SNP, a post which he held until 1965.

David Rollo's election leaflet as the SNP

candidate for Paisley in the February 1974 

General Election. (D. Rollo collection)

His first election campaign was in Kirkintilloch’s Second Ward in 1953 where he polled 171 votes. Subsequently he fought five Parliamentary campaigns, Hamilton 1959, Glasgow Woodside 1970 and Paisley in February 1974, October 1974 and May 1979. His best result was in October 1974 when he came second, polling over 15,700 votes.

David Rollo addressing a Wallace Day rally in Johnstone in 1977.
(Photograph courtesy of and copyright the Scottish Political Archive, University of Stirling.)

Prior to 1965 there was a Government ban on SNP Party Political broadcasts. He built a pirate radio transmitter in the back shop of the Italian owned Townhead Cafe in Kirkintilloch. Along with Gordon Wilson, later SNP National Leader, he launched Radio Free Scotland. Although purely sound, broadcasts were on the BBC TV channel’s frequency after shut down. In 1957 he published a pamphlet, Broadcasting in Scotland. 

In 1980, he began overseas contract work which took him to Thailand, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and Libya. On returning he became concerned that the truth behind the Lockerbie bombing was being covered up and attended the Camp Zeist Trial on several occasions, all at his own expense. He was the author of Lockerbie, A Bum Rap? and also a partly completed booklet.

David Rollo at home in Beaufort Drive, Kirkintillloch.
(Photograph courtesy of and copyright Kirkintilloch Herald.)

During his final illness he commented that Radio Free Scotland was his greatest achievement. He kept his wartime sense of humour to the last and, on the day before he died, he remarked, concerning the doctor who had told him that he would not be getting home, ''He is not a man for false optimism”.

David A T Rollo

Son of David Robert Rollo and member of this Society.