Allan Sellar

Long-serving provost of Inverness Born: October 10, 1924;

Died: March 1, 2018 ALLAN G Sellar, who has died aged 93, was one of the longest-serving provosts of Inverness, first serving from 1980 to 1992, eight years after being elected to Inverness Town Council.

His second spell began in 1996 and he retained the honour until he retired from local government in 1999, shortly before he penned his autobiography The Life and Times of a Highland Provost.

Mr Sellar was elected and served continuously in four councils from 1972 onwards: Inverness Town, Inverness District, the Highland Region and latterly the Highland Council. During that time, he oversaw a booming town that doubled in population.

He was born in 1924, the first of three children to John and Mary-bella Sellar, in Dufftown, before the family moved to the village of Beauly, near Inverness, where Alan attended primary and secondary schools.

With the Second World War raging, he joined the Air Training Corps in preparation for enlisting in the Royal Air Force shortly before victory was declared. He continued in the RAF as a national serviceman in the immediate post-war era, being trained as a flight sergeant at an East Anglia air-base.

Back in civvy street, he became a mobile fruit and vegetable salesman before establishing the first of his two fruit and vegetable shops in the town’s Eastgate. When the owner of a neighbouring meal-store was killed in a motor accident, Mr Sellar added this line to his trade, one that led him on to establishing the first heath foods outlet in the Highlands.

He then bought a shop in the centre of Inverness where his son Martin and daughters-in-law continue to run the family’s Health Shop outlet. With more than four decades pedigree on the site, it is a independent business that has long been an institution in Inverness.

Whilst provost, Mr Sellar played a key role in the formation of Inverness Caledonian Thistle FC and the establishment of its home ground at the then-new Tulloch Caledonian Stadium, where he kicked the first ball to ceremonially inaugurate the ground. He was also a founder trustee of the club’s charitable trust that helped get Inverness Caledonian Thistle off the ground largely debt-free as a Scottish league club.

Ronald Stevenson, the retired chief executive of Highland Regional Council, praised Mr Sellar’s integrity and said he offered the same courtesy to local achievers and VIP guests as he did to visiting members of the royal family.

He said: “Allan respected the dignity of the office of provost, imbuing it with the appropriate level of gravitas, but with a commendable infusion of his own lightness of touch.”

In a separate tribute, Margaret Davidson, leader of Highland Council, said: “Allan was the most egalitarian man that I have ever known.”

A quotation from Allan Sellar’s memoir was printed on the order of service at his funeral.

He had written: “It is difficult to summarise the most important things in my life. The latter ‘F’ seems to loom in my thoughts: Family, Friends, Faith, Fair and Fun.”

Mr Sellar was elevated as a Freeman of Inverness in 2001, having previously received an OBE in 1992; he cherished both awards.

As well as his widow Brenda, Mr Sellar is survived by his children Martin, Lesley, Robin and Ruth, eight grandchildren and an infant great-grandchild.