Obituary: Iain Hume Fraser
IAIN Fraser, who died suddenly at his home in Dingwall on May 29, aged 69, was brought up in Edinburgh.
His spiritual home, however, was in Sutherland, at Torrisdale, Skerray, where his great-grandfather, Dr Hew Morrison, Gaelic scholar, Edinburgh City librarian and organiser of the Carnegie libraries, was born.
The second son of Edinburgh GP Dr Ainslie Fraser and his wife, Margaret, a former nurse, Iain and his twin sister, Gillian, were born on October 15, 1942. They had an older brother, Kenneth, and two younger sisters, Jane and Sheila.
Margaret died when Sheila was very small, and Iain, to whom she remained close throughout his life, had often helped to look after her while himself only a teenager.
The family spent many happy summers in Torrisdale, at the house once owned by Hew Morrison, and this prompted Iain to return happily to Skerray after leaving George Watson’s School.
His first job was as a labourer with Sutherland County Council’s roads squad, of which, when asked later what he did, Iain would reply: "We appeared daily".
He then spent a brief spell as a van boy with Tongue-based grocer Gordon Burr, through which he made many friends and acquaintances in communities along the north coast.
Those with whom he came in contact thought him posh, with his polite Edinburgh accent and courtesy, but as close Skerray friend William Mackintosh, who helped to bear his coffin at his funeral, said: "He had such a lovely way with him that we soon became friends. No man could ask for a better friend. Our memories, individual and collective, are the means by which the spirit of Iain will remain with us forever."
Gordon Burr is reputed to have said that Iain was the nicest man he had ever employed.
Iain then worked at the prototype nuclear reactor plant in Dounreay as a junior scientific officer for three years, before returning to Edinburgh, where he drove an ambulance, plus taxis at weekends, between studying psychology at Aberdeen and Edinburgh universities.
He never, however, pursued a career in psychology, explaining to a friend many years later: "I didn’t believe in what was being taught."
While in the ambulance service he met his wife, Catherine, a nurse at the Western General Hospital. They married in 1970 and had three children, Iain, Julie and Andrew.
He had a flair for accounting and instead pursued a career in this line until he died.
Iain and his family moved for a time to Golspie and later Evanton, all the while maintaining close links with Torrisdale. When made redundant, he became a salmon fisher on the River Oykell until another accounting post became available.
He spent five-and-a-half years in Kinlochbervie and Lochinver with a French firm, where employees from its homeland were unaware that Iain understood their language.
He thought it was fun listening to conversations the French might rather he did not hear.
Catherine thought Iain was having a midlife crisis when he decided to give his brain a rest and re-create the dream job of his youth, driving a grocer’s van throughout North Sutherland. He converted an old school bus inside and off he went. However, reality hit after a year and he returned to accounting to pay the bills.
He did eventually venture outside Scotland and his first trip was to China, representing relatives of missionaries like his maternal grandfather, the Rev Henry Pullar, who had ministered in Manchuria in late Victorian times.
Each year for many years Iain and Catherine went to the China Teas in Edinburgh, where former missionaries and their families met once a year until numbers were greatly reduced.
Through former Lovat Scouts Addie Mackenzie, who had lived in Skerray, and Willie Munro, from Lairg, Iain became very interested in the history of that regiment.
He met surviving veterans, filmed interviews with them and recorded their experiences. A creative thinker, he was always involved in projects, loved writing and filming, photography and fishing and had hoped this year to retire to write more.
He was quite an expert on genealogy, especially within North Sutherland, and received many requests from home and abroad about family links and relatives from Sutherland.
Iain had a quiet religious faith, a dry sense of humour and a sharp mind. Sutherland and everything involving its people, history, poetry, songs and stories handed down from family to family, from generation to generation, remained his passion. He was very generous in passing on information he had gleaned to anyone interested.
His funeral service took place at Dingwall Baptist Church, followed by cremation at Inverness.
Iain is survived by Catherine, his children, his brother and sisters.
Adapted by Willie Morrison, with whom Iain shared many an old photograph or snippet of local historical interest, from information supplied by Iain’s family.
