The Press and Journal (Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire)
Queen ‘truly cared’ for oil and gas staff – offshore chaplain
Aberdeen’s oil and gas chaplain has paid a poignant tribute to the Queen, reflecting on his own time serving her, and also her care for those working offshore.
In a video tribute, the Reverend Gordon Craig recalled how the Queen and royal family “quizzed” him on how families were supported following the 2013 Super Puma crash off Sumburgh, Shetland, reflecting her concerns in the wake of the tragedy.
The helicopter crash claimed the lives of four people, and Mr Craig met the Queen at Balmoral the next week.
He said: “In 2013 I was invited to Balmoral for the weekend and asked to conduct the service at Crathie Kirk.
“This was the week following the Puma coming down off Sumburgh, an accident that took the lives of four workers coming home from offshore.
“She, and indeed all members of the royal family, were extremely well-informed about the accident, and I was quizzed very deeply about how the families were being supported.
“There was a genuine concern expressed, and she truly cared.”
Mr Craig’s tribute, recorded in the oil chapel in St Nicholas Kirk, Aberdeen, noted how the Queen had been a “constant in our lives”.
Thousands of people paid their respects to Queen Elizabeth’s cortege as it passed through Aberdeen to Edinburgh over the weekend on her final journey through Scotland.
Mr Craig, who stopped to pay respects between Perth and Dundee, said people told him the occasion affected them “far more” than they expected.
He said her death has “perhaps reawakened feelings of loss we thought had gone”, or “caused us to remember loved ones no longer with us, as they too lived under the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and these feelings are quite natural”.
The minister also spoke of the honour he felt at being named one of the Queen’s chaplains 13 years ago and the privilege of meeting the monarch on different occasions in his career.
He added: “When I was appointed I thought it was an honour but, as there were quite a few chaplains to the Queen, that was about all it was.
“But I soon found out how wrong I was.
“Chaplains to the Queen wear a red cassock as a kind of uniform to identify them, and I discovered when I conducted funerals or weddings many people asked me to wear this as a sign of my status as chaplain to the Queen.
“And at funerals people seemed to derive comfort that the service was being conducted by someone who had a connection to the Queen.
“For them, it was as if the Queen herself had graced the funeral. She was able, from afar, to provide solace.
“And this was something only the Queen, given all she represented, could do.”
The Queen’s coffin is currently lying in state in Westminster Hall, London.
The monarch’s state funeral will be held on Monday, which has been declared a bank holiday.