Major Allan Cameron

Major Allan Cameron, who has died aged 94, was a proud and courageous soldier whose pedigree stretched back to the 1745 rebellion.

His forebears stood loyally alongside Bonnie Prince Charlie at Culloden and 200 years later the modern day Clan Cameron supported the fight against Hitler by opening their ancestral home to the Commandos as a training base, with Major Cameron himself going into battle in the family tradition.

The son of Col Sir Donald Walter Cameron, the 25th Cameron of Locheil, chief of Clan Cameron, he was born at Achnacarry Castle near Fort William, later known as Castle Commando, and was educated at Harrow and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst before joining the family regiment the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders in 1936.

He served in India and Egypt, becoming a general's aide de camp before being captured twice during the Second World War.

He was first taken prisoner in the summer of 1942 when Tobruk fell and ended up in a prisoner of war camp near Parma. When the Italians surrendered the following year he was able to escape and spent six weeks on the run in the Appenine mountains, travelling 250 miles south before being re-arrested near enemy lines outside Ancona.

His tramp through the Italian countryside was fraught with danger for him and the locals who helped him. Yet it was, he said, "a glorious hike".

In contrast, the worst part of his war, he later admitted, was during the journey north to a POW camp in Germany when he was bombed by the American Air Force while packed into a cattle truck in Vienna.

He came back to Scotland after being freed by US troops at the end of the war and, just a few weeks later, married Elizabeth Vaughan-Lee, an artist who grew up at Kincardine O'Neil on Deeside.

He had been away from home for seven years but the couple had written to each other during the war and would later make a trip together to Italy to thank the "marvellous" Italians who had helped him so heroically during that period as an escaped prisoner evading the Germans.

Married life began with Major Cameron on royal guard duty at Balmoral. He then moved to the army training school at Eaton Hall in Cheshire and left the armed services in 1947.

He and his wife then settled on the farm they had bought at Allangrange on the Black Isle where they brought up a family of five – three sons and two daughters. They later lost one of their boys, Allan, who was 19 when he drowned while fishing in the River Lochy in 1965.

Meanwhile Major Cameron, whose grandfather was the first convenor of Inverness-shire County Council in 1890, had become a farmer and a local councillor.

He served Ross and Cromarty County Council for 20 years and was chairman of its education committee from 1962-75. He then sat on Ross and Cromarty District Council and was its convenor for several years from 1991. Made an MBE in 1988, on his 79th birthday in 1996 he was honoured again when he was awarded the freedom of Ross and Cromarty, in recognition of his public service.

Alongside his own commitments, he also helped his entrepreneurial wife – who came up with the concept of boil-in-the-bag porridge – run a pioneering frozen food business she had set up, employing more than 30 locals. In addition, he was commissioner of both the Red Deer Commission and the Countryside Commission as well as a member of the BBC Council for Scotland.

In the world of sport he was an accomplished curler and a former president of the Royal Caledonian Curling Club. He won the coveted Swedish Cup in 1964 and helped to found the International Curling Federation, serving as its first president from 1965-69.

At Allangrange, near Munlochy, he and his wife, who was also an internationally renowned botanical artist, were great gardeners and loved their three acres of garden and woodland. They transformed it from lawns and flower beds into an immaculate and spectacular display which attracted hordes of garden fans when they opened it to the public. The couple also travelled the world on horticultural tours from the Himalayas to Australia and New Zealand.

"He was a really great man," said his son Ewen, "and we used to have such fun.

"He was a friend of my youth and we used to fish and shoot, play golf and go first footing together.

"He was very proud of being Allan Cameron of Locheil and we were all brought up to be proud of our heritage, we all knew the stories of the Locheil and the '45 Rebellion."

Major Cameron, who was widowed in 2008, is survived by his children, Kirstie, Ewen, Archie and Bridie.