ROBIN COOK’S wife, Gaynor, tried for 45 minutes to resuscitate her husband high on a mountainside in northwest Scotland where he collapsed and died on Saturday afternoon.

The couple, both keen hill walkers, had been negotiating a steep, rocky section near the 2,365ft summit of Ben Stack, in Sutherland, when the former Foreign Secretary, who was on medication for high blood pressure, became unwell.

Mr and Mrs Cook were midway through a two-week walking holiday and had been staying in the hamlet of Durness, near Cape Wrath.

The couple had set out in sunny conditions to climb the north side of the “gothically pointy” Ben Stack — which is said to have inspired

J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth in The Lord of the Rings — when Mr Cook, 59, suffered what is thought to have been a heart attack. Neither of the Cooks was carrying a mobile phone but Mrs Cook’s cries for help were answered by a walker, who called the emergency services at about 2.23pm.

Between them, Mrs Cook, 48, and the man, who has not been named, gave Mr Cook mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and chest compressions under the telephone guidance of Inverness ambulance staff, until rescuers arrived by Coastguard helicopter at 3.01pm.

Heather MacKintosh, the ambulance worker who took their call, said: “Mrs Cook was very upset and I tried to reassure her and calm her down. She didn’t say much, apart from to ask where her husband would be flown to. They did all they could, but unfortunately it turned out as it did.”

George Chrossan, the Stornoway Coastguard helicopter winchman who attended the incident, said that Mrs Cook had been on her own when Mr Cook suddenly collapsed and stopped breathing about 1,000ft below the summit.

“He had not complained of any pain. He had fallen about eight feet down a ridge after collapsing, which resulted in a slight head injury. Gaynor kept asking me if he was dead, but obviously I couldn’t say anything,” he said. The steep terrain meant that the helicopter was unable to land, and Mr Cook was winched from the mountain and flown to Raigmore Hospital, Inverness, where he was pronounced dead at 4.05pm. A post-mortem examination will be carried out today. The urgency of the situation meant that there was no time to winch Mrs Cook on board, and she made her way back down the mountain with the stranger.

Yesterday, accompanied by police and Mr Cook’s constituency agent, Jim Devine, Mrs Cook visited the hospital to identify his body before heading home to Merchiston, in Edinburgh.

Mr Cook, who was the MP for Livingston, was a keen hill walker and horse rider and had recently taken up jogging. He was also a respected horse- racing tipster. Friends said that, as with everything he did, he liked to push himself to the limit while walking, despite having been, for about three years, on medication to lower his blood pressure. In July 2002 he had fainted in the Live Bait restaurant in Covent Garden, and had subsequently spent a night in hospital, but he never considered the problem to be serious.

Mr Cook’s sons by his first marriage, Christopher, 31, and Peter, 32, were described as devastated. They both live in England, and travelled to the Edinburgh home of their mother, Margaret Cook, yesterday.

Dr Cook, to whom Mr Cook was married for 28 years, said that she was shocked and saddened by her former husband’s death. They had “made peace”, she said, after their acrimonious divorce eight years ago. “My obligation now is to support my sons, who are gutted by this. They were very close to their father,” she said.

“He was such a clever man with a brilliant brain and there was such a lot he could have done. He always loved the Highlands. I used to worry when he was up there but he was adventurous and loved to push himself to the limit. He was barely 60. I can’t believe it — it’s absolutely devastating. I don’t know what the funeral arrangements are going to be but I hope to attend. Obviously I will take Gaynor’s wishes into account.”

Bristow Muldoon, a friend of Robin and Gaynor Cook and Labour Member of the Scottish Parliament for the same constituency, said that he had enjoyed a pub lunch with the couple nine days ago.

“He was buoyant. In fact, I’ve seldom seen him so buoyant.He had a blood pressure problem and was put on medication. But he was very fit and healthy when I last saw him and he did not regard the blood pressure thing as a major health problem.” The funeral has yet to be arranged but is expected to take place in Edinburgh later this week.

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