Church stalwart and scouts champ

Acelebrated Aberdeen minister who devoted more than six decades of his life to the church and was a champion of the scouting movement has died. Reverend George Dymock Goldie has been praised by loved ones for his kind nature and deep generosity towards everyone he met. Born in 1926, he grew up in Haymarket in Edinburgh, before joining The Royal Scots upon leaving school in 1944. There he was sent to officer training school in India and was later stationed in what is now Malaysia, where his platoon was responsible for guarding Japanese prisoners of war working on a rubber plantation. After he was demobilised, he joined his family to help run the Traquair Arms hotel in Innerleithen and enrolled for a post-war college course. While he was studying, Rev Goldie was a student assistant at Lady Glenorchy’s North Church in Edinburgh, where he met his wife-to-be Mairi Normand. Several years later, in 1962, he accepted the call to become a minister in Aberdeen. Rev Goldie spent 33 years at Greyfriars on Broad Street, before retiring and becoming a pastoral assistant at Mannofield Church. In 2013 Rev Goldie celebrated 60 years as an ordained Church of Scotland minister. He married more than 5,000 couples in that time. “I am not the only pebble on the beach, but if I am asked to marry a couple, I will happily do so,” he said. Aside from his ministry, Rev Goldie’s great passion in life was scouting. His father founded the 1st Paisley Scout Troop in 1907, shortly after Lord Baden Powell held his first camp on Brownsea Island. Rev Goldie joined the 43rd Corstorphine Cub Pack in 1933 and rose through the ranks before becoming a deputy area commissioner. He served for a number of years as Scouts Scotland national chaplain and ran a cub pack at Kingslea School in Aberdeen. Rev Goldie was safeguarding awareness co-ordinator for north-east Scotland and chairman of Aberdeen Districts Appointments Committee. Rev Goldie was married to Mairi, who died 10 years ago, for 53 years. He leaves four children and eight grandchildren.

INSPIRATIONAL: Rev George Dymock Goldie