25 years ago

The man who has over the years welcomed some of the world’s most famous people has retired. Since 1985, 60-year-old “Big John” McGillivray has been the linkman at Gleneagles Hotel, and in his tammy and Hunting McGillivray kilt, has welcomed everyone from American tourists to prime ministers and presidents. “Yet when I arrived at the hotel to start work in 1946 I wasn’t allowed to go up the front stairs where I was to spend so much of my working life,” he said. “I had to go to the back entrance.”