John Mackenzie

Died: November 26, 2015

DURING his 40-year career in the Royal Navy, Rear-Admiral John Mackenzie, who has died aged 86, commanded vessels ranging from a requisitioned German patrol boat on the post-war river Rhine to a guided-missile destroyer and even an aircraft carrier, HMS Hermes. On the latter, he once commanded the young trainee midshipman Prince Andrew, Duke of York.

Commander Mackenzie joined the Navy to see the world and indeed he once sailed the entire globe in nine months as commander of the frigate HMS Ajax. The vessel suffered damage near Singapore, not from a Cold War enemy but from a robust school of whales who, to his distress, came off worse.

As Flag Officer, Gibraltar, he was in charge of all Royal Navy movement at "the Rock" during the 1982 Falklands war, a key staging post for the Task Force which sailed from the Straits of Gibraltar to help recapture the Falklands from Argentine forces. In naval terminology, he was known as a "salt horse," a commander of men rather than a specialist in any particular Royal Navy discipline.

In his native Scotland, however, he was best-known as a warrior to save his beloved fish, wild salmon and sea trout. He was a driving force and long-time executive director of the Perth-based Atlantic Salmon Trust, a charity which promotes financial support for research towards the management of salmon fishery. He was one of the first to recognize the threat which salmon farming posed to wild salmon and sea trout, which led him to set up a tripartite working group involving the Scottish Office, salmon farmers and wild salmon fishermen. He was also a lover of a wee dram and, during his Navy commands, insisted there always be enough cases of The Famous Grouse on board his vessels, not only for the officers but for the sailors "down below" in the old tradition of daily rum rations.

David John Mackenzie was born in Perth, and brought up in the nearby village of Huntingtower. His father David was a well-known Perthshire lawyer and his mother Alison a member of the family that owned the Jenners department store in Edinburgh.

He went to Cargilfield School in Edinburgh but left at the age of 13 to enter the Britannia Royal Naval College in Dartmouth, Devon, during the war in 1943. He was too young to be involved in the conflict and was evacuated to Cheshire until the war was over. He first got to sea at the age of 17 as a midshipman on HMS Birmingham on the East Indies station, patrolling the Indian Ocean, the Persian/Arabian Gulf and the Red Sea.

In all he commanded nine vessels, probably a record for his generation. Starting with that abandoned Nazi patrol boat on the Rhine when he was 22, he went on to command HMS Brinkley, an inshore minesweeper based at the HMS Lochinvar shore training establishment at Port Edgar on the Firth of Forth (1956-58).

He was promoted to the rank of Commander in 1965, Captain in 1971 and Rear-Admiral in 1981. In 1982, the Queen awarded him a CB (Companion of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath). He commanded the aircraft carrier Hermes for a year (1979-80), taking Prince Andrew and 19 other naval cadets on board in Florida and putting them ashore in Bermuda.

The important posting as Flag Officer, Gibraltar during the Falklands War was his last and he retired in 1983. More than half the Royal Navy ships which took part in the Falklands sailed from Gibraltar and he had overall responsibility to ensure they were appropriately manned and equipped. His firmness in command led sailors to nickname him Black Mac.

On retirement to Perthshire, he put his heart and soul into wild salmon and sea trout conservation, serving as executive director of the Atlantic Salmon Trust from 1985-97 and working with the charity for the rest of his life.

When he started off in the trust's Scottish offices in Killiecrankie, the charity was based in England but as director, he moved the headquarters to Moulin, outside Pitlochry. It later moved to Perth itself.

When he joined the trust in the 1980s, salmon farming had become a major challenge to those intent on saving the wild fish. A keen salmon fisherman himself, he was perhaps the first conservationist to recognize that salmon farming was here to stay and it would be counter-productive to fight against it. He became something of a lone voice arguing for cooperation among salmon farmers, conservationists and first the Westminster government and later Holyrood.

Rear-Admiral Mackenzie worked closely with Dick Shelton, at the time director of the Scottish government's Freshwater Fisheries Laboratory at Faskally, Pitlochry. As fellow former seafarers, the two men made massive strides towards conserving wild salmon and sea trout, campaigning to eliminate overfishing by commercial netters not only in Scotland but also north-east England.

"The Atlantic Salmon Trust could not have developed into the respected international broker, thought leader, and facilitator of scientific work on behalf of salmon and sea trout that it is today without John's contributions," Tony Andrews, current executive directo told The Herald. "His willingness to assert the trust's independence and role as champion of the fish, rather than represent those who exploit them, stands to this day. To maintain that position required strength of character and a willingness to stand up and be counted, both of which John displayed in abundance."

Rear-Admiral Mackenzie also served as vice-president of the London-based Seafarers UK, a charity which seeks to assist all seafarers and their families.

He enjoyed fishing, shooting, gardening, walking his dogs and, until July of this year, the company of his wife of 50 years, Ursula (née Balfour). He was an active "younger brother" (member) of Trinity House, a charity dedicated to the safety, welfare and training of mariners, and a member of the Royal Company of Archers, the Queen's Bodyguard for Scotland.

He is survived by his sons David and Alastair and daughter Rachel.

PHIL DAVISON