The Rev Ian Reid

It seemed a no-win question for the new leader of the Iona Community who had the year before taken over the reins from my perhaps overly-concerned father, a transition that metamorphosed his former boss from benevolent mentor to well meaning tormentor, but Ian was equal to both the question and the problem.

''Well at least he retired, unlike Schweitzer,'' retorted the seemingly taciturn Reid, simultaneously aggrandising MacLeod whilst not denying the truth of the royal remark.

It was a kindly and intelligent response that so defines the man who one of his former assistants later described as ''perhaps the perfect pastor''.

The son of an estate manager working abroad, Ian Reid was tempered as an instructor in some of the roughest boys clubs in Edinburgh whilst studying at Fettes college and, after graduating in mathematics at Cambridge, returned to Edinburgh to continue his youth work and qualify for the ministry at New College.''

Even though his vocation as a trainee for the ministry protected him from being drafted into the forces Ian volunteered and at war's end was serving as a senior chaplain.

The post-war Iona Community was the self-appointed storm-trooper training squadron for the Church of Scotland, an all-male team of military discipline and uniformed Christians. Mostly in their mid 20s they summered in shacks on the island, whilst labouring to restore the cathedral's ruined walls.

The community was looked at with great suspicion by many senior members of the establishment in the church. But Reid was a man of fierce principle and almost immediately the war was over he joined the Iona Community for a summer's training and then a life-long membership of the mainland-based fellowship.

A year later with the Community's backing, he became minister in the parish of West Pilton, not the easiest of berths available to a young Oxbridge honours graduate. Pilton was no stepping stone to a more favoured position and he stayed there for 20 years until he was elected by his peers in the community to lead them.

Many outsiders were surprised the order chose to replace their feisty leader of 30 years with a non-pacifist who seemed to be shy, self effacing, and sometimes almost diffident. Such critics little realised the strength of the iron fist hidden in the velvet glove, nor understood Ian's ability to hothouse the flowering of the talent lying dormant within the community ranks, an essential process if the community was to survive as a force within the church now both MacLeod and the shared task of rebuilding the abbey walls had gone.

Within a year of taking on the mantle of the leadership Reid had not only supervised the radical step of introducing women into the now maturing community, but had planted the seeds of a transformation of much of the administration and style of the organisation and had even convinced the new community they not only had done much of it themselves but could do much else besides.

In 1973 with his term of office as leader completed Ian Reid moved on to minister in the Abbey Church of Kilwinning where he pursued his many interests, including innovative worship, pastoral work, and the furtherance of the then Marriage Guidance Council.

He was awarded an OBE in 1975 and retired in 1986 aged 70.

On a personal level Ian Reid was much blessed through his wife Rosemary whose work for him in his latter years of ill health have been an inspiration to many. They had four children and 13 grandchildren, all much loved.

He leaves a legacy of the inspiration of a good life well lived, particularly through his service as a parish minister for 33 years. But let the significant work that goes on every day in Iona Cathedral and the birth of the second phase of the Iona Community that facilitated work be seen as his most fitting memorial.

Ron Ferguson, minister of St Magnus Cathedral, Orkney, and a successor to Ian Reid as leader of the Iona Community, writes: ''Ian Reid was the kind of man for whom the phrase 'great under pressure' might have been invented. He felt daunted by the task of following George MacLeod as leader of the Iona Community but everyone else in the Community could see what he did not, that his own less spectacular gifts were what the community needed at the time of his leadership. Ian Reid was a superb pastor and enabler and made a great contribution to the work of the church.

MAXWELL Macleod