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01851

700178

17 Bayhead St

Stornoway, Lewis

 

 

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The Reverend Alistair Montgomery, former Free Church minister of Scalpay and Back and – though of unassuming nature– widely loved and respected, died in Stornoway earlier today after a brief illness. He was eighty-two years old.

Born in Ballalan in 1929, the family moved to Stornoway in 1932 and there Mr Montgomery was educated.

After four years of deep-sea engineering service in the Merchant Navy, and after brief employment in the Glasgow police force, Mr Montgomery was received as a student for the ministry of the Free Church of Scotland, and completed his training at its College in Edinburgh.

He was ordained and inducted to the charge of Scalpay in 1965 - the same year a car ferry service began to what was then a bustling place at the height of the herring-boom; a richly Gaelic community with young families and a fat school roll - and had many good tales of these years. In 1967 he was happily married to Christina MacLean of New Shawbost.

Mr Montgomery was translated to Back Free Church in 1976, and served a faithful 19-year pastorate ijn one of the Free Church's largest congregations until the couple retired to Stornoway late in 1994.

Though ill-health over the last decade precluded further preaching or any public role in the denomination, Mr Montgomery remained bright and active, attending church as long as strength permitted, keeping an open home and enduring chronic ailments with a serenity that quietly impressed many.

• A wake takes place at the Free church Seminary, Stornoway, at 9pm on Wednesday. The funeral service commences at 1.30pm at Stornoway Free Church on Kenneth Street at on Thursday with the lift at 2pm going to  Sandwick Cemetery.

Rev Alistair Montgomery - Hebrides News

Death of former Free Church minister              17/1/12

By John Macleod