Born: 9 September, 1926, in Gilmerton. Died: 1 December, 2007, in Edinburgh, aged 81.
ALTHOUGH Bill Smith was born in the then self-contained village of Gilmerton, near Edinburgh, his parents moved when he was still quite young to the capital's so
uthside. This move was to be of considerable significance for the direction of Bill's future life, for it marked the beginning of a lifelong connection with the Pleasance Church and its successor congregations. From an early age, the church played a major role in Bill's life, and even in his youth his leadership qualities were acknowledged beyond his home parish when he served on the newly-formed Youth Fellowship Council for the city of Edinburgh.
Leaving Boroughmuir Secondary School with high academic distinction in 1943, Bill was eager to go to university, but war service as a Bevin Boy in the mines intervened. To his great regret, at the end of the war university study was simply not possible on financial grounds, and instead he joined the civil service as an officer of Customs and Excise, the beginning of a long and successful career spent almost entirely in that department. Highlights for him were his periods as a distillery officer on Islay, as the excise officer in Dalkeith, and as regional welfare officer for Scotland, before specialising in personnel and training. In the early 1970s, a brief transfer to Aberdeen to head the regional training and development unit in the busy period when VAT was being introduced was followed by a two-and-a-half-year secondment to the Hong Kong Civil Service to advise on personnel matters, before returning to Edinburgh towards the end of his career.
Bill's early introduction to church life in the Pleasance was to give his life a sense of direction and purpose that never left him. He was ordained to the eldership in 1950 and served the successive congregations of Pleasance, Charteris Pleasance and Kirk o' Field for well over 50 years as an active and committed elder, holding the office of session clerk on two occasions for a total period of 13 years. In 1957, he became a member of the Presbytery of Edinburgh which he served loyally in many capacities for most of the next 50 years, apart from the period when he was living away from Edinburgh. He was particularly proud to be the first elder to convene its business committee, a post which he held from 1985 to 1989.
By then, his administrative and leadership skills had already been noticed on a wider scale, when he was appointed convener of the Diaconate Board of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland – again the first elder to hold this post – serving an extended period of office from 1981-86 at a time when the committees of the Church were going through a period of reorganisation and he was able to provide some continuity. To this task he brought not only his expertise as a committee chairman and administrator, but also a strong desire to try to relate personally to each of the hundred or so deaconesses, both active and retired, whose work was overseen by the board.
Bill's third "first" as an elder came in 1987 when his lifelong friend the Rev Dr Duncan Shaw invited him to serve as his senior chaplain on his election as Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, a role which no elder had previously been asked to undertake. The experiences and the privileges of the ensuing year gave Bill enormous pleasure.
Retirement from the civil service in 1986 did not mean the end of Bill's working life, but simply opened the way to another career. The Scottish Priory of the Order of St John happened to be looking for a secretary. So began a period of five very happy and fulfilling years, which included a visit to New Zealand as a representative of the Scottish Prior, the Viscount Arbuthnott, and which culminated in his appointment as a Commander of the Order of St John.
Family life and the church were the two pillars of Bill's life. He and Beatrice were married in 1953, and for 45 years their partnership flourished. Herself an active and much-loved elder of the kirk, Bea was his strong support and mainstay. Bill was desolated on her sudden death in 1998, but he and Mary were to find solace together for the loss of both their partners and their marriage in 2001 led to a few rich but all too brief years of companionship. After a short period of increasing frailty Bill died at the beginning of December. He is survived by Mary and by his daughter Jan, her husband Tim and his granddaughters Rebecca and Catriona.
The full article contains 799 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
