Carlyle McBride McCance, veterinarian; born July 19, 1917, died December 18, 1998

Carlyle McCance, a former chief veterinary officer for the City of Glasgow, has died aged 81. He was born in Halfway, Cambuslang, and educated at Hamilton Academy, where he was dux, and Glasgow University, where he developed considerable skill as a water-polo player.

The war years saw him first of all in the RAF, and then as an Army vet in India and Burma, where he used a special technique for removing the voice boxes of mules under his care to prevent British troops being located. After the war, he stayed on in Burma for about a year teaching animal husbandry and veterinary hygiene, but he eventually returned to Britain where he was employed by the Government in a veterinary capacity in Lincolnshire.

He returned to Glasgow in the late 1940s, and went straight into Glasgow Corporation in the veterinary field, his beat being the large farms which the corporation held in those days. Something of a horseman himself, he also had the task of looking after police horses. He worked his way up to becoming deputy chief, and then chief veterinary officer for Glasgow by the late 1960s, and held the post until he retired at the age of 63.

Part of his time was spent lecturing students at the Glasgow School of Veterinary Surgery and, together with his predecessor Nicol Nicolson, lecturing meat inspectors at the Glasgow abattoir in the Gallowgate. Carlyle McCance was known as a very private man, who did not talk much about his past and who spent most of his spare time in the garden. He is survived by his wife, Marjorie, three sons and a stepson.