Obituary: Alec 'Sandy' Milne, former RAF pilot and co-director of the Kingston Clinic in Edinburgh

Born on 14 April, 1921, to Enid and Willie Milne of Marple Bridge, near Manchester, the young Mr Milne struggled with eczema and asthma throughout his childhood.

He went to University at age 19, a year late due to the absences caused by asthma, and was a Geography student at Manchester University when the Second World War broke out. Three days later, a Heinkel bomber flew low over the campus and Mr Milne made eye contact with the rear gunner, who waved at him.

He studied for two years, but never graduated, due to joining the RAF. By 1943, after flight training in Georgia, Mr Milne was a heavy bomber pilot, flying Stirlings over the Ruhrgebiet.

At the time, the attrition rate of Stirling aircrew was so high that within two months his was the oldest crew in the squadron.

One particularly close encounter left Mr Milne with artillery shell fragments in his leg for the rest of his life.

By late 1943 Mr Milne was flying daylight weather reconnaissance missions, alone over North Germany in unarmed single-engine Hurricanes. It was a miracle he survived, and he left the RAF with the accolade 'exceptional' stamped in his pilot's log book.

After the war, he devoted the rest of his life to healing, though his love of flying led him to help establish the Portmoak sailplane site, near Loch Leven.

He studied naturopathy and osteopathy with James C. Thomson of the Kingston Clinic, Edinburgh, and in 1947 he married Thomson's youngest daughter, Joyce Eileen Strachan. Together they had four children.

Mr Milne went on to be co-director of the Clinic, where he worked for almost 40 years, in addition to maintaining out-patient practices in Renfrew Street, Glasgow, and Panmuir Place, Edinburgh. He had that mixture of clinical judgement, perception, and empathy that is the mark of the gifted physician, and a gift of listening.

Over these long years his work affected and often changed the lives of thousands of people. A gifted writer, he authored several booklets on holistic healing, long before it became popular.

After the tragic death of Joyce in 1970, he married Diana Hastain. Sadly, Diana died in 1997.

Mr Milne is survived by three children, Hugh, Derek and Kirsty. His son Dennis sadly passed away in 1988. He is also survived by his four grandchildren, Kirsty, Katrina, Susie and Jimmy.