Born in 1946 and brought up in Cupar, Fife, I was educated at the local school - 
Additional capacity for around 7,000 more train passengers was provided each day on both First ScotRail and cross-border rail services during the disruption, while bus operators have carried more than 9,000 extra passengers.
Ferry operators also responded to increased demand, including Northlink, which agreed with the Scottish Government to despatch the MV Hamnavoe to Norway to bring 157 stranded British nationals, including 17 children and 4 infants, to Aberdeen.
The Homecoming Helpline, set up by the Scottish Government last week to provide travel, visa, health and other advice to Scots stranded abroad, received more than 2,100 calls, with over 700 taken by call handlers for more detailed assistance.
At this morning's eleventh meeting of the Cabinet sub-committee of SGoRR (Scottish Government Resilience Room), it was decided to move to a 'stand-by' mode, with no further daily ministerial meetings scheduled but remaining ready to put contingency measures in place in the event of future disruption.
Mr Stevenson said:
"The SGoRR Cabinet sub-committee met today for the eleventh time during this incident. We received updates from the various agencies monitoring and responding to the impact of the volcanic ash cloud that closed much of Europe's airspace at different points over the last two weeks. Clearly, as the plume coming from the volcano and the seismic activity continues, the monitoring will go on at regular intervals.
"With thousands of Scots having now returned home following the initial airspace closure, demand for extra land and sea travel capacity has subsided and normal services have resumed across all transport modes. I want to thank all of those operators who moved quickly to lay on additional bus, train and ferry services to help Scots return home.
"At today's meeting we agreed to schedule no further daily ministerial meetings of SGoRR, while of course we remain ready to put our tried and tested contingency measures in place in the event of future disruption.
"Officials from Scottish Resilience and our other Directorates are continuing to liaise closely with the Met Office, National Air Traffic Service (NATS) and other key agencies to ensure that should the ash cloud return, we remain ready to invoke the arrangements that have worked so successfully over the past fortnight."
