Rev Kenneth MacDonald, Golspie
A personal tribute to Rev Kenny MacDonald who died on Sunday, by Ian Allan, Golspie, a former friend and colleague and retired minister from Rogart Free Church:
This is a local and personal tribute to Kenny MacDonald, as there are a number of more articulate and comprehensive tributes in the wider media.
I first met Kenny the year Alison, his daughter, went missing, 1981.
Kenny had just started studying in the Free Church College in Edinburgh, and so we became classmates. Because numbers were small in our classes, we soon got to know each other well, and Kenny was the only student in our year who was already a grandfather. Most of us were fairly new at fatherhood, but although a bit older, his energy, enthusiasm and zeal for God’s word made any age differences superfluous. (If truth were told, he was also far fitter than any us!)
The fact that his daughter was missing all this time seemed to make no difference to Kenny’s desire to prepare for the ministry as best as he could.
We spent three years together in the Free Church College and in 1984 he became minister of Rosskeen Free Church. Of the 11 or so ministers who were looking for a “charge” (congregation) that year, Kenny was the one who received most invitations to preach, and at least three congregations “called” him.
Kenny’s style of preaching was not typical (at least as many thought of what a Free Church type of preacher should be like); his preaching was simple, practical and personal, and above all else evangelical. There was always great warmth in his evangelistic preaching. While he preached solemn messages regarding sin, this was invariably followed with an earnest exhortation to come to Christ. This was true and evident even up to the very last time he preached in Golspie Free Church in December 2017.
His casual style of ministry got him into trouble in his early days. In Rosskeen when he visited a non-attending parishioner in his jeans – and of course without the dog-collar, which he never wore – Kenny introduced himself as the Free Church minister, the woman seriously questioned this claim and actually called the police, who thankfully were able to confirm his identity.
So what brought Kenny and his wife Reta to Golspie of all places? After all he was a Skye man, and most Island people retire and return to their roots.
Kenny and Reta had retired (this was his second retirement!) to Dunvegan, near his own home community. At this time, I was ministering in a neighbouring parish, and we often met for coffee and discussed possible retirement plans which were off island.
A number of reasons (that we know of) accounted for their desire not to stay in Skye. Reta belonged to the Orkneys and had ageing parents there, and so a geographical location not too distant and yet reasonably accessible to Orkney was desirable.
I too, a Free Church minister was considering retiring to my own home village of Golspie and on the look-out for a suitable northern locality. We viewed a house on the Main Street called in Golspie called Tiree, and made enquiries about the property. It was clear that major work needed to be done on the property, and so we thought that this was too heavy a commitment for us.
However, shortly after this my wife and I dropped in to see Kenny and Reta, and we suggested he look at the property as it would suit his requirements. Kenny and Reta had two other boxes to tick: It must have a sea view and access to a beach and it must have good public transport access and services, as Kenny’s Multiple Sclerosis had brought him to a situation when his eyesight was seriously affected, so he could not drive.
Soon they viewed the property, and very satisfied with its location and potential, purchased it. After doing major improvements on it, they renamed it Sharin, which means peace. Perhaps some see this as a bit of an irony, given the many years searching for their missing daughter. Kenny preached on the Peace of God, because he knew that he had something which the Bible itself defined as the Peace of God which passes all understanding.
Kenny’s visual impairment meant that he could not read very well, so he managed to print out (by hand) his own sermons, and often read them. Meeting people was a challenge – I can still hear him asking me on some occasions, with a big smile on his face, “who was that?”
Quite often he had to depend on his memory of a voice to work out who was actually speaking to him. His humour was never far away, although in preaching he could sound so solemn, (rightly so), yet he, like many other Free Church ministers liked a good laugh.
(A strange irony about the house was that a Robert Macleod, from Tongue came to stay in Tiree while he studied at the “Tech”. He then went into the police and later entered the Free Church College in the same year/class as Kenny and myself!)
Kenny and Rita could very often be seen on the Main Street taking a walk down the road perhaps to Poppies for a coffee. Few probably realised the burden they carried for their missing daughter. Some people even criticised them, suggesting that they should just accept that she was dead.
However, Kenny and Reta displayed a simple but valid approach: until conclusive evidence for her death was provided, he would keep looking for her. So Kenny may well be with his dear Alison in Glory.
Whatever the case he will be much missed in many parts of Scotland, but perhaps none more so than in Golspie, his last earthly home.
Up until the past two years or so, visitors to Golspie (and maybe not a few locals) were a bit bemused by the appearance of a couple who went out for a swim in the sea nearly every day of the year. Kenny and Reta both were well into fitness, and probably not that many people knew that Kenny was actually on Tottenham Hotspur’s books in his younger days and loved his football, frequently being involved in the Free Church’s Youth Camps.
Kenny was in his 83rd year when he was taken from us, but he preached a central message: “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain”. He not only preached it, but lived it.
As well as Alison, Kenny leaves behind Reta, Sam, Mairi, and Derek, and their extended family whom we commend to all who know what it means to pray.
