Alan Roger

Born the eldest of the three sons of Sir Alexander Roger, a remarkable Aberdonian entrepreneur with worldwide banking and telecommunication interests, Alan was educated at Loretto School, and read history at Trinity College, Oxford.

His father's intention was always that he should go into the city, which he did for a time, working as a broker with the firm Norris Oakley. However, with the outbreak of war he was rapidly seconded to the Red Cross in France (his father had been appointed chairman of the Transport of Wounded Department, War Organisation of the British Red Cross Society).

There followed service with the Ministry of Supply in India, then the Indian Army, where he achieved the rank of lieutenant colonel and was subsequently awarded the MBE. By then his attachment to the Army way of life had become such that he stayed on after the end of hostilities, remaining with military intelligence until 1952, working largely in the Middle East and Far East. Throughout his life he would always evade talking about his achievements at this time, dismissing them as nothing.

Returning to London in 1952, he brought with him a chinese couple, Mr and Mrs To, and took on responsibility for the education of their three children.

Sir Alexander Roger's extraordinary business acumen had enabled all of his family to live in considerable style, both before and after his death. Alan's brother Bunny became famous in London society as a dress designer and for his theme parties which he held up until his 80th birthday, at which event he appeared in a violet jump suit.

In the mid-fifties a sudden realisation that a block of forgotten telephone shares were worth a great deal of money enabled Allan, Bunny, and their brother Sandy, to buy the 33,000 acre Dundonnell estate on Little Loch Broom in Wester Ross.

Here Alan Roger created a magnificent garden. Early on his interests in growing things had extended to bonsai, and he was an annual exhibitor at the Chelsea Flower Show for 35 years. He also served as a judge for the Royal Horticultural Society. At Dundonnell, everything was on a larger scale, and the west coast climate proved ideal for the creation of a great walled garden. Becoming a vice-president of the National Trust for Scotland, he was an invaluable adviser when it came to the replanting of the trust's superb Rose Garden at Inverewe.

But unexpectedly, it was his interest in oriental and contemporary western art which led to him becoming a director of the National Galleries of Scotland, where he became chairman of its advisory committee on modern art during the 1970s. Douglas Hall, former Keeper of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, remembers him as a man who never dominated any committee, but who had an invaluable international outlook, crucial in enabling the gallery to develop its now quite remarkable collection.

At the same time, the Roger wealth enabled him to become a notable collector himself, and for Dundonnell he commissioned a complete porcelain dinner service.

Every new year Alan and Bunny, neither of whom married, would hold a memorable party at Dundonnell where everybody had to join in the Scottish country dancing. Although he owned properties in London, Dundonnell was to become Alan's spiritual home, and he loved the Highland life.

In 1982 he bought a home in Clapham telling his friends that he was ''a refugee from SW3''. In the grounds of the nearby Trinity Hospice, he helped develop a water garden with kinetic sculpture. At the same time he served as a council member of the Contemporary Arts Society.

The departure of such extraordinary and colourful individuals as the Roger brothers has brought a great sense of loss to all of those who knew them, not least the community of Dundonnell. Images of Allan Roger negotiating the narrow Wester Ross roads in his elderly Rolls-Royce will linger on for years to come. A memorial service will be held in Strathpeffer on August 26.