Obituary: Ian Lumsden, agriculturalist and seaman

Ian Lumsden, agriculturalist and seaman.Born: 23 July, 1924, in Glasgow. Died: 28 April, 2011, in Turriff, aged 86.

Ian Lumsden was an inspiring yet unassuming Second World War servicemen whose leadership in battle and sense of community in peacetime made him so much more than the sum of his parts.

A schoolboy when he volunteered for the Navy, he served on motor torpedo and motor gun boats - the Spitfires of the Sea - and was part of the coastal forces whose zeal and skill drew the admiration of Churchill.

Post-war his interests reverted from the sea to the land. He studied agriculture and enjoyed an extraordinary career that took him from Aberdeen to the Andes via Wyoming, plus a stint advising the Peruvian military junta and then on to become regional director of the North of Scotland College of Agriculture.

Settling in rural Aberdeenshire, he was central to many community activities in the market town of Turriff, helping to found its Rotary and Probus clubs, establish a swimming pool and captain the golf club.

Yet his roots were in the industrialised central belt. Born in Glasgow, he was a youngster when the family moved to Aberdeen. Educated at Robert Gordon's College, he was half way through his sixth year when he volunteered for the Navy. After three months' training on HMS Ganges at Ipswich, he was packed off, with his cold-weather kit, on the Admiral Jellicoe, the non-stop steam train that took forces personnel on the 24-hour journey from Portsmouth to Scrabster en route for Scapa Flow.

Identified as a potential officer, he joined the crew of the destroyer HMS Eskimo, deployed as a screen for battleships and to provide cover for the passage of Russian convoys before heading for the Mediterranean.

After service in the Med he attended the Old Royal Naval College at Greenwich, where he began navigation training the day after his 18th birthday. There each evening, in the splendour of Christopher Wren's masterpiece, they dined in the Painted Hall - described as probably the finest dining hall in the western world.

He then became a "pupil" at Rodean, the evacuated Brighton girls' school used as a wartime torpedo training centre. Promoted to first lieutenant at the age of 19, he was sent to Dover and became one of a crew of 13 on a boat attached to the 13th Motor Torpedo Boat Flotilla. "Just as well I was not superstitious!", he later quipped.

The 70ft boats could operate at high speed or ambush quietly at low speed with no wake, allowing them near enough to unleash their torpedoes at enemy vessels. With almost no armour, they relied upon surprise and agility to avoid being blasted by gunfire from larger ships.

Their tasks were to intercept enemy shipping moving through the Dover Straits, lay mines in coastal waters and land agents and small groups on the French coast.In 1943 Churchill praised their operations, congratulating officers and men for maintaining the great tradition of British seamen built up many generations.

Before D-Day they moved from Portsmouth, operating from Fecamp to Cherbourg. After D-Day they joined the blockade of Le Havre, later moving to the east coast where, with new, faster boats equipped with four torpedoes, they targeted enemy convoys and E-boats operating off the Dutch coast.

At the end of the war, with several medals and two mentions in despatches, he was offered a posting on the Royal Yacht Britannia or to become a submariner. Neither took his fancy.

Demobbed in 1946 he began a BSc Agriculture course at Aberdeen University. He had first come into contact with the farming community during his schooldays when, following the outbreak of war, he had helped with the harvest on various estates. His practical year during his studies was spent on the home farm of Sir Francis Grant's estate at Monymusk. After graduating he was appointed an assistant adviser at the North of Scotland College of Agriculture (Nosca) and worked in Elgin, Inverness and Sutherland. It was in Sutherland he developed an interest in sheep husbandry and led efforts to develop surface seeding and land reclamation techniques.

He then secured a Kellogg scholarship to study for his MSc at the University of Wyoming in Laramie, studying genetics and wool production. By this time he was married with two small daughters. His wife June, who he had met while he was a Scout leader and she a Cub mistress, joined him there with their young family.

Returning to Scotland, he was posted to Turriff where challenges included two severe outbreaks of foot and mouth.

In 1966, invited by the Ministry of Overseas Development to act as agricultural adviser in sheep development for the Colombian Agricultural Bank, he and his family spent two years in Bogota where he insisted they would not live in a secure compound but in an ordinary home.

One of their first experiences was a 6.8 magnitude earthquake but, as he later said, life was never dull and they had many enjoyable, if hair-raising, times. He also made working visits to Venezuela and Ecuador and, a year after returning to Turriff, was invited to Peru as part of a team of agriculturalists reporting to the ruling military junta on future agricultural development.

He retired as regional director of Nosca in Aberdeen in 1984. Farming had provided him and his family with an interesting and enjoyable life, he said, acknowledging the debt owed to his wife June who "suffered the fate of all college wives - late meals and looking after the children whilst I enjoyed the demands of an absorbing vocation".

Hugely public spirited, in retirement he continued to contribute to the community where he had been a strong supporter of Young Farmers' Associations and a former chairman of the North of Scotland Grassland Society.A recipient of Rotary International's Paul Harris Award, which the citation stated was for "years of quiet dedication", he was also a former president of Turriff Town and Country Club, a member of Turriff Bowling Club, had served on the Parent Teacher Association of Markethill Primary, was treasurer of St Congan's Episcopal Church for many years and offered his agricultural expertise to support the expansion of his beloved Turriff Golf Course from nine to 18 holes.

The most important aspect of his make-up, however, was his family. He had turned down foreign posts to ensure his daughters got a good Scottish education and took great pride in their achievements and those of his grandchildren. Quick witted, clever and enormously sociable, he and June were kindred spirits in their willingness to embrace new adventures and challenges and threw legendary parties. They celebrated 60 years of marriage just weeks before he died.

He is survived by June, daughters Joan and Susan and four grandchildren.