Tribute to popular minister and health services champion
Minister, health services champion and Air Training Corps chaplain Tom Tait has died aged 89.
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s he held local and national health authorities to account and then went on to act as an advocate for mental health patients in Tayside.
In 2011 he was made an MBE for voluntary services to the Air Training Corps.
William Thomas Tait was born in Dunfermline in 1931 and educated at Dunfermline High School.
After leaving school he worked as a railway clerk and his Christian faith led him to become captain of the 4th Dunfermline company of The Boys’ Brigade.
He later joined the BB staff at its Glasgow headquarters and met his future wife Irene, a Lifeboys leader, on training courses.
The Boys’ Brigade supported a church mission at Keith Falconer Hospital on the Arabian peninsula and Mr Tait spent five years working there from 1962 to 1967.
Irene was working at the Christian Medical College in Ludhiana, India, and both returned to the UK in the same year. They married in 1968.
Mr Tait was ordained and inducted as minister at Rattray Parish Church from 1972 until 1997.
He was moderator of the Presbytery of Dunkeld and Meigle in 1978.
In the same year he was appointed chaplain to the Dundee and Central Scotland Wing of the ATC and served for 19 years until his appointment as principal chaplain for Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Mr Tait was the first Scot and first nonAnglican to hold the post of Corps Chaplain in the ATC and, by virtue of his office, he was a member of the Air Cadet Council which met under the presidency of the Chief of the Air Staff, RAF.
He was awarded the Lord Lieutenant’s certificate for Meritorious Service to the Volunteer Reserve in 1985.
After 25 years in the chaplaincy branch, Mr Tait was presented with the Defence Council Letter of Appreciation for his service as chaplain and a squadron officer.
In 1988 he was presented with the Duke of Edinburgh’s Certificate of Recognition for Outstanding Service in successfully administering the Blairgowrie squadron.
In 1980, Mr Tait was appointed to Perth and Kinross Health Council as representative of Dunkeld and Meigle Presbytery and became a staunch defender of local health provision.
He served for 11 years, seven of them as chairman, before the formation of the new Tayside Health Council in 1991.
Mr Tait served on that body for eight years, six of them as chairman.
Between 1993 and 1998 he was a member of the Secretary of State’s advisory panel on the registration of nursing homes and private hospitals.
In 1993 he became a member of Tayside Health Board’s quality monitor team and served until 1998. Mr Tait represented Tayside on the Scottish Association of Health Councils for five years from 1993 and was chairman in 1997/98.
Not long after arriving in Blairgowrie, Mr Tait became chaplain of No 2519 (Strathmore) Air Training Corps.
He was commissioned in the RAF voluntary reserve (training branch) in 1977 and became commanding officer of his unit with the rank of flight lieutenant.
Mr Tait went on to become regional chaplain and then corps chaplain for the ATC, heading a team of 700 chaplains across the UK.
Although he retired in 1997, Mr Tait continued to preach and act as interim moderator at churches in the area.
Mr Tait died at home on Easter Sunday. His fifth great-grandchild was born the following day.
He is survived by Irene, children Mahri, Steven and Alison, nine grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
His funeral will take place at Kinclaven Church on Wednesday this week.