Ian Kennedy

Born May 29, 1926;

Died April 5 2015.

Ian Kennedy has died aged 88, in a care home near the croft his family had called home for generations, including his son Charles, the local MP and former Liberal Democrat leader.

He had been unwell for some time.

Ian Kennedy had worked as a draughtsman with the Scottish hydro-electric board, but was best known locally as a musician, a renowned Highland fiddler.

His father had bought him his first fiddle when he was 10 and he was mostly self taught although it was said he also had lessons from the late Lib Dem MSP John Farquhar Munro's father.

Ian played his first ceilidh aged 11 and by 12 was regularly accompanying to local Gaelic singers. He and his late wife Mary on keyboards, regularly played in Fort William and the surrounding area.

They were stalwarts of St John's RC Church in Caol, where she was organist, and they provided the musical backdrop in it and other churches, for countless weddings and funerals.

Indeed in 2008 they were awarded a Benemerenti medal from Pope Benedict for services to the Catholic Church.

In order to attract a good turnout, Ian Kennedy also used to play at some of the early political meetings held by his son. On one occasion Charles was asked to cut his speech short so they might get another tune from his dad. When Charles appeared on the BBC's Desert Island Discs he chose The Cameron Highlanders by Ian Kennedy as the one track he would rescue for life on the island.

But at age 80, he had to start turning down forced to turn down requests for him to play at weddings and funerals because he had developed a serious allergy to floral displays.

Since organised crofting began in the 19th century, Kennedys have been on the croft across the River Lochy from Inverlochy Castle with Ben Nevis towering in the background. Local tradition holds Ian and Charles's forebears were about to emigrate to Canada, when the landowner Cameron of Lochiel intervened and gave them the croft, near Fort William.

Ian took crofing matters seriously. At the age of 80 he and Charles appeared before the Scottish Land Court in a dispute with Lochiel Estates over access to a proposed 56 house-building development.

As crofters they both stood to benefit financially if the development went ahead, and both were in favour of more housing for the local community around Lochyside near Fort William. They had also enjoyed good relations with the estate over many years.

But Ian Kennedy was concerned that the half acre of land needed for access might be improperly removed from crofting tenure. He was convinced that the area in question was half of a tiny croft, which had been left without a tenant for decades. He didn't want to see any more land lost to crofting.

Ian Kennedy's father Donald was one of four brothers who were well known as heavy athletes on the Highland Games circuit and on the shinty field.

Writer and broadcaster Hugh Dan MacLennan, the shinty historian, was brought up nearby and can recall seeing Donald, a powerful man wading across the Lochy.

"I used to joke with Charles that given he clearly had inherited neither the athleticism nor the musical gifts of his forbears, it was perhaps understandable he had gone into politics. But they were a well known and popular Lochaber family. Ian was a thorough gentleman who represented the great Lochaber traditions to people of my era. So his death is very sad news. "

Ian and Mary, who died two years ago, had three children Charles, Isobel, who lives in Canada, and Ian, who lives in Caol.