Obituary: Robin Cavaye, whose wife’s love of jewellery inspired him to open Scottish Gems in Edinburgh

The fact that the large Reid Memorial Church, in which he was an elder, was packed for Robin’s funeral shows that he touched the lives of many; in the manner of Uncle Stanley and Cousin Cecilia.

He lived his Rotarians motto of “Service Above Self”.

Throughout his life, Robin was never in robust health, but his determination overcame that and other of life’s obstacles. A Royal High School boy since age five, he studied law at university, but was called into the family business, MacGregor & Co, china and glass merchants.

As many of the Cavayes lived in Portobello and Leith, it was in Constitution Street that this business was set up in what was an old whisky cooperage. The hard financial times in 1930 spawned the nascent business when his father had to go forth to sell his wares to local public houses.

Through the years of the 1950s and 1960s, families began to wine and dine in restaurants, and the Cavayes were in at its beginning and progressed to be the main supplier of such wares throughout the country.

Robin was the second son in a new generation to run the business. His gentle and persuasive manner suited him to sales and he eventually became sales director.

In 1972, the company moved to a large new building in West Savile Terrace in Edinburgh, and in 1979 Robin and wife Kate moved to live in Cluny Gardens. In 1982, Robin suffered two heart attacks and had to leave the business to be run fully by his older brother Bill.

Robin took to the quieter life of business consultancy, and then in 1986, his wife Kate, who always had a love of jewellery, suggested they set up this entirely new business.

This was Scottish Gems, which had premises in Morningside Road and the High Street opposite John Knox’s House.

In 2002, they decided to leave the business to their sales assistant on generous terms. At last they had free time to visit the world at home and abroad. We received postcards from places which would have been tiring for us even to contemplate.

Before Probus, before Rotary, before 41 Club, there was Portobello and Musselburgh Round Table, which is where I first met Robin in the 1960s. He and I shared a hotel room in Copenhagen at a World Council meeting for five days. Typically, Robin decided that he would start organising to bring the next but one World Council to Edinburgh – and so it came to pass.

The last word comes from his wife Kate – “He was always fun”.

RONALD RANKIN