18 OCTOBER 1997, Page 32

Home guard

I ADMIRED the stately changing of the guard at HSBC, the Hongkong Bank group, but I shall find it hard to think of the bank without Sir William Purves, its craggy Cale- donian chairman, or of him without the bank. A government that wants to give Scotland its place in the sun (or such sun as it gets) ought to call on his services. The Bank of Scotland already has a Governor, newly appointed, so perhaps he could be Governor of Scotland.