Born: 17 October, 1908, in Aberdeen.
Died: 12 May, 2008, in Edinburgh, aged 99.
DR ALAN Auld, OBE, was the organiser and the enthusiastic inspiration of voluntary social work as a comprehensive and effective
service in Aberdeen in the post-war era, creating what was to be a model operation of a new approach to voluntary social work in Scotland. He died in Edinburgh, just short of his centenary, after a fall.
It may have been in Edinburgh's Old Town that he learned his social field work, as an inspector from 1937 with the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children in the then notorious slums of the Cowgate and Pleasance area. But one of the experiences which had honed his social concern was watching his postman father, weakened by the flu epidemic of 1919, succumb to pneumonia by 1922 and have to retire, and then drag himself for regular inspection by the panel doctors of the Post Office to qualify for a tiny allowance in the years until he died. His own response was to leave the then Aberdeen Central School at 14 and supplement family income, so forfeiting his chance of university study. Paradoxically, his best educational opportunities were to be afforded him during staff officer training in the course of the Second World War.
Most of his early working years in Aberdeen were spent in the accounts department of Shell at Point Law in Aberdeen. The year 1937 brought a decisive career change, and a move to Edinburgh to become a field worker with SSPCC. At this time he joined the Territorial Army, in artillery.
Evacuated from Dunkirk after defending the withdrawal of the British Expeditionary Force from France in 1940, he served in coastal defence batteries, then in the Normandy invasion, and finally in military government near Hamburg, where his outstanding leadership qualities were recognised.
He was saddened by any chess opponent who sought first to clear the board of minor pieces, then concentrate on the struggle between the major players. For him, the most elegant victory might take longer to achieve, but would cost fewer chess pieces lost. His approach to this game might well be associated with the decoration he most appreciated receiving out of his war service with the Royal Artillery: the Queen of the Netherlands awarded him the Order of Orange Nassau, for minimising civilian casualties as German armies were fought back through the south-east of her country. Even pawns should be sacrificed with the greatest reluctance. That was not just the former gunner, or the occasional chess player – that was the man.
His notable public role was in the development of social work in the voluntary sector, principally in Aberdeen and north-east Scotland, but also nationally in Scotland. Though pressed to stay in the army with a guarantee of further promotion and continue in military government, he preferred to rejoin his wife and small son at the earliest opportunity. After only a short delay, he was appointed secretary of the Aberdeen Association of Social Service and took up his position in December 1945. Already then the original 38 Castle Street housed the headquarters of a group of charities dealing with many concerns from the young to the very old; from unmarried mothers and their babies to discharged prisoners.
It was an exciting and an exacting time to be involved in the voluntary sector as it responded to the welcome and burgeoning developments in central and local government provision.
Auld streamlined the administration of the several bodies for which he was responsible and set about an ambitious building programme of homes for the elderly ("You had to start work before you asked people to support you financially," he said, and they did) and children – and of the headquarters in the Castlegate.
Like all those for whom he acted, the elderly were always individuals. One of his favourite stories was of meeting the 98-year-old James Ledingham, trying to cross the busy Castlegate two or three miles from one of these homes. "Hello, Mr Ledingham," he said. "Does matron know you're here?" "No, Mr Auld – I just slipped out to post a card to my second laddie – he'll be 70 the morn." "And how old's your first laddie?" "He's 72." "I'll just post your card, and put you on this bus."
He probably appreciated being honoured by Aberdeen University (LLD) even more than by the Queen for the nation (OBE), because he was a proud son of the North-east – because he had been much involved as that university planned and set up its professional qualification for social work – and because Aberdeen was the university from which he would have graduated with distinction alongside many of his friends had he not had to leave school at the earliest opportunity.
He was supported in all this by his deep, quiet faith and by his close bond with his wife, Alice (née Coull). Next Christmas Eve they would have been married 70 years.
As young folk in Holburn West (then UF) Church, Alice and Alan both taught in the Sunday school and sang in the choir. He was also a scout leader, and became an elder in his early twenties. On return to Aberdeen, he served as an elder within Beechgrove Church and as a freely elected member of the presbytery of Aberdeen – he was the first non-ministerial convener of its union and readjustments committee. The title of one of Stuart McWilliam's eloquent 1950s sermons at Beechgrove resonated deeply with him, and was often quoted by him – "Life's interruptions are life's opportunities."
He is survived by his wife, their two children, Graeme and Alison, and six grandchildren. His fifth and sixth great-grandchildren were born within a couple of weeks of his death.
