Real Lives: True gentleman Stewart had the gift of the gab

Stewart Crerar, Merchiston Castle School's eldest alumnus, has died at the age of 95.

Stewart Crerar, a Second World War artillery veteran, told family members that one of his earliest memories was of seeing German Zeppelins flying over Arthur's Seat in 1916 – when he would have been just three years old.

Born John Stewart Crerar in Edinburgh, he was always known as Stewart. He was a pupil at Merchiston Castle School when it moved to its current premises in Colinton in 1929 and recalled that pupils had been told to pick all the stones off the new rugby pitch. To prove it, he would often show family members the scars that he still bore on his knees as a result of the task.

He excelled at sports, particularly rugby and cricket, and on one occasion briefly challenged the future British senior mile champion, Hamish Stoddard, in the Merchiston v Edinburgh Academy mile race.

Mr Crerar attended the University of Edinburgh and then in 1934 joined Mackenzie & Storrie, the commercial printing business set up in Leith by his father, John, in 1905.

In April 1939 he enrolled in the 94th (City of Edinburgh) HAA Regiment of the Territorial Army, and the following year was commissioned into 101 HAA Regiment RA (297) Battery. Initially posted to Aberdeen and then Lismore island, he later saw action in India and Burma.

He had met Winifred through friends in 1937 and they were married in Carlisle in 1946. They settled in Edinburgh, where they raised their two children, John and Christine, born in 1947 and 1948 respectively. He returned to his work at the family firm, where he was to remain until retirement at 65.

A member of Bruntsfield Golf Club for an impressive 77 years, he had a single-figure handicap and played until he was in his nineties.

It took him, however, until the age of 80 to score his first hole in one, achieved on the sixth hole at Murrayfield Golf Course on November 19, 1993. He achieved both a hole in one and an albatross at the same time – a one at a par four. Family members are sure of the date because he kept the score card as a memento, bearing the signatures of all his fellow players.

Winifred looked after his every need throughout their marriage, but following her death in 1994, he quickly adapted to caring for himself, and continued to do so until just three weeks before his own death.

In his later years he moved to sheltered housing in West Savile Terrace, and it was his view of Arthur's Seat that prompted his recollections of the Capital's Zeppelin raid.

He took a keen interest in the lives of his nine grandchildren and was delighted to welcome his first great-grandchild, Fergus, into the world in May of this year.

His son John paid tribute to an "unassuming, caring and remarkable man", and added: "He had the gift of the gab and he would chat away forever, but he never pushed himself in any way. He was a gentleman in the true sense of the word – he was a very gentle man. Nobody had a harsh word to say against him."