Minister, former pilot and chaplain to the Queen in Scotland

Born: August 25, 1921;

Died: May 23, 2017

REVD KENNETH MacVicar, who has died aged 96, was a parish minister, former pilot and chaplain to the Queen in Scotland who came from a family mostly of remarkably long lives: his father Angus, minister of Southend Argyll, lived until he was 92 and his brother Angus, the author, also lived into his nineties. Remarkably by today’s standards, Mr MacVicar's whole ministry from ordination to retirement and beyond was spent in the Perthshire village of Kenmore.

After schooling in Campbeltown, he reluctantly matriculated at Edinburgh University to study pure science, because he would rather have been in the armed forces. During a year there studying science, and itching to get into the forces he joined the University’s Air Squadron.

He saw service in India and Burma as a pilot, gaining the nickname MacPorridge. Flying over Burma, the Hurricane he was flying was shot down. He spent days avoiding capture and going without food until, after various adventures he described in his autobiography, The Wings of the Morning, he found himself flying again, at night, to strike a village where the top Japanese Intelligence staff were meeting. The strike was successful. With considerable understatement Kenneth MacVicar noted that “all the information we got concerning the strike indicated we had more than upset a lot of the Japanese army’s plans by our visitation of their intelligence".

When war ended, Kenneth MacVicar returmed to the manse of Southend to recover, and there, as he put it, “there was the birth of the feeling that I should follow my father’s footsteps in the ministry”.

In September 1946 he married Isobel McKay, and they set up home in St Andrews, where Mr MacVicar was to complete an arts degree and train for the ministry. In July 1945 he was ordained and inducted to the parish of Kenmore, to which were added several more parishes on either side of Loch Tay during the course of the years Mr MacVicar and Isobel occupied the manse of Kenmore.

There were many congregations which approached him to consider being their minister. To each one there was the same answer. He would take the deputation out to the manse garden, point them, across the stretch of Loch Tay they could see, and show them Ben Lawers, and ask, can you give me a view like that?

It was not only the view that kept Kenneth MacVicar in Kenmore all these years of his ministry, and those since he retired in 1990. It was the unshakeable bond that grew with the people of the area, for whom he cared whether or not they darkened the door of Kenmore Kirk, and the fact that his four children grew up there, and there was as much Kenmore as MacVicar blood in their veins.

Kenneth MacVicar was far, far more than a parish minister, though he would have said it was the most important role he had. He was a county councillor for a number of years. He served as convener of the General Assembly’s committee on H M Forces, and he was vice convener of the Assembly’s committee on unions and readjustments, which was responsible for bringing the number of parishes into line with the available number of ministers, and consequently on occasions for persuading congregations to be united or linked with others. It was a task for which his wartime service in Burma, avoiding the pursuing Japanese, was perhaps valuable preparation.

Mr MacVicar was a man of deep and unquestionable integrity, not only in his dealings with parishioners and others but also in the depth and consistency of the views he held. In his history of Scottish politics since the Second World War, The Hollow Drum, the former Herald editor Arnold Kemp said that “to be a member of the Church of Scotland meant that it was more likely that you voted Conservative” and that was a kirk Kenneth MacVicar was very comfortable to be in. As time went on however the kirk’s political stance - at least as reflected in its Church and Nation Committee and the decisions of the General Assembly - moved steadily to the left. Kenneth MacVicar did not follow it (or his father or brother ). In a debate on nuclear weapons, whose abandonment had been proposed, as ever, by George MacLeod, asking rhetorically “which of us would be prepared to press the nuclear button?”. Mr MacVicar sat restlessly in his seat, jumping to his feet when MacLeod ended, and replying “I am asked who will press the nuclear button. Moderator, I will press the button!”

Kenneth MacVicar was at his best, easiest, and most relaxed in the company of his incredibly close family: his wife Isobel predeceased him and their children, Angus, Kenneth, Cameron and Jean, whose loyalty, love and respect made for a model family relationship.

JOHNSTON MCKAY