Colonel Sir Allan Gilmour of Invernauld, soldier, politician, and former lord lieutenant of Sutherland, has died aged 86 at Migdale Hospital, Bonar Bridge.

Courteous, kindly, avuncular to the point of almost being addressed as ''Uncle Allan'', a soldier hero of the North Africa campaign against General Rommel, he was the epitome of a vanishing breed of professional soldiers who continued to serve the community gratis in civilian life.

Born in Edinburgh on November 23, 1916, the only son of Captain Allan Gilmour of Rosehall and Mary Macdonald of Portree, he came from a family that had land associations with Sutherland stretching back to the eighteenth century.

He was educated at Cargilfield in Edinburgh, Winchester College, and Trinity College, Oxford, where he read history. Unfortunately, he was unable to take his degree, mysteriously breaking a leg before his exams, after falling off a convent wall. This did not deter him from mountaineering, however, and he claimed to have climbed every buttress of multi-toothed Quinag in west Sutherland in his youth. He joined the Lovat Scouts in 1937, obtaining his commission and transferred to the Seaforth Highlanders, on a regular commission, in 1939.

From 1942-43 he served with the 2nd Seaforth in the 51st Highland Division of the 8th Army in the North Africa campaign. He was awarded the Military Cross for gallantry

at El Alamein, with a Bar to

the MC for further displays

of courage in the face of

the German Afrika Korps at Wadi Akarit.

After taking part in the invasion of Sicily, he returned to Britain in 1943 to train for the invasion of Northern Europe. From 1944 he served in Normandy, Holland, and in Germany, receiving the US Army's Distinguished Service Cross, as well as mentions in dispatches.

Following staff college appointments after the war, Capt Gilmour saw service with the British Army of the Rhine and was a military and infantry instructor in the Middle East and Pakistan, seeing service also in Aden, Ghana (where he was Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces), and the Congo. Latterly he was appointed adjutant to the 11th Seaforth Highlanders (TA). He retired as a Colonel of the Queens Own Highlanders (Seaforth and Camerons) from Headquarters, Scottish Command, Edinburgh in 1967.

At the beginning of the war he met Jean Wood, from a well-known Seaforth Highlander family in Nairn, whom he married in 1941. They had three sons and a daughter, and several grandchildren.

He returned with his wife to his beloved Sutherland after his retiral from the Army, setting up home at Invernauld House, with its spectacular drop below to the gorge of the Allt Mhor at Altass, Rosehall. Among his many friends he numbered a former Grampians and Highlands sheriff principal, Stewart Edward Bell QC, whom he introduced to the Queen in the presentation party at the opening of the Kylesku Bridge in October 1984. Their association dated from the time Mr Bell won the Allan Gilmour Quaich of the Royal Scottish Pipers' Society when he was a keen young player. It had been presented in memory of Sir Allan's father, who had been killed at Salonika while serving with the Lovat Scouts in the First World War Dardanelles campaign.

When Sir Allan was called on to present the BEM to Golspie coal merchant Hugh Mackay, Sheriff-Principal Bell volunteered to play the bagpipes at the party in Golspie Golf Clubhouse - for old times' sake. His 25 years of voluntary service to the community began when Sir Allan was

elected a member of Sutherland County Council in 1970. His service record here is only bettered by another El Alamein veteran, the late Councillor John Mackay, of Portgower, who began on the old Loth and Helmsdale District Council in 1945. Sir Allan was elected first chairman of Sutherland District Council on its inception in 1974, and remained until 1987, when he took over the convenership of its housing committee. He decided not to continue before the 1994 election, because of heavy commitments on other authorities.

He was elected to Highland Regional Council on its formation in 1974, representing the Dornoch, Creich, and Kincardine wards. He also became a member of the new Highland Health Board at the same time and chaired it from 1985 to 1987. He was also chairman of the East Sutherland Council of Social Service for four years and was a board member of the Scottish National Orchestra Society for 10 years.

He served in other organisations, including the Highland River Purification Board, of which his neighbour, the late Neil Graesser of Rosehall, had been chairman for many years. On his death in 1993, Sir Allen took over the chair until 1996.

Sir Allan was appointed deputy lieutenant for Sutherland in 1971 and the Queen's lord lieutenant a year later. He received his knighthood (KCVO) in 1991.

In his early days with the district council, he was travelling from his home to meetings at Dornoch when he heard a knocking from the engine of his Mini Traveller. He stopped in the lay-by outside Bonar Bridge, leaving the engine running while he lifted the bonnet. His tie was snatched by the fan-belt and he was slowly being choked with no way of extricating himself. He waved for help to passing motorists who,

recognising the car and

the Colonel's bulky frame,

cheerily waved back.

It was only when a French couple passed and spotted his frantic arm gestures that rescue came. ''Avez-vous un canif?'' he managed to gasp. They cut him free - and this is why he arrived at his meeting with a tattered tie. His colleagues bought him several bow-ties to prevent a

recurrence.

Not always punctual for meetings in Inverness, an hour's drive from his home, he blamed his aberrant alarm clock. He then devised his own foolproof alarm, by fixing the household vacuum cleaner to a time switch. Its gentle purring did not immediately rouse him, but it always annoyed his black retriever, to the point that its barking awakened everybody.

Sir Allan decided not to attempt to join the new unitary Highland Council, and resigned on the demise of the regional council in April 1996.