Scotland’s oldest man, Tom MacIver died last Friday at the age of 106. He was a very significant figure in the Highlands and actually founded the Ross-shire Liberal Party way back in 1959. He remained active until relatively recently. He was awarded the MBE for services to politics.

He was a very important player in Charles Kennedy’s election campaigns and was known to ease tensions during those sometimes fraught years of the Alliance. He was a teacher by profession and also wrote a book, Croft Remote, about growing up on a remote Wester Ross farm during the First World War.

Charles paid a generous tribute to him in the Ross-Shire Journal:

Tom’s death is incredibly sad for me, as along with a small handful of people such as John Farquhar Munro and the late Harry Miller, Tom was absolutely crucial to my success in my first election in 1983,” he said.

The way Tom threw his enthusiastic, cheerful and hard-working support behind the campaign helped turn an impossibly difficult task in to a historic result.

Since then Tom’s combination of wisdom and wry humour was something special that I and fellow Liberal Democrats across the north of Scotland came to value.

I have never known anyone quite like Tom. For this reason he’ll be hugely missed, but so great a man was he that I have no doubt he will live on in the collective memory of the Highlands for a very long time indeed.

Former Highlands MSP and current Councillor Jamie Stone added:

I found Tom truly inspirational. He was remarkable in that he kept the small Liberal light shining during the bad decades when the Tories and SNP rampaged through Ross-shire and the Liberal party was almost extinguished. For that he will always have a special place in my heart.

We wouldn’t have a party at all today if it weren’t for the efforts of people like Tom to keep the party alive during the dark days. We should never forget the contribution of these great liberal heroes.

Photo Credit: Ross-shire Journal.