Former Perthshire vet Duncan McMartin

Former Perthshire vet Duncan McMartin died peacefully at home in the United States from complications following routine surgery.

Mr McMartin was born on March 30 1932 to Alistair and Jean McMartin, at East Lodge on the Rannoch Estate at the west end of Loch Rannoch, where his father was head gamekeeper.

Mr McMartin, along with his siblings Betty, Jessie and David, enjoyed a country childhood.

He attended the tiny primary school, Georgetown School, at Bridge of Gaur and then Breadalbane Academy, Aberfeldy, where he continued learning the fiddle which became a lifelong passion for him.

After leaving school, Mr McMartin spent two years in the army doing his national service. In 1957 he graduated in veterinary medicine at the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, Edinburgh University.

Following this, he was employed as assistant specialist in the Experiment Station at Davis, California, USA, and received his doctorate in comparative pathology from the University of California, Davis, in 1961.

During these years in Davis he met the woman who would become his wife of nearly 50 years, Hyla Tinklepaugh, who died in 2007.

The couple soon moved back to Scotland where he worked for the British Ministry of Agriculture Veterinary Laboratory at Lasswade, near Edinburgh, becoming head of microbiology there.

For his outstanding work on eradication of M gallisepticum from commercial poultry in Britain, he was awarded the Hall Gold Medal by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, London in 1969.

During this time the couple raised four children – Christina, Duncan, John and Shona – at their home in the small village of Edgehead, Midlothian.

In 1980, Mr McMartin was appointed as a cooperative extension specialist in the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of California, Davis, and he and his family returned to the US.

He retired in 1993.

Duncan McMartin’s veterinary career took him to California.