Obituary: Around the Port of Menteith, in Stirlingshire, there were few better known or more popular figures than Sandy Callander. For nearly 50 years he lived in a house overlooking the lake, and his contribution to the community was immense.

Honorary sheriff,
curler and angler;
Born March 10, 1926;
Died February 9, 2007
Around the Port of Menteith, in Stirlingshire, there were few better known or more popular figures than Sandy Callander.

For nearly 50 years he lived in a house overlooking the lake, and his contribution to the community was immense.

He played an important part in the re-emergence of the Lake of Menteith as one of the best trout lochs in Scotland and was the company secretary of the Lake of Menteith Fisheries for 40 years. He was also the president of the Port of Menteith Curling Club and was enthusiastic about encouraging the young members of the community to seize every opportunity to curl out of doors.

He derived great pleasure from being involved in the organisation of the only two Royal Caledonian Curling Club Grand Matches to be held on the Lake of Menteith (1963 and 1979).

These were historic events which brought thousands of curlers from all over Scotland to "the Port" to enjoy the thrill of outdoor ice.

Sandy, who loved the countryside, was founder member of the Port of Menteith's community council and its first chairman. For years Friday nights saw him holding court in the "dirty bar" in the local hotel; when the hotel went up-market and closed the bar, Sandy led the locals along to the valley to Aberfoyle golf club for their weekly pint instead.

He was educated at Winchester College before serving with the British Army from April 1944 to September 1947.

In August 1945 he was granted an emergency commission with the 1st Battalion Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders in India and the following March went to Japan with the Commonwealth Occupation Force and then on to Malaya in April 1947.

After decommissioning he studied law at Magdalen College, Oxford, and completed his LLB at Edinburgh University from 1949 to1951.

He was an apprentice with Dundas & Wilson in Edinburgh and in 1953 became a Writer to the Signet.

For 10 years, however, he interrupted his career in the law and joined a family business making bricks in High Bonnybridge, Stirlingshire. In September 1962, he went back to the law and joined Mathie MacLuckie & Lupton in Stirling. At Mathie McLuckie he specialised in civil court work and, to quote a colleague: "There have been few who could tender a better plea in mitigation on behalf of a client." On retiring, in 1994, he became an honorary sheriff. He encouraged many young people to pursue a career in the law. As one solicitor who now has his own law firm in Edinburgh wrote: "It was a marvellous piece of good fortune for a young schoolboy to have a chance meeting with a man of such charm and generosity of spirit."

Sandy was a great sportsman. He played cricket for Stenhousemuir Cricket Club for 10 years in the 1950s and 1960s, and as a nephew of Tommy Armour, the "Silver Scot", he was a fine golfer and member of The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers at Muirfield. His youthful passion for Alpine mountaineering turned later in life into an enthusiasm for walking the Scottish hills, which he continued doing into his seventies.

In April 1953 he married Mona Patricia Meldrum and they had two daughters and a son. He was a member of the vestry of St Andrews Episcopal Church, Callander, for more than 40 years where he saw all his children and one of his seven grandchildren married. He was a passionate believer in the importance of the family and in April he and Mona would have celebrated 54 years of marriage.