Obituary: Major-General Ian Robertson of Brackla

MAJOR-GENERAL Ian Robertson of Brackla was the Seaforth Highlander who commanded 51st (Highland) Division Territorial Army for two years in the 1960s. A popular and highly regarded leader, he was a most experienced soldier, with an army career that stretched across front-line service in North Africa, Sicily, north-west Europe, south-east Asia and Aden.

Ian Argyll Robertson was born in Richmond, Surrey, and was educated at Winchester, then Trinity College, Oxford, but never considered himself anything other than Scots. He was shrewd in his business affairs, and he and his wife Marjorie bought the old property at Brackla, a mile from Cawdor in Nairn, half a century ago, and when he recorded arms in 1961 at the Court of the Lord Lyon, he was granted the lairdly title "of Brackla".

Much about Robertson was unusual: he joined the army through a university direct-entry commission from Oxford, thus bypassing Sandhurst. He commanded through exacting times and locations. At one point in 1955, while CO of the 1st Bn Seaforths based in the Canal Zone in Egypt, he had to move a major portion of his men to help in Aden, while at the same time sending an advance party to Gibraltar to make ready for a next posting, thus stretching his battalion across three continents – Europe, Africa and Asia.

He escaped the fate of many Seaforth contemporaries, who were captured at St Valry in the Second World War, by having been posted as adjutant of the regimental depot at Fort George in April 1939, an appointment that originally had him kicking his heels.

During wartime service, he proved himself to be a capable leader in the 51st (Highland) Division, and he served in the North Africa and Sicily campaigns of 1942 and 1943 as a company commander in the 5th Battalion, Seaforth Highlanders, as a temporary commanding officer of the 2nd Battalion and as brigade major (chief of staff) of the 152 (Seaforth and Cameron) Brigade in time for the battle of Wadi Akarit in Tunisia.

After a short course at staff college at Haifa, he joined 231 (Malta) Brigade of the 50th Division, again as brigade major, in time for the Normandy invasion in June 1944.

He saw Far East service from August 1945, notably succeeding in routing a nationalist insurrection in Java the following month. Peace had been declared, but local activists attempted to use former Allied PoWs as bargaining counters to prevent re-establishment of Dutch rule.

Robertson remained in the Far East, until rejoining the 1st Bn Seaforths in Malaya for the Emergency, before coming home in 1950 via staff college, first to command the depot at Fort George and then as chief of staff of 51st Highland Division/District at Perth.

He was more than delighted to return to Scotland in 1964, before retiring from service life as director of equipment policy at the Ministry of Defence.

In 1939, he married Marjorie, ne Duncan, herself the daughter of a Seaforth. Together, they fashioned Brackla into a beautiful home for their two daughters, exercising his keen eye for good paintings and fine furniture.

He tended to be as modest about his connoisseurial abilities as he was about his interests, self-effacingly describing his hobbies in Who's Who as "various in a minor way", while actually having some considerable skills in carpentry, music and painting. Equally, he was light-hearted about being one of those archived in 1968 in the National Photographic Record of the National Portrait Gallery in London.

A member of council for the National Trust for Scotland, he was representative in Scotland for Spinks, the London medallists established in 1666.

Thoroughly active in retirement, he became a well-known face in the county of Nairn, serving first as deputy lieutenant and then vice-lord lieutenant. He was appointed MBE in 1947 and made CBE in 1968.

He is survived by his wife Marge, his daughters Susan and Sarah, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.