John MacPherson

I attended a funeral today of an exceptional man.  John MacPherson had spent the last fifteen years of his life as a community activist in the beautiful village of Killin.  Driving up there this morning with a former Director who had worked closely with John allowed us to reflect on his achievements. It was a perfect winter's day, quite inspirational and befitting of John. The mercury was showing -10°C and the Scottish mountains were sculpted like fine lace as the low winter sun cast shadows on the snow covered landscapes.  Loch Lubnaig had a deep pan crust of ice and the Tarmachan ridge sparkled like a row of meringues against the clear blue skies. 

There must have been two hundred mourners gathered in the Killin Parish Church. A free church minister and friend of John helped us celebrate and understand more of John's full life as a farmer, policeman, businessman and community leader.  In all these roles he provided a service which met the needs of citizens and customers first and foremost.

John had been chair of the Community Council for seven years and had been the leading player when the community took over the local care home, located at the centre of the village.  He devoted time to this ensuring that it became a haven for older citizens who could continue to commune with their friends and neighbours.  He was active on a wider front in various groupings of communities in the Stirling area where he commanded respect from activists in regeneration areas as well as other rural communities for his achievements, support for others, gentle style and huge integrity.  John never let anyone down despite chronic health problems in his later years.

I had once asked John to make a presentation to chief executives at a conference without at the time realising how ill John had been. On being told this I apologised for asking but John phoned me a couple of days later and said he would like to do something so that chief executives could be encouraged to trust communities to carry out local services. He spoke at that conference in his quiet highland voice, no false claims or drama just an honest and heart warming story of a community that worked and was prepared to take the risk of running a care home that would otherwise have closed when an independent private provider had failed to sell the business. 

He inspired us all with his warmth and altruism and none more so than the following speaker, the highly respected Professor John Bennington from Warwick University. Before starting his presentation, Professor Bennington explained that John was the epitome of what a civil society was about and proceeded to reference John throughout his address. Colleagues spoke about John afterwards with the sort of reverence denied to their normal collaborators: politicians, civil servants, consultants and business partners. In short they instinctively trusted John as someone who was not seeking to win approval, contracts or influence but to deliver progress for the wider public good. John had shown us that it is small communities not big societies and dubious political whims that really make a difference.

Falls of Dochart, Killin