Born: 29 October, 1930, in Santos, Brazil.
Died: 13 April, 2008, in Inverness, aged 77. DUNCAN McPherson, CBE, MA, SDA, was a Highland politician whose sterling foresight in planning policy saw the area of the Cromarty Firth
expand as an oil service base without the eastern seaboard of his beloved Highlands becoming a totally industrialised area. His ability to carry a research brief showed through, too, in his wiliness in outfoxing an all-too-clever plan by British Rail to axe Highland sleeper services.
When, in 1993, the then BR announced plans to curtail or scrap some sleeper services in the run-up to rail privatisation, McPherson was contacted by Councillor Rhona Kemp, his opposite number at Grampian Regional Council, and together they lined up the political heads of Scotland's nine regions in a full-frontal attack on BR. In a meeting with rail heads in Edinburgh – partially filmed by BBC's Panorama – McPherson and Kemp piled in fact after fact in a way that eventually had BR bureaucrats running for cover. Not only did the twosome prevent the massive closures mooted, but they ensured that revived London-Scotland sleeper services would in future be headquartered north of the Border.
In McPherson's case, he demolished the case for the axing of the Fort William sleeper by exposing a BR ploy to get round lengthy line closure legal procedures by the railway ruse of running "ghost trains" to ensure that three short stretches of track around Glasgow used solely by sleepers would technically still be operational. This straw argument by the railway authority ended only after Highland Regional Council took BR to court, with Lord Kirkwood on appeal deciding in favour of maintaining the sleepers.
It was the impact of burgeoning oil development 40 years ago in the natural harbours of Easter Ross that brought to the fore Duncan McPherson's natural talent for understanding the bigger picture. Oil companies' eyeing up of areas for manufacturing bases and depots in the inner Moray Firth was not always altruistic, and McPherson was faced with making shrewd judgments between employment gain and the loss of attractive wildlife habitat.
His finest hour came in 1973 in what proved to be an industrial siege from the Cromarty Petroleum Company, a front for Daniel K Ludwig, the United States's richest shipowner, to create a £180 million refinery complex at Nigg. McPherson provided a moral lead, refusing to surrender in the face of promised enormous developments, instead adopting an innocent air to pose the question: "If we must have a refinery, why not a BP refinery?"
It was a position which finally forced abandonment of the plans, and saved the conservation burgh of Cromarty from ugly development.
Not that McPherson wasn't afraid to take hard decisions: he pursued the development of downhill skiing at Aonach Mor in the face of opposition by conservationists, arguing that a Nevis Range course served by a gondola uplift (a system already proved in Queenstown, New Zealand) would prove a magnet in Lochaber tourism, and help offset some of the losses of the pulpmill closure at nearby Corpach.
In the event, the success of Aonach Mor has been shown not merely in skiing, but in walking and, more importantly, as a world-class course for downhill mountain-biking.
Duncan James McPherson, though born in Brazil the son of a coffee plantation manager, had his roots in north-east Scotland. Educated in Aberdeen at Robert Gordon's College and Aberdeen University, he graduated in agriculture and went into farming, ultimately taking over Cromarty Mains on the Black Isle. Some 44 years ago, he became an independent councillor on the old Cromarty Town Council, serving as burgh treasurer while looking towards a wider world through election to Ross & Cromarty County Council.
Local government reorganisation in 1975 provided him with an ideal political break, and his abilities were quickly recognised in the new Highland Regional Council. By 1990, he had become convener, and his efforts in creating homogeneity of a local government area larger than Wales helped ensure that when further reorganisation came about in 1995, the new Highland Council inherited the old regional area intact.
He was appointed CBE for his work not only in local government, but in carrying forward the work of numerous representative bodies and agencies, notably the Cromarty Firth Port Authority, Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, Scottish Council Development & Industry, Scottish Natural Heritage and the Committee of the Regions of the European Parliament.
A social and sociable man, McPherson both poured and enjoyed a hospitable dram. A keen golfer at Rosemarkie, he had been a rugby trialist for Scotland in his playing days with Gordonians.
He is survived by his wife, Vivian, their son and daughter and grandchildren.
The full article contains 793 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
