Roy Mason: Miner who became an MP for Barnsley and served as Northern Ireland Secretary at the height of the Troubles

His bulldog nature did not create resentment, since people saw him for what he was, a blunt Yorkshireman

Mason with soldiers in Ulster in 1975; he was popular with the Army and the RUC (PA)

During the West Lothian by-election campaign in June 1962, one of my supporting speakers, and helpful parliamentary colleagues, was Cyril Bence, then the engineering workers' MP for East Dunbartonshire, and a man of wise judgements. He said to me, "If you are an MP in the 1980s and 1990s you will find that the leader of the Labour Party will be a young miner called Roy Mason, MP for Barnsley''.

I believe that Bence would have been proved right but for one event. On becoming Prime Minister in 1976 James Callaghan appointed his devoted friend, Merlyn Rees, then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Home Secretary. This meant that the Northern Ireland job, a poisoned chalice if ever there was one, went to another man in whom he had huge confidence, Wilson's Defence Secretary Roy Mason.

Mason's approach in Northern Ireland gained the admiration of Callaghan, who later wrote, "despite Merlyn Rees's constructive understanding and Roy Mason's firmness of purpose, we never seemed in sight of an agreement (much less settlement) that would be acceptable to the extremists in both communities.'' But Mason's firmness of purpose was to make him a large and distinguished number of enemies in the Parliamentary Labour Party, so much so that he felt unable to offer himself as a candidate at future leadership elections. Had it not been for his stint in Northern Ireland I believe that Mason would have become party leader and almost certainly Prime Minister.

He was born in a Barnsley pit village, and after leaving school went underground at the age of 14. In 1940 his father had a terrible pit accident and had just been nursed back to something approaching health by his mother when she died of cancer in 1944. At the end of the war, having been in a reserved occupation, Mason married Marjorie Sowden, his teenage sweetheart. It was to be a happy marriage.

A man of obvious leadership qualities, he became a branch official of the National Union of Mineworkers in 1947 and a member of the Yorkshire Miners Council in 1949. In 1953 he was elected to the safe Labour citadel of Barnsley Central. "My horizons were bounded by muck stacks which smoked and smouldered and cast a pall of dust and sulphurous filth over the brightest day," he recalled. "I was sworn in as member of parliament in my best suit – which was my only suit. My father, still disabled, stayed at home; he didn't have the money for the fare from Barnsley to London and back and I was in no position to help.''

Some months later he was summoned to the room of the former Prime Minister, Clement Attlee. Wryly, he told us that he imagined that he was going to be promoted to the Opposition front bench. However Attlee simply looked up from his desk, eyed Mason as he shut the door behind him, and said: "Mason: keep out of the bar. Specialise. That's all!''

Mason took Attlee's advice and was never seen anything approaching the worse for wear, though he liked a pint of beer – and he did specialise, on defence issues and particularly on the policies of nuclear weaponry. Never one to mince his words, he was an enthusiast for the policy of allowing Germany to re-arm against the threat of Soviet communism.

In 1959 Hugh Gaitskell appointed Mason Opposition spokesman on the Post Office; at that time the job of Postmaster General was an important one. After Gaitskell died in 1963 Mason descended on me, angry that he had heard that I was going to vote for Harold Wilson rather than George Brown. It was probably his criticism of Wilson as a leadership candidate, rather than his natural enthusiasm for Brown as a fellow trade unionist, that cost Mason the job in government he wanted – that of Postmaster General, which went to Tony Benn. However, he was rewarded with an important position as Minister of State at the Board of Trade, responsible for shipping and shipbuilding.

He was appalled at the old-fashioned, flat-capped, deferential attitude in the shipyards, and the treatment of engineers by owners whom we thought were living in a previous century. Nor was he more impressed by the practices of the ship owners. To his credit he urged the Prime Minister to set up a party committee on shipping, of which I was a member.

It was to his credit that he recommended that the chairman should be Ian Mikardo, a member of the Labour Party national executive, who differed from him on almost every aspect of party policy but whom Mason recognised rightly as a highly effective chairman. For all his associations with the "old right'' of the Party, Mason could recognise ability and had a rapport with the Left which was lacking in London-based parliamentary cliques. He was always very conscious that he was different from so many other right-wingers in that he returned each weekend to Barnsley, and had his social life in Barnsley and not in London society circles.

Denis Healey asked for him as his Minister of Defence for Equipment in 1967. He was fiercely patriotic, and the defence chiefs found him both congenial and effective with the contractors, in an aggressive way. His bulldog nature did not create resentment, since people saw him for what he was – a blunt Yorkshireman.

A period of ministerial musical chairs followed, and he was rewarded in April 1968 with the job of Postmaster General, but his stay was brief, brought to an end by the unexpected resignation of Ray Gunter as Minister of Power.

If the Prime Minister thought Mason would placate anybody he was whistling in the wind. I shall never forget Mason coming to my constituency, and the huge Polkemmet pit, the second largest in Scotland. We went down together; Mason was superb at talking to the miners, as later he was superb at talking to NCOs and private soldiers during his visit to the Forces. However, once up from the pit, he took the opportunity of bawling out the local East of Scotland NUM representative in a confrontation that became part of the coalfield legend. Indeed, he confounded Prime Ministers and miners' leaders alike by coming out against more coal-fired power stations. In his diary, Dick Crossman wrote: "It's astonishing how quickly these working class boys get taken over by the civil servants.''

As Crossman's PPS, I mentioned to Mason in the Commons tea room that Crossman was surprised about his attitude to coal-fired power stations and the consequential closure of the pits. His reply was ferocious: "Neither you nor Dick Crossman have had to work down a pit as I did for 15 years. I was carried out three times on a stretcher. The price of coal is the price of pneumoconiosis and chronic bronchitis and too often the price of life itself.''

A committed pro-European, Mason was in the lobby defying a Labour Party three-line whip in order to support the pro-European cause, and wrote a pamphlet arguing that the NUM should support the EEC. During the 1975 referendum Mason battled in Barnsley against anti-Europeans from the Scargill-led NUM. At various moments it became physical. But he was never one to shirk a fight.

When Labour came back to power in 1974 Mason became Secretary of State for Defence and oversaw the modernisation of Britain's Polaris-based nuclear deterrent. He is extremely well remembered by the military, who admired his patriotism and his ability to give a decisive answer quickly. He was also the most smartly turned-out minister of his generation, which appealed to them. His hobby was cravatology, the art of designing ties.

Mason served in Belfast in the most difficult period in Northern Irish history. Against the background of the collapse of the Sunningdale power-sharing executive, his watch saw the last serious attempt to find a security-based solution to the Troubles. Ruthless in the arrest of terrorists, Mason earned the respect of the RUC and the Army. Mainstream unionists, and indeed the Rev Ian Paisley, held out Mason as their favourite Northern Ireland Secretary.

However, there was another side to the coin. He infuriated not only Sinn Fein and the Nationalists but Gerry Fitt and the SDLP – and many members of the Parliamentary Labour Party such as Kevin McNamara and Stan Orme, who took a deep interest in Northern Ireland. For the rest of his life he and Marjorie had to endure special protection. It was partly for this reason that he and his wife were constant attendees in the House of Lords, where there was automatic safety. His autobiography Paying the Price is essential reading for any serious student of the politics of the second half of the 20th century.

Roy Mason, mineworker and politician, born Barnsley 18 April 1924; MP for Barnsley 1953-1983, Barnsley Central 1983-1987; cr. 1987 life peer; married 1945 Marjorie Sowden (two daughters); died 20 April 2015.