A FEW MONTHS earlier Midge Ure had just been another rock star. A talented young pop singer who had got lucky and made his childhood dream of appearing on Top of the Pops come true.

But through a chapter of accidents he had become co-architect of one of the biggest humanitarian campaigns of the 20th century - Live Aid.

And on March 9, 1985, he found himself flying for the first time into famine stricken Ethiopia aboard a Nigerian Airlines cargo plane laden with medical supplies, high protein biscuits and milk.

In the absence of Bob Geldof, Ure had been told to go and shake hands with the British ambassador and, for the benefit of a film crew, to meet the sick, starving and displaced.

No sooner had he touched down in Addis Ababa than he was driven to the Hilton Hotel bracing himself to confront the horrors he had seen on TV.

Yet he found himself in a plush air-conditioned hotel room looking out of a window at a swimming pool surrounded by people sunbathing, drinking vodka cocktails and eating burgers.

A few short miles away thousands of people, poor and hungry, were clinging to life in an aid camp. The hotel was surrounded by barbed wire to keep them out.

Ure tells the story in his new autobiography If I Was... Nearly 20 years later he is clearly still troubled by the hoplessness of the situation and his complete lack of power to help.

This is a fascinating story of a working class boy from Glasgow who made it big in the rock 'n' roll business but found himself at the centre of something that was changed the world.

Jeremy Miles

See the Daily Echo on Tuesday (Nov 2) and Saturday Magazine (Nov 6) for Echo man Kevin Nash's account of Ethiopia 20 years after Band Aid.