He lost a lot of money and broke the band up in 1956 when his health deteriorated as a result of the strain. He reformed the trio in 1957, working often as accompanist to visiting stars and as a solo act in cabaret. He fought against the tide when he formed a jazz- oriented big band in January 1955. The trio reassembled to play at last year’s Ellington ‘97 Conference in Leeds, and Mitchell took part in panel discussions where he gave a graphic account of his experiences with Ellington.Although dedicated to jazz, Mitchell moved into more commercial music to earn his living, arranging the music for the famous Hovis television commercials. The programme, Atlantic Showboat, was produced by a company owned by the television presenter Hughie Green, and jazz enthusiasts were outraged when he insisted on presenting it himself. Virtually penniless, they took to busking, and found a restaurant where they could play for meals and tips.

After a few weeks they were heard by an official of the Monte Carlo Casino and played there for the rest of the winter season, even doing a session for Prince Rainier at his palace.Mitchell was called on again by Ellington in October 1958 for an ATV broadcast. The trio’s first engagement was to open a new night-club in Nice, only to find the premises boarded up and the promoter nowhere to be seen. In 1948 Mitchell was called on to play with Stephane Grappelli and Django Reinhardt for an eight-week tour of Sweden. He played piano at the London Palladium and music halls in nine other cities with his trumpeter Ray Nance, allowed in as a dancer and thus “showbiz”, and his singer Kay Davis (girl singers weren’t banned – the union presumably didn’t regard them as musicians).
A trio consisting of Mitchell on guitar, Jack Fallon, bass, and Tony Crombie, drums, completed the group and the American Variety reported that the visit was “an outstanding success”.While the union ban was in place the Mitchell Trio, now with Johnnie Pearson on piano and Teddy Broughton on bass, accompanied other bewildered American “variety artists” including Hoagy Carmichael and the singer Maxine Sullivan when they toured in England. Throughout the Forties and into the Fifties the Musicians’ Union, then a brutish and, in tandem with the Ministry of Works, all-powerful fraternity, had a rule which banned American musicians from playing in England. In 1948 the Dizzy Gillespie and Spike Jones orchestras had had to cancel projected tours and the only way Ellington was able to work there was as a variety act without his band. In 1933 the Duke of Windsor had insisted on sitting in on drums with the Ellington band when it visited Britain but he didn’t get paid for it.

Mitchell’s debut with Ellington was equally eccentric in its way. IN 1948 Malcolm Mitchell became the first British musician to play with Duke Ellington and earn money for doing so. He co-founded the Edinburgh Gay & Lesbian Community Centre in 1974, the oldest centre of its kind in Britain.Ian Dunn was a long-time Labour Party and trade union activist (in Nalgo and Unison), who hoped to win selection as a Labour candidate for the Scottish Parliament. A planning officer with Edinburgh Council until he took early retirement, he was also a keen conservationist, helping save from demolition Mansfield Place Church in Edinburgh, with its magnificent murals by Phoebe Traquair Wilson.Ian Campbell Dunn, campaigner: born Glasgow 1 May 1943; died Edinburgh 10 March 1998.. This congress led to the formation of the International Lesbian & Gay Association (Ilga).

Now a global federation of 400 gay rights groups in 60 countries, Ilga has played a pivotal role in getting gay equality recognised as a human rights issue in international forums such as the United Nations and the Council of Europe.Dunn also played an important role in launching Britain’s first national gay newspaper, Gay News, in 1972, and was for many years editor of Gay Scotland magazine. But he soon rebelled against his respectable pedigree.In 1974, he and Derek Ogg convened the International Gay Rights Congress in Edinburgh – the first post-war conference of homosexual emancipation movements from around the world. SMG held its inaugural meeting in the front room of his parents’ home in Glasgow. At the time of his death, from a heart attack, Dunn was the convenor of its successor organisation, Outright Scotland. His most recent campaign was to amend the current Bill setting out the powers of the Scottish Parliament, to ensure that its equal opportunities remit included non-discrimination based on “sexual orientation and gender identity”.Born into a staunch Scottish Conservative and Unionist family in Glasgow, and educated at Hillhead High School, Dunn went on to become first a meteorologist, and later a town planner.