1936 - 2008 Elliot Flett Logie

© Ricky logie 2008

By Liz

Elliot Flett Logie

22nd April 1936 - 19th February 2008

 

Eulogy for Dad by Liz

One of the  traditional   bible readings, often read at funerals,  from John, Chapter 14 Verse 2  has the line, " In my father's house there are many mansions". Well, in our  father's house there are many children, eight of us to be exact: Liz, Trixie, Derek, Lorraine, Ricky, Sean,

Michelle and Trev; and there are many grandchildren: Melanie, Laura, Jamie,  Rosa,  David, Josh,  Caitlin, Katie; and step-grandchildren, David, Shauni and Lee and husbands, wives  and partners; Mark, Joe, Bob, Linda, Amanda, Alasdair,  and great-grandaughter Madi, and most importantly there is our mum, Rhona, Dad's beloved life partner of 51 years, his first and only love.

 

He married at 20 and died at 71 - too short by far. His was a life not rich in wealth but  rich in  the things which are important: family,  friends, gardening, nature,food,  music, good whisky and good talk, always talk: talk of people, talk of the past, talk of history, talk of countries and places far away, talk of the Scots spread throughout the world, the Scottish diaspora as he liked to call it, talk of Orkney and talk of Kinbrace.

 

Our dad, Elliot, was a man who loved  to talk,  to have a good yarn as they say in Orkney, who liked to know about everything, who liked to engage with the world in the most immediate sense. He always wanted  to know who had been born, who had got married and who had died; an abiding interest in the natural cycle of things borne from working with the earth, dealing with the eternal  rhythm of  life and death whether in the land, the garden, the animals, the  seasons or people.

 

Our dad was not afraid of death and would have thought it entirely natural that as the  oldest his death should be the first  in our four-generation family.  Just before he left Kinbrace he told me that he felt he had had a lucky life: he had been married to the same wife for 50 years; he had a huge and healthy family who were always there for him and Mum; he had lived in a beautiful place all his life and he had been able to work outdoors with nature and animals. His gratitude  for what life had offered him pierced my heart and made me feel so proud of him.

 

Although from a humble background Dad was a man of huge and enduring intelligence and talent. He was  self schooled and self educated,  with an unquenchable thirst for knowledge and an encyclopediac store of facts, both interesting and useless, a modest working class man whose natural dignity and good human qualities were so obvious that he unconsciously demanded, and received,  respect from all who met him, irrespective of  class, creed or colour.

 

Our Dad, was born Elliot Flett Logie in Harray, Orkney on the 22nd April 1936, the first child  and oldest son  of John and Liza, brother to Ronnie and Sylvia who are both here,  and to Johnny who pre-deceased him. He was descended on his mother's side from Native Canadian Indians, thanks to a recent  ancestor who worked for the Hudson Bay Company, a fact of which he was hugely proud.  From the start he was a clever boy passing his 11 plus and going to Stromness Academy. He was academic, a very good sportsman and  a  natural and intuitive musician as we all know - thank you Dad. He was also a  real looker and remained a handsome man all this life.  Despite his  obvious academic ability he left school at 15 as would have been so common at that time and in that place, and trained to be an agricultural engineer.  He married my mum when he was 20 and she 17, and there followed  the birth of their eight children in quick succession, a period in farming and in fishing,   and all the ups and downs, joys and difficulties which lives well lived  have to endure and survive.

 

In December 1969 he moved our family from the jewel-green islands of Orkney, surrounded by the shimmering sea, to the remote but fiercely beautiful Sutherland, where he was to stay until October 2006 when he and my mum moved to Fochabers to be closer to their family.

 

For  37 years Dad  worked tirelessly on Achentoul Estate in Kinbrace, as cattleman, tractorman, stockman, shepherd, handyman, mechanic, unqualified vet; and, judging  by the many injuries he incurred, general dare-devil. Whatever he did he epitomised what we call the Protestant Work Ethic - a strong desire to do a good job, to work hard and to sell no one short, something which runs through the veins of the entire Logie brood - for better or worse.

 

Our Dad was not a saint: he got grumpy sometimes; he could be disorganised; he took dangerous short-cuts and in his mind there were few problems that couldn't be solved by a good six inch nail and so occasionally he lacked a certain  finesse when it came to practical things. But he was the most decent of men; he never knowingly hurt anyone; he never cheated anyone; he never did anyone down  and he never put himself before others. He was wonderfully gullible and a joy to play tricks on  - which happened many times because he never recognised the signs or guessed what was going on.

 

My brother Sean said the other day, when we were all gathered together, that Dad will be the easiest of men to have good memories of and that was a profound truth.

 

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus said ' Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.'

Despite being an English teacher for 25 years  I only recently discovered that the word 'meek' in this context does not mean self-effacing and humble, although these words would be appropriate to describe Dad. The word 'meek' means ' teachable'; in other words it means to be open to the world, to be curious, to be accepting of the new, to be engaged and keen to learn. That word certainly applies to our Dad; he was always teachable, whether by nature, friends, family, television, books or latterly, the internet.

 

Our family is famous for organising surprises and often these surprises were organised for Dad because we knew that he would never guess and never see the signs, and that his mock-annoyance and obvious joy and pride would reward us all so well. Well  he has had the last laugh; because we never guessed and we didn't see the signs.

 

By dying so suddenly, and so unexpectedly, he has shocked us all to our core but I am personally so glad to have been in the next room and not hundreds of miles away as I so easily could have been. We try to comfort ourselves by thinking that he has had a good death: no long suffering, no pain, no humiliation and no debilitation and  he gave us time to gather together to prepare ourselves, in as much as that is ever possible. It is the natural order of things.

 

As a family we are bereft, distraught and truly heartbroken but we have also been able to love and laugh  a lot in these last few days and be with our mum to comfort and take care of her. We would  have made our Dad very proud - in the same way that we will remain eternally proud of him.

 

 

 

By Michelle

By Ricky

By Sean