Former arts boss dies with £9.5m after bet to run home naked

By STUART MACDONALD
Published on 12/10/2012 23:00

A LANDOWNER who inherited a multi-million pound country estate by streaking to win a £20 bet has left a £9.5 million fortune.

Former Scottish Arts Council chief executive Sandy Dunbar was gifted the Pitgaveny estate near Elgin in Moray by his distant cousin after he ran naked through the area in the middle of the day.

When he was aged 29, Mr Dunbar’s friend, Oscar Hahn, made a £20 wager that he would not run naked to Pitgaveny House from his family home at nearby Duffus.

Mr Dunbar won the bet, although he had to dive briefly into a ditch beside the Elgin-to-Lossiemouth road to minimise the puzzled looks from the occupants of a passing bus.

His grandfather’s cousin, James Brander Dunbar, was so impressed with the young man’s spirit that he indicated that he would gift the Pitgaveny estate to him.

Mr Dunbar’s decision to take on the bet proved to be a shrewd move as the property, land and its sporting rights were valued at more than £8m at the time of Mr Dunbar’s death aged 82 in March this year.

His total estate was worth £9,578,326. He instructed that his wealth should be left to his wife, Susannah, and their two children.

Mr Dunbar worked as a lawyer before moving to Newcastle to start up the North Eastern Association for the Arts.

He then became UK director for the Gulbenkian Foundation, a body that aims to promote cultural understanding and social inclusion, and went on to become chief executive of the Scottish Arts Council in Edinburgh.

He held the position for nine years before going back with the family to Pitgaveny full-time in the early 1980s.

He then became a working farmer, and was closely involved with the Scottish Wildlife Trust.

He was appointed a deputy lieutenant of Moray as well as becoming a stalwart of the Moray Society.