Part one of this article is available here.
Aunt Edith
Aunt Edith Mary Keddie could have sprung from a novel by Charles Dickens. She was the classic unmarried aunt who looked after her widower father till he died, doted on her nephews, and otherwise lived out an impecunious life all her days, her true talents denied opportunity of further education. She was a typist – eventually the chief typist – with an accountancy firm, in an office populated by male apprentices and female typists. All I remember of Boyack, Whitelaw and Aitchison on Queen Street is its “Bob Cratchit” air and appearance, with dark woodwork, her dark office, her big almost cubical Underwood typewriter – only the quill pens were absent! Her steely fingers were conditioned by constant pounding on that formidable Underwood – a relic of the past – and she did not convert to the electric typewriters that were coming in toward the end of her career. I understand that no pension was provided for her. My brother went there as an apprentice accountant in 1965, supposedly learning the profession from his bosses, guaranteed by a genuine indentured contract and rewarded with the princely sum of two guineas per week (£2 -2s – maybe a respectable income in 1865!). BW&A did not survive too long afterwards.
Aunt Edith was born in 1911, some five years before our Dad. My personal remembrances of her begin in my teenage years when we still lived in Viewforth. Dad, often delivering the Communion Cards in his district, as an elder at Viewforth Church, occasionally walked the mile to 54 Cowan Rd. and called on Edith. Usually, Edith was not prepared for visitors and was unprepared to entertain us (i.e. with tea and biscuits), even though we did not expect her to. Still. We got a bit of the standard Edinburgh welcome (e.g, as in, “You’ll have had your tea, have you?”). I do remember that her kitchen/living room had a bare bulb hanging from the middle of the ceiling – with no shade on it – an example of her characteristic frugality.
She doted on her nephews and was the family-tree expert on the Keddies. She loved outings: she visited Norway, the Netherlands and North America. She visited us in Pittsburgh, and we met up in Toronto on one occasion. She followed her father’s love of foreign parts. The photo here is of her and our mother on an expedition to Dunfermline, the ancient capital of Scotland. Scottish vacations took in county seats, records offices and people who were interested in genealogical matters, so she built up a huge picture of family connections, but alas, had it all in her head and did not record it in forms that could be readily passed on.
She was also very careful about her finances. But she kept all her bills well-organized so that my brother the accountant discovered them in a cupboard after her death – all of them! She also used to get off the bus one stop before the nearest one to her home, because going that extra stop meant paying for a whole new fare stage. She could walk this one stop and save a penny-ha’penny (1½ d.)! She was “penny-wise,” without being “pound-foolish” – she was careful about ‘little things and also the larger things – she defied the meaning of the common saying. She loved the things she inherited, because they reminded her of family and people she loved. So when she moved to 2 Coltbridge Ave – the tiny 3-room flat we once lived in – you could hardly move in the kitchen/living room for the Edwardian bustle-chair set (now John’s), her parents dining table and chairs (now Gordon’s), a Victorian chaise-longue, an Orkney chair (also John’s), and all this with a bath hidden under a lid, because the bathroom didn’t have a full bath when she bought the property!
She had a knack for buying gifts whenever she saw a bargain. She’d sit on it for a while, and when the right person came along, give it away. One of these sticks in my mind and seems even more endearing with the passage of time. I still have it – in my travel toiletries bag. It is a travel soap holder with the now faded logo of “Pagan Man,” which in the 1980’s was a popular British manufacture of travel soap and after-shave. When I opened the package and profusely thanked her, dear Aunt Edith was most embarrassed. She intended it for her brother Bill, not her clerical nephew! I thought it a most humorous gift for a “man of the cloth” like me – and for over 30 years, it has been a source of great amusement for me, and many of my Christian friends! It always reminds me of my Aunt Edith –a most upright and devoted Church lady in the best sense!
About the same time – early-1980’s – we had Aunt Edith and Uncle Bill and Aunt Cathie visiting us in Wishaw in the West of Scotland. Here we are at the door of the Wishaw Reformed Presbyterian manse (David btw is holding a cricket bat.).
Incidentally, my parents were married on my Mother’s 23rd birthday – in Edinburgh on 29 January, 1942 - at the Grosvenor Hotel, Edinburgh (Now the Hilton Hotel). Aunt Edith was the one bridesmaid, and Uncle Johnny (Elder) drew and constructed a cardboard cover that looked like icing for a wedding cake without any icing (icing sugar was unobtainable) This was a wartime wedding! No fancy dresses or suits!
Serious Christian Commitment
I always thought I was a Christian, albeit of a kind. I always believed that the Bible was different from all other books, that God was real and had given it, uniquely describing the real world of real people, real human nature, and real events. It was for me a perspective never to be denied, and inescapably embraced. I accepted biblical morality. But as to a personal knowledge of Jesus as the Saviour of sinners in general and of me in particular, I knew no experience. On 20th May 1962, this all changed under the exposition of Ecclesiastes by a Rev. Gordon in the Volunteer Hall, which is the building in the centre of Galashiels, just behind where the car is on the roundabout. The “moss-trooper” on the left is the War Memorial in front of the Town House (He is a Scottish lancer of the 17th century, typical of the cavalry of the Covenanting armies of the day.). I was a month from leaving Heriot’s (high school) and although I thought myself serious Christian, I was really there for the afternoon 5-a-side football competition (The photo below is Edinburgh Interschool Fellowship team in a later year.).
At the Rally, in the evening, the text was Ecclesiastes 12:2 – Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth. As the preacher expounded the whole chapter – an account of the distressing advance of old age and the shortness of life – I came to realize I did not understand my need of a Saviour, far less actually know Him as the one who gives eternal life to all who believe on Him! When the speaker invited any who were concerned about their souls to meet with him afterwards, I did so, although I do not remember anything that was said by either of us. What I do remember, was coming back on the bus up the A68 to Edinburgh and, seeing the relflectors - the “cat’s eyes” caught by the headlights on the many curves in the road, wondering about the future to which they pointed. My friend, Big John Fraser, also professed his conversion and the next evening we met at the public forum next to the Royal Scottish Academy in Princes Street and he got up and gave his testimony. I was too shy at this point.
After that, my pattern did not change very much. But, as the Christian poet George Robinson (1838-77) wrote, “Something lives in every hue Christless eyes have never seen.” I was already a regular attender at morning and evening services, albeit at a “liberal” church (Viewforth Church of Scotland) in the morning, and an “evangelical” church (Charlotte Baptist Chapel) in the evening. But I did see things I had never seen before. I was unhappy with the former for its neglect of the Bible and with the latter because of its doctrine. I noticed especially that the ink on the pages of the pew Bibles at the Baptists was pristine and untouched where the Old Testament was found, whereas the New Testament was thumbed and worn. That was something, and it spoke to me of the neglect of much of Scripture. It struck me also that the preacher’s messages – the preacher was Alan Redpath, later of Moody Church, Chicago – always were of New Testament texts, he never expounded them in context, and they were basically the same gospel sermon. That was good to a point, but bespoke a less than careful attention to the actual text. To 17-yr old mind, there was something not quite right, although I confess I could not quite say what it was. It was as if the text of the Bible was no more than a hook to hang whatever good thoughts he had on the day, as opposed to assuming – and evidently discerning – that God was saying something specific in each text, and also pointing us to Christ.
I then went up to Aberdeen University. Academically, my first year was fine, though challenging, but for me it was a spiritual desert. I lived off attending Charlotte Chapel on going home every three weeks. Otherwise, I tried out a few churches and soon gave up in despair. I once attended King’s College Chapel, Old Aberdeen, only to hear the Moderator of the Church of Scotland, Rev. Dr. Archie Craig chunter on about the “Paul Tillich” and “the ground of our being.” I had to sit at the foot of the pulpit, listen to this Bible-less, gospel-less discourse in full view of a packed house, and realize why the CofS was doomed (It is down maybe three-quarters of a million and is about one third of the size it was then).
Next year (1963), I was introduced to Willie Still’s ministry and my life was changed forever!
Aberdeen University
I thought I was a shoe-in for Edinburgh University, but my papers got lost and were found too late. So I was referred to a pool for last minute place-seekers – so many places were fixed in each institution and department in those days – and assigned to a vacancy in Aberdeen (founded 1492). Leaving home was one of the best things that ever happened to me! I went up as a Fresher in late 1962, to Marischal College.
I was mainly in the Natural History Dept. – Zoology, in modern speak(!), for I was studying for a Zoology degree – then located in Marischal. King’s College, in Old Aberdeen is the other part of the University, and where the present Zoology building is situated. The Zoo Dept. was then in the right-hand corner of the Quad (see photo right). Aside from the ceremonial Mitchell Hall and a Museum (in the centre), the building is now used for offices by Aberdeen’s Town Council.
For recreation, I ran cross-country for Aberdeen Hares and Hounds. Here is the team for 1965. We ran 9th in the British Universities, which was quite an achievement for us.
I did receive an “honorable mention” in the annual report of University organizations for 1965. It went as follows… And the bit about “so little training” was sure true enough! “Gordon Keddie—The elusive Gordon. Work prevents him from appearing regularly but when he runs, his natural ability is readily shown and his performances are usually excellent on so little training. Maybe he trains secretly?”
My Honours Thesis was a study of a marine worm (Scoloplos armiger), which was found only in estuarine muddy sand of a certain composition. Here I am on my study area on the River Ythan (marked out on the photo). The Sands of Forvie are on the right and Culterty Field Station is on the left off photo.
One day in January 1966, I was sampling the site from a boat at high tide with my friend Dick Marriott (who was looking for some Eider duck droppings for his project). My fingers froze going through a mud sample. I fainted clean away and fell unconscious on the bottom of the rowing boat. Next thing I knew, I was looking up my legs at Dick who was pulling them up and straightening me out. “Just as well you didn’t fall out of boat, old boy,” he said in his witty south London way, “I’d have just had to row away and leave you!” – which of course he would never have done.
I reckon I owe him my life. (Travelling in his side-car in a rain-storm seemed more life-threatening – and it couldn’t have been fun for him on his motor-bike!).
By far the most memorable thing that happened in my Aberdeen days was my sitting under the ministry of Rev. William Still at Gilcomston South Church of Scotland on Union Street. Willie Still was a legend in his own lifetime. He expounded Scripture book-by-book, showing us Christ in “all the Scriptures” (Luke 24:27). This has animated my entire ministry, although I didn’t anticipate this at the time. I first professed faith to join the Church in Nov. 1963 at “Gilc.,” after a year of wandering, never finding a church and ministry of a solid nature. Meeting Willie Gilmour, in the Great Western Rd. “digs,” was the vital link that took me to Gilc. and I am forever grateful for this totally unlooked for and unexpected providence. These two men – Messrs. Gilmour and Still – have been vital influences throughout my Christian life and (expository) ministry. I recall one Saturday morning, walking down Union Street opposite “Gilc.”with Willie G., when Willie drew attention to the “Wayside Pulpit” (the blue board to the left of the door in the photo), and said with his Glasgow twinkle, “Willie has another gospel tract for the week ahead.” I looked and it said, “Go to ye rich… Weep and howl for your coming miseries” (James 5:1). Willie Still always chose startling and thought-provoking texts! Another one was “And the woman said, ‘The serpent beguiled me.’ (Gen. 3:13)”
I graduated from Aberdeen in 1966, B.Sc. (Hons, Zoology), on a typical Scottish summer day (See the raincoats and the puddles in the Marischal Quad?). Four years had passed and real life needed to begin. So after a projected zoological summer trip to the Taurus Mountains in Turkey, I needed a job!
Every “end” is a new beginning, and little was I to know where that would lead in a very few years. Research didn’t appeal to me. I intended to be a school-teacher for the rest of my days – but even “the best laid plans o’ mice and men gang aft agley” (as the poet Burns once said) – and most significantly as the sovereignty of God in His providence opens up! “Goodbye, Aberdeen!”
Turkey
The trip to Turkey with my friend Dick Marriott was a most memorable six weeks, not least because till then I had rarely even been over “the Border” to England, never mind across the Channel to more foreign parts! We aimed to collect small mammals for the British Museum of Natural History, but we failed completely. Lots of other “wee beasties” got up earlier each morning and took advantage for the free meal in our traps!
We took a long train ride to Adana in the south-east and then a bus northward into the Cilician Gates, the fabled pass through the Taurus Mountains. On the way, we became aware that our parcel of food supplies was lifted from the bus at one of the stops, which we had not observed. Dick continued to a place called Ulukişla, in an unavailing attempt to retrieve the missing package. I got off near where we would camp and where we would meet up next day. I slept under a bush on the hillside and was awakened by a man on a donkey coming over the hill. He stared at me for a while. I thought of Turkish bashi bazouks – the irregular and undisciplined soldiery of the Ottomans – but this elderly gentleman soon cantered off and left me unmolested! Dick duly showed up and we went on to camp by the Berlin-Baghdad railway, which still sported the Krupp ties that the Germans had used to lay the track before WWI! We provisioned ourselves through an alternating weekly hike of 10 km. – along the main road to Pozanti. For a month we sampled the local wild-life in the area. I still have organisms from those efforts, preserved in 70% alcohol. not least a large female grasshopper that crawled over me one night, and a crab that I found in a cave about 100yds from the stream on our last night in the region (we saw rain coming and didn’t want to tote a wet tent on the long trip to Istanbul, so we found a cave that night!).
We were tourists in Istanbul in our final week in Turkey, and only scratched the surface of that ancient and historic city. My camera was stolen on the train across Anatolia and the replacement was second–hand. It let in some light (hence the shaft of light in some pictures), but you can still get an impression, here, of me standing on the Galata Bridge across the Golden Horn, with Clyde-built steamers (Turkish vapur) crossing the Bosporus (with Asia in the distance). My fit “running weight” in 1966 was c. 140 lb., but I was 124 lb. after a month in the Taurus Mtns.! I was skinny, but fit! The second picture sees me buying fruit at the Aksaray Market. I had never seen such fruit in Scotland, where the tomatoes were grown under glass in the cold northern clime (and were like little plastic spheres). And so cheap! We did our whole trip on less than £50 cash! I mention tomatoes because I wouldn’t eat the tasteless Scots ones. I realized for the first time how a real tomato tasted! Istanbul eateries were then a world away from what was available back home. And the summer was Mediterranean!
One day we took a boat trip to the Princes Islands in the Sea of Marmara (so-called because Byzantine princes frolicked there). Never had I seen such pristine water. We rented a rowing boat and swam in the warm clear water! You could see fish swimming way below you (Never in the turbulence of the North Sea back home!).
One day, we were stopped by an old Turk, who thought we were Germans and said, ‘Deutsch - Turkish soldat –– Kamerad!’ (I decided not to draw attention to the Union Jack in my ruck-sack! Or that Uncle David was on the other side, when the Turks were attacking the Suez Canal in Egypt 50 years before!).
Other memories still crowd in: performing bears in the streets; lemonade vendors with one cup only, wiped for all their customers; scaffolding storeys high of wood slats tied with rope; soldiers at intersections with machine guns at the ready; men holding hands, with women a step behind them; crazy driving and all witnesses dispersing from a dolmuş (minibus taxi) when it had an accident; and the ever-present black-marketeers in currency, producing wads of foreign bank-notes from their shoes! Music, lights and teeming streets all evening…
First Real Job
From 1967-70, I taught Biology at Trinity Academy in Edinburgh. This was part of a “Science Department”, to which I soon discovered, most “Biology” funds went by default to the Chemistry and Physics sections, because the method of my superior involved minimal equipment and maximal dictation of “notes.” Eventually, I corrected that by going over the head of that superior to gain emergency funding for equipment from the Science Advisor for the City. This cost me a dressing down in front of a class by an irate superior when the equipment order was fulfilled at the school. But at last we had more than one microscope (And it was older than I was! I later found a second, vintage c. 1910, in bits in the back of a drawer!). I found that modernizing teachers can be much more difficult than revising and declaring official policies!
I was involved in the track athletic programme of the School, and with the Scripture Union group outside of the school itself. The Annual School Sports was at Bangholm. I fancied myself for the F.P 100 yds, but pulled a leg muscle in a morning training session with my faster brother, foolishly racing him the length of a rugby field after the session was over! So I ended up being the Announcer for the whole Sports – the only time in my life I have done that. My great claim to fame was later to win the Johnson Memorial Trophy of the Trinity Academicals A. C. as the so-called best all-rounder for one year. Personally, I think this was awarded by the all-round kindness of the powers that be, rather than because of my actual thoroughly mediocre performances!
These were uneventful years, really, but I do recall the random visits of the H.M.I. (Her Majesty’s Inspector), notable because he most unusually, even for Scots, always wore the kilt and we could see that he had a real Scotsman’s back-side for this, as this accoutrement swung from side to side whenever he was in view (In my experience, very few foreigners have the right [protruding] buttocks to justify attempting wearing our so-called “national dress.”). There is a park in front of the school, separating us from the R.C. Holy Cross Academy, now moved. In those days, there was so much mindless prejudice. One 11 yr. old approached me after a 1st Yr. Biology Class with a question: “Pleeze Surr, would ye’ like to hear an impression o’ 40,000 animals?” “OK,” says I. And he chants, “Cel-tic! Cel-tic! Cel-tic!” (The war-cry of the supporters of the famous football team, “Glasgow Celtic,” known for its devotion to Roman Catholicism and its opposition to the supposedly Protestant “Glasgow Rangers F.C.!”). It sadly tells you everything about the tribal sectarianism of 1960’s Scotland!!! At one time, I was told, they had fights between “Prods” and “”Papes” across that park, until they changed the playtimes and minimized contact.
I did a lot of running in the late ‘60’s. I even ran to and from Trinity (4.5 miles each way, Tues-Thursdays), much to the amusement of the pupils. On good weeks, when I did a Monday evening 20miles around the city with Sandy Cameron, my fellow teacher, running mate and informal coach, it reached over 60 miles a week! I competed for the Heriot Cross-Country Club, hence the blue singlet with a white “H” on the back (I still have it). Our star was Jim Dingwall (I am seen here passing on to him at an event in Perth). Jim later was a top-class marathon runner, 2hr. 11m in Hong Kong, if I remember, and ran for Scotland in the Commonwealth Games. Jim tragically died at only 53 of cancer.
I ran the East of Scotland 5K that year at Meadowbank, where the Commonwealth Games were held that year. I was 13th of 15, I think, and was pleased as punch. I was the “dog that played checkers” - you don’t criticize his moves, you are just thankful he is in the game! Sandy Cameron (red shorts) was my previously mentioned running mate. Adrian Weatherhead many years later, was the first man in the world to run a 4 minute mile after he turned 40!
Here is a 1969 picture of me at the Strathearn Games, in Bridge of Allan., where my brother was competing. The Wallace Monument is in the background (Abbey Craig, whence the “sma’ folk” issued to seal the Battle of Stirling Brig for the Scots. The River Forth, where Wallace defeated the English in 1296, (and Stirling and the Castle) is off picture to the right. It gives you the flavour of the bustle of the many Highland Games that take place in Scotland every summer. Those were the days when we all wore dress shoes (and some of us tweed jackets!), even to a Saturday sports event. Running shoes came in in the 1960’s and now everybody wears them, even to weddings and funerals! Changed days!
Some Characters I Have Known
There is a famous book entitled “The Scot’s Worthies.” (John Howie, The Scot’s Worthies (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1995).) It is about the notable martyrs (Covenanters) of the 17th century and is one of the classics of Scottish literature. My “Worthies” are not “worthies” at all, but only “characters” I remember vaguely – not at all spiritual, and hardly nation building. They had a quality and uniqueness what somehow fits them for special mention, at least in my memory of them. Two were dentists, two were ordinary local people, one a doctor, and one a West Highland Terrier named “Misty.”
Two dentists figured largely in our family life. Archie Donaldson was Dad’s dentist when he was a boy in the 20’s. I was one of Archie’s last patients. He was a true product of the 19th century. I had him once – to remove my baby teeth, which had never fallen out because their roots never decayed (I still have them in a match box.)! It was the only time I had “laughing gas” for any procedure. I remember two things in particular. One was old Archie’s own teeth. When he smiled, he revealed a higgledy-piggedly mouthful of odd teeth variously stained with tobacco – which I thought that it was not much of an advert for his craft as a dentist. The other thing was that I dreamt of the jaw-bones of a Great White Shark (which I had seen many times in the Royal Scottish Museum, tacked on a wall). Only, in the dream, the jaws all covered with teeth, were suspended in mid-air and inexorably closing on me, also suspended in mid-air, but between the jaws! Then, when they were about to gobble me up, I woke up from the “laughing gas”! Robert Flockart was young and witty. I was in for an extraction to make way for a “wisdom” tooth. The tooth to be taken out was rotten anyway, so I asked him what he thought about, looking on such decayed teeth. “O,” he said, “I just see the keys on a cash register!.” Later, I noticed a little “transistor radio” (then very much in vogue) down on the floor and asked what it was doing there. He snapped his fingers, bent down, and turned it on so it was blaring. He looked wickedly at me, and said, “Drowns the screams…” (It didn’t drown the laughter!).
The two locals, I knew as “The Grump” and “The Bawler.” The former, whose name I later discovered was a “Mr. Christie,” turned out to be nice man, but early on seemed to spend his time scolding us boys for our misdemeanours, which we thought was unjustified (Which it was not!). He lived up the street and seemed grumpy about us playing in the street (which has dangers we boys were oblivious to, even in the low traffic of the 1950’s.) He actually had our best interests at heart. He didn’t want us to fall under a lorry or get mangled by a tram. But we were indestructible, of course! Only later, did we understand that the rhyme we so glibly repeated had a serious message:
“O Grandmama! O Grandmama!
That looks like Strawberry Jam.
‘Hush, hush, my dear…
It is your Pa, run over by a tram!’”
“The Bawler” was a lady in our church (I never knew her name). She had the biggest voice I ever heard, sat in the middle of the middle section, and was always a few tones behind the congregation at the end of every line in the singings – and she was louder that the hundreds of people around her! Her enthusiasm put us tepid people to shame, I guess.
The doctor was Dr. Pole of Edinburgh, Scotland. W.V. Pole was a friend of my Dad’s. He was Rugby crazy. Consequently, we thought, he was only interested in “real” injuries – the kind you see at Rugby matches. He was always on call for Melville College FP fixtures, and would enthusiastically run onto the pitch if a “loose ruck” dispersed and a body was left moaning and motionless in the mud! I was on a trip from the USA and something didn’t agree with me – they always used to call it “the water.” Some infection was suspected. So I was ushered into his office (after a Rugby match) and he looked at my sample under a gloriously ancient microscope. He declared there was nothing wrong with me and sent me on my way thinking I was a burden on the National Health Service (if only I had had a real (Rugby [?]) injury. But he was right! I was OK – and right as rain next day. I would be fine (I was). And it didn’t cost me a penny.
The West Highland Terrier was called “Misty.” She lived with the Muirheads on the floor above us in Viewforth and just loved people. “Misty” was the character in our stair (3 floors and 3 houses per landing) and spread sunshine with every appearance! When this little doggie came down with Bryce M., she had a huge welcome for everybody she met! She reminds me now of a friend who talks to everybody he meets, and who when I noted this, replied in a totally unaffected way, “I’ve never met a stranger!” It is as true as it is rare… in men and doggies! Misty was the only creature in our neighbourhood of whom this could be said, and we were surely all the worse for it, in being so wary and defensive by nature.
As a zoologist, years later, somebody once said we should pay attention to how some animals solve problems – and learn from them. For instance, he said, “Monkeys open bananas at the opposite end from humans. Whereas we break the stem and open them from the bottom (the plant end), a monkey always opens from the flower end, which is actually far easier! Try it sometime… “monkey about” with your bananas!
Cramond
I must include in my “Reminiscences” some thoughts on Cramond, a village on the west edge of Edinburgh. In 1961 or 1962, I was enlisted by Aunt Edith to work during the Edinburgh Festival for the Saltire Society, a cultural society, at their HQ in Gladstone’s Land on the Lawnmarket, just down the street from the Castle. I was to man a model fort constructed by some schoolkids of my own age. It had won the Society’s prize for its reconstruction of the Roman Fort at Cramond, the village which is situated at the mouth of the River Almond where it enters the sea at the Firth of Forth. The city was full of “culture vulture” tourists from all over the world. An American lady, with (dyed) red hair and bright emerald green clothes came in off the High Street. Spying the fort on a table in the entryway, she came over and asked about it. I explained it that it was a local Roman Fort, the one at the end of the Antonine Wall that stretched across the narrow “waist” of Scotland between the Forth and Clyde (modern Edinburgh and Glasgow), designed to be the northern boundary of the Roman Empire in the 3rd Cent. AD and keep out the “barbarian” Picts (my ancestors!).
“The Romins [sic] were here?”, she asked with evident excitement. Then she told her “hubby” would love this, since he was “Scotch” – pausing for a moment to explain she was “Irish” (In case I didn’t get her combination of red hair and emerald green garb!). A moment later, “hubby” appeared – he would about 70 and sported a kilt, which covered his knees and hung motionless like a sack from his waist (on a lack of buttocks!). Two common transgressions of old Americans who dare to wear the kilt – three fingers-breadth of knee cap should be visible, and good buttocks are de rigueur to give a swing to the kilt when a man walks! We conversed on the Romans in Scotland, and meanwhile, over her shoulder, I could see the old ladies of the “Saltire” were hugely amused by the whole encounter.
My connections with Cramond afford several other remembrances. You could take the ferry (a rowing boat) across the Almond (see right) and walk a path to S. Queensferry though the 6-miles wide estate of the Earl of Dalmeny. (The 6th Earl had been British Prime Minister). This passed Barnbougle Castle, the home of the then Earl’s son, Lord Primrose, who (btw) was the Chancellor of Aberdeen University who later “capped” me (literally) at my graduation in 1966. Later you passed his Daddy’s abode – Dalmeny House. I understand there was traditionally a “right of way” through the estate, provided we peasants kept to the path.
Also memorable was my last of my just two “career” wins of a cross-country race. It was at Cramond in 16 Feb., 1970, just 8 secs ahead of David Goff, then the star of Heriot’s School running. (My first win was a test for the Aberdeen University 1st team). We went from the village 2 miles up the Almond, past the Brig (I think) where James V – “the Gude Man o’ Ballangiech” – had a famous encounter with the local blacksmith back in the day. My Dad kept the newspaper cutting copied here.
The most memorable brush with Cramond, however, was to be in 1973 on a trip from the USA for Jane to meet her future in-laws. After a walk around the village with Uncle Bill and Aunt Cathie, the latter took me aside and told me how much she liked Jane (then a mere 20 yrs. old) and went on to congratulate me on my “good taste”! It was a bit self-serving on my part, no doubt, but I did want my relatives to think I was smart in regarding Jane as OK!!!
To the USA—1970
I crossed the Atlantic in Sep. 1970 to attend Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia as a private student. I left a cold, drafty London, woolen overcoat and all, and arrived in New York in a blazing 96°F. I discovered that the USA has a real summer! Eventually, I reached Philadelphia and the Seminary. I was parked on my first night in a big empty room in Machen Hall and there the Scottish zoologist got a tremendous “first” - a huge (6 in.) Scutigeromorph (house) centipede scuttled across the floor! Everything in the USA is bigger and more exotic! This was to be followed by the numerous “firsts” (e.g. Giant Lacewings, Black Racers, and Monarch Butterflies, to name but a few) afforded by New World fauna of all kinds! I was a very tentative Seminarian. On two counts I was hesitant; For one thing, as a 100% science-educated person, I had no experience of so-called “arts” studies. (In the British context, I had no (US) “liberal arts” breadth, but a degree in which I did only Physics and Chemistry (Year 1), Botany (Years 1-2), and Zoology (Years 1-3 – [“ordinary degree”] and Year 4 – [“Honours degree” by invitation only]). I graduated “B.Sc. (Hons) Zoology” in 1966.) (Nor aptitude for languages – in this case Greek and Hebrew!) Westminster’s requirement of prior study in Greek was waived for “exotics” like me from the UK; the other was one with an uncertainty about the great unknown of the call and commitment to the gospel ministry. I had funds for one year and would review the situation then. What I found about myself, was encouragement to persevere – not merely internally, but from many other people – and in April 17, came under care of the New York Presbytery of the RPCNA. This came about in very distinctive way. I was a member of Free St Columba church in Edinburgh and a ballot paper was sent out for an election of elders. It reached me on the day of the election, having been sent (in those days) “surface’ (i.e., by ship, taking five weeks!). So my vote was going to be a bit late! I noticed that these thrifty Scots had sent it by surface mail, rather than airmail. This was an inadvertent error no doubt, but I concluded that being a real active member of a church over 3,000 miles away was not very practical, so since I was in the RPC in Philly, expected by that time to prepare seriously for the ministry, and needed to be under care of a church, I opted to join the RPC and apply to Presbytery of the bounds. The RPs were lumbered with the problem (me), if they were of a mind. They were… and with interregnum in Scotland in 1981-86 – back in the Free Church of Scotland, but an RPCS resident supply at Wishaw - I have been an American RP to this day.
The second count of hesitancy was RP-related and concerned the denomination’s commitment to the total abstinence from alcohol/prohibition requirement for membership and ordination, echoing the USA’s struggles with the alcohol/prohibition position. The RP was racked with a debate on this issue and I had landed squarely in the camp of the reforming side in the church on this controversy. I was opposed to drunkenness, of course, and for all practical purposes was TT, but did not hold the Bible to teach TA as a requirement or to prevent me from the occasional enjoyment of a sober use of alcoholic beverages. But more on this in a moment.
Meanwhile, my first public preaching was at a service in the Burtonsville (MD), OPC. They held a Morning Service at a local school (and my fellow student and friend, then the RP, Bob Vincent, was the preacher). I had the evening in their first property at 4515 Sandy Spring Rd., Burtonsville – the “Church House” as depicted below, on the text John 6:47. (The congregation grew, knocked it down and built a church property of the usual kind. They later moved to a new building, and sold the old one. Today it is home to the Trinity congregation of my own denomination, the RPCNA.). In that frame house (above) my public ministry of over 40 yrs. began on April 25, 1971. (See The Orthodox Presbyterian Church 1936-86 (ed. Charles G. Dennison), Philadelphia: 1986, p. 87, for information on the Burtonsville, MD, OPC.) Over the years that followed, I had the privilege of preaching many times, all with the encouragement to continue my studies (and exams), which I did.
This was not without some hiccups, especially on the afore-mentioned alcohol issue. When I was first interviewed by the Presbytery, one elder asked me, in his clipped New England accent, and with a less than positive tone, “Where r’you going to get your Covenanter doctrine? You’re not going to get it at Westminster Seminary are you?” He obviously saw Westminster as a problem – principally because of the general Reformed stance on alcohol – and answered his own question. I thought I might as well offer my 2 cents worth, and so I replied to the effect that, if by “Covenanter doctrine” he meant the Reformed doctrine of the Calvinistic Reformation and Confessions, I came to Westminster because I already had it - not because I was searching for it! I hastened to add that I chose Westminster because this was the best place for deeper study of “Reformed doctrine,” and that presuppositional apologetics (Cornelius Van Til) and sound theology (John Murray and others) drew me to cross the Atlantic. I guess my firm Scottish school-teacher answer hit the spot, for I was subsequently accepted (and, in due course, I did the then required year at the R.P. Theol. Seminary in 1972-73).
Underlying that “question” was the fact that the RPCNA was then in the throes of a controversy over total abstinence from alcohol, which had begun in 1937 and was to continue into the 1990s. I did not believe TA was taught in the Bible, declared my intention of working in the courts of the church (Presbytery and Synod) for the side that then wanted change, while undertaking to be personally abstinent and not taking the divisive course of publically teaching that the church was wrong. I was prepared to be rejected, said so, but never was. The prohibitionist requirement for membership and office-bearers spanned some 60 years and completely dominated the work of the Church courts during that lamentable time.
I actually finished the MDiv work at RPTS, but I spent a fourth year of theological study back at Westminster in 1973-74. I was then unexpectedly called to the pastorate of the North Hills (Pittsburgh) congregation in January 1974 and was there from my ordination and installation in June 1974 until returning to Scotland in 1981.
Meantime, I met and married Jane McMillan…
Meeting Jane—1971
I must confess that I was on the look-out for a potential wife to share my life and ministry. If anyone grasped that “it is not good for [a] man to be alone,” it was myself! Specifically, I could not conceive of entering the ministry on my own, without the help and support of “a helper” fit for me (Gen. 2:18). So, when Rev. John M. McMillan of Coldenham, NY, congregation asked me to preach for him when he was at 1971 Synod, and his daughter was home from Geneva College, I said, “Yes,” and looked him up in the book of recent RP ministers – Covenanter Ministers 1930-63. He had two sons and a daughter! And when I got to the Coldenham parsonage back door, guess who was there to greet me? I was taken to her right away and I must say watched her carefully over the weekend – a weekend that I hugely enjoyed for the ministry and the fellowship, both.
But Monday came and I had to head back to Philadelphia – and was to be driven to the bus station in Newburgh NY, the closest main town. Everybody had to leave for work, so it fell to Jane to get me to the bus. The station wagon she was to drive was apparently a notoriously poor starter, and when she attempted to get it going, it refused several times. I can remember actually praying it wouldn’t start so I would miss my bus to New York and get to wangle a “date” while waiting for the next one! My prayer prevailed! So we ended up in a tour of Newburgh and had lunch at Howard Johnson’s (then one of America’s great chain restaurants but now defunct – they had a “Tasty Tester” dessert with 5 scoops of different flavoured ice-cream! [ - which left Wall’s Ice-cream in the UK in the dust!]). Jane later said she knew I was interested when I asked her how she became a Christian. I was 26 in 1971 – an “old” school-teacher in a tweed jacket with leather elbows – and she was just 18, but I later persuaded myself she had to be a bit older, so my conscience was less bothered about “robbing the cradle!” She was not only cute, but had a level “old head on her young shoulders,” which I thought was as valuable and, not least, attractive as it was rare in, dare I say[?], “a teenager.” Let letter-writing begin, I said to myself!
I spent the summer of 1971 at White Lake, NY, in the Catskills, looking after the RP Church and being involved at the Covenanter Camp up the hill from the church. It is the whole top of the hill, and houses the White Lake (RP) Camps every year. Here, Jane and I got to know one another and eventually we were engaged, married, and have been married for 45 years.
Here, we had our first real date – her trusting parents let their 18yr. old drive up to meet me at first. Later, she attended the Camp. While I was there, I lived in a trailer behind the church, preached a morning service and led a mid-week Bible study. One night I heard shuffling at the garbage can, I looked out. and there was a Skunk nosing about the garbage. I was a young zoologist who hadn’t even seen one in a zoo – and here was one in the wild! Forgetting it could spray me (It didn’t, thankfully), I poked it with a stick to see it better, it looked at me and shambled off. Andy Price, up at the Camp, told me that if it had sprayed me, I would have to have a bath in tomato ketchup to get rid of the smell and my clothes would need to be burned! I suppose I should have known better, but here it is. That summer I helped in putting shingles on the roof of the then new Rec. Hall and discovered that American Horse Flies are several times bigger than the UK variety, and pack a much bigger punch when they bite you and lap up your blood!
One feature of Camp are frequent corporate Psalm-sings. I took a couple of photos of one and they are here as a picture of the Camp community of those days. Even the youngest present are, where still alive, are at least in their late sixties. Our times are in the Lord’s hands! (Psalm 31:15).
Jane McMillan is, or course, the future Mrs. Gordon Keddie! People are still meeting future spouses, to use the title of an old song, at “Whoopee Whoopee White Lake!”
We’ll wrap up this exercise in Reminiscences with two pictures from the period… and one that followed: first, Jane’s beautiful engagement picture; second, me at the top of the Empire State building; and, finally, the great day in May 1974.
Writing (1)—Articles (See Appendix Three.)
My interest in writing undoubtedly came from my Father. From his teens he wrote pieces on sports and sent them to the then prominent writer (novels, history and sports), and editor of Every Sport magazine in England, Captain F.A.M. Webster (see right, and below).
Decades later Dad was a co-founder of S.A.T.S. (The Scottish Association of Track Statistians). But WWII intervened – he joined the Army before it broke out in 1939 - and only after his return after 1945, did he take up again his writing on sports. Although it was never his day-job, it is as a free-lance sports reporter that he is remembered in the report in The Edinburgh Evening News that recorded his sudden death in 1972.
My writing began very modestly at Hawkhill, Edinburgh. At least, my published writing did! It was the morning of January 4, 1964. In the afternoon, Scotland defeated France 10-0 in the Rugby International at Murrayfield,. All other afternoon matches were switched to the morning, so that even the modest fixture between Leith Academicals and Dunfermline needed reporting, even if by a first-time cub reporter. I had 250 words! I had just turned 19. Two Accies men broke their legs - one with no one near him and one in a loose maul – the Referee abandoned the game, and the ambulance drove onto the pitch to pick up the second victim of a frozen surface that should have ended the fixture before it began! Three decades later I was reminded of son Donald’s Grove City College T-shirt which sported a Red Cross and the legend “Give Blood – Play Rugby!” In 1967, I got to test the reality of this in the last rugby match in which I took part. At Peffermill – over the wall from where Nairn’s Oatcakes are still made – I was right centre for Moray House College versus (if I remember) the Engineers in an intramural Edinburgh University game on a cold rainy grey Wednesday in 1967. First I broke my left collar bone just beating a former Edinburgh Schools 100 yds champion to the touchdown behind our line. I was nursing my wound in the club-house when one of our forwards came off the field with a gash in his bloody forehead that required 16 stitches. Then everybody came off, the Ref. having abandoned the match when another of our men had a pinkie coming at right angles from his hand! The Athletic Director, R.A.B. Forman, drove the three of us to the Emergency Dept. at the Royal Infirmary. On duty was Dr. Bob Hay, famous as a former Scottish champion quarter-miler and former-pupil of my old school, Heriot’s. He just looked at the three of us and said, tongue-in-cheek, “Is Saturday not enough for you lot?” He had a point.
For years, I was my Dad’s phone-boy at many a rugby match and athletics meeting. He wrote a page or two and I ran to the phone in the club-house to dictate it to the “pink” News – the sports editions on Saturdays. The following photo shows me “on the job” in 1962 at Meadowbank’s SAAA meet.
Most memorable of all, is not something I did in relation to the athletics of the 1950’s and 60’s, but the involvement of, and production by, my brother John W. Keddie, in 1982, of the Centenary History of the Scottish Amateur Athletic Association – Scottish Athletics – now a rare, unique and essential classic on the history of Scottish track and field athletics. John also was a founder member of SATS (in our living room) and has authored many articles on Sports and sporting figures. and perhaps most important of all, produced the definitive biography of Eric Liddell, Running the Race (Evangelical Press: 2007), and contributed to the script of the 1982 movie Chariots of Fire about the man who won the gold medal in the 1924 Olympic 400m, subsequently served as a missionary in China and died in a Japanese internment camp in Tientsin, in 1945. John’s most recent biography of Kenneth G. McLeod, Then Came a Cloud (2016), tells the story of an otherwise “forgotten,” but great, Scottish all-round athlete.
Shortly after, I went to study Zoology at the University of Aberdeen, where, as a serious Christian, I became interested in the relationship between the Bible and Science and published a couple of pieces in The Banner of Truth magazine. From there I branched out into general theological themes over the years I went to Seminary and subsequently served a first pastorate in Pittsburgh, PA (1974-81).
Writing (2)—Layman’s Commentaries (See Appendix Four.)
In 1980, while in Pittsburgh, I completed an exposition of the Bible books Judges and Ruth. I decided to submit the MS for publication. It drew two rejections, which, however, were not discouraging, but I put it all on “the back burner.” Two years later, we were resettled in Scotland, ministering in the Wishaw RPC. I was in a Christian bookshop in Edinburgh and spotted a couple of layman’ commentaries in the then new “Welwyn Series.” I recall saying to myself, “This is where my Judges and Ruth belongs,” and decided to dust off the MS, change it into British English and submit it to Evangelical Press in England. Not long after, a brown paper parcel arrived from EP and, thinking it a rejection, I took it upstairs, unopened, to my study. My boys, all little at the time, were playing at the foot of the large stair, and remember me bounding down the stair crying, “They are going to do it!” I was emboldened immediately to send EP my Amos MS and see whether it would fly in the Welwyn series – and it did! So much so that when I was in Manchester for a meeting of the Biblical Creation Society Committee – I was their Education Officer at that time – I received the invitation to meet with Bill Clark and a deputation of the EP Board. They wanted me to keep on doing what I was doing and send it to them for the series. I sure said, “Yes,” and started one of the most productive periods of writing I have ever enjoyed. Basically I was writing up my pulpit work. There is a large difference between sermon notes and a commentary form, so this took a complete rewrite. I got into the habit of spending Mondays – my “day off” – on the writing. Although I often spilled over into other evenings, this general pattern succeeded preaching series after preaching series. In 1986, we accepted the call of the State College (PA) RP congregation, then a new work among students in the town of State College, so-called because the main campus of the Pennsylvania State University is located there. Over the years a number of “Welwyns” were published, culminating in the work on Numbers. Which was indeed completed on the Monday after the last sermon was delivered!
The one exception to the the flow of these, was the volume on Acts (You are My Witnesses). There was a whole year in working on that in which I was as dry as a bone and managed exactly three pages total!! In a year!! This taught me that there has to be a constant input for there to be any worthwhile output, and I could only expect anything coherent if I was actually growing spiritually myself. I was reminded of an incident when I was a seminarian. I asked a senior minister for his advice with respect to the ministry, and he told me, “You should move every five years if you can.” I asked, “Why?” He answered, “Because in five years, you have said all you have to say.” This view of preaching astounded me, although I doubt if I had more than twenty sermons under my belt by that time. Surely a man would grow and have more to say as he grew in experience and knowledge of the Bible’s doctrine and application? It took more than five years to get to attempting a commentary on the Book of Acts, but I learned from that experience that one has to grow spiritually to have anything whatsoever to say!
I then was asked to work on a Study Commentary on John. This took a while and issued in a 2-volume work, which, in the end, I felt was less a “study” as such, than a pastoral and practical commentary. I then relinquished my previous undertaking to do a “Study” commentary on Romans, (In favour of its being done by a certain author (Twenty years later it remains to be finished, but I rewrote my “Welwyn” Romans in that time!).) and reverted to my original (half-done) “Welwyn” Commentary on Romans (which I eventually completed many years later). Later, I added the volume on Numbers and a shorter exposition on the Lord’s Supper (The Lord’s Supper is a Celebration of Grace.), also with EP. When David Clark took my “Welwyns” into the Grace Presbyterian pulpit in the State College, PA, USA, and thanked the congregation for their part in supporting my writing, it was a great encouragement, but I could only hope and pray for the helpfulness of these efforts for those who may use them.
Recently, titles published in the past, but now out of print, were republished by Wipf and Stock, of Eugene, OR. These are “Looking for the Good Life” (Presbyterian & Reformed, 1991 – an exposition of Ecclesiastes), and “He Spoke in Parables” (Evangelical Press, 1994).
Many years ago, the late Bruce Stewart (then President of the RP Theol. Seminary in Pittsburgh), commenting on my early rather prolific writing at the time, expressed the thought I was maybe more interested in writing than preaching. That, after a short review, made me realize that my top interest was truly the preaching of the Word of God, and that writing was no more than an aid to the great goal of Biblical preaching – the salvation souls and nurture of Christian lives in practical discipleship. It is the “foolishness of preaching” by which God is pleased to “save them that believe” and disseminate His wisdom in an unwise world (I Cor. 1:21). That also must be the abiding concern and commitment of all who would seek to serve the work of the Lord in the world! Against this, writing – useful as it is in itself – can only be regarded as a lesser tool and a minor privilege for God’s servants.
Writing (3)—Editing Historical Works(See Appendix Four.)
In 2004, I moved to Indianapolis for what I was sure was my final pastoral charge. I hoped for a decade’s usefulness and I was ten years to the day as Senior Pastor of Southside RPC of Indianapolis. During this time my writing focus turned to new editions of long neglected historical works, with the occasional diversion into other genres as time allowed. This has principally involved the RP denomination’s publishing house, Crown & Covenant. I published a primer on the doctrine of God’s Covenant – expanding a work that began as two adresses to a student’s association in Scotland some years before. But my principal focus has been on new editions of RP historical material. Alexander McLeod (1784-1833) and James R. Willson (1774-1853) stand out as the earliest progenitors of a Scottish Covenanter cause in North America that still exists from Colonial days. There was no collection of the shorter writings of either men, and that was where I started. It wasn’t all plain sailing. I had Willson’s 1809 tract, The Shaking of the Nations, from the Presbyterian Historical Society in Philadelphia, but the central sheet was missing and the tract incomplete. For years I searched labraries for a complete copy and failed to find a single one in all America. Then a friend, an afficionado of RP history found a copy in the Library of his alma mater in Indiana. Alas, I found it too was missing a page – but, lo and behold, it was a different page! Conflating the two incomplete copies, we had a reconstruction of the complete text – the only complete version of the tract I know exists anywhere!
Yet, by a curious providence, I backed into what I think is the best thing I have ever done – the book, The Prayers of the Bible. As one reviewer pointed out, this is a “compendium” of forty years of ministry. It really is just that. It is 366 2-page per entries on the prayers of the Bible – or at least 366 of the over 600 prayers and their mentions which lace the pages of Scripture. I started doing one mediation weekly in the Prayer Meetings, first in State College, PA, and then in Indianapolis, IN, over a period of most of some 15-20 years, When I had usable notes for about 150 prayers it occurred to me – they came at a rate of c.40 per annum – that if I lived another five years, I might have a full year of contributions, and therefore a whole book uniquely devoted to expounding the Bible’s prayers. And so the book was hatched in my mind – and did indeed come to completion! Everything else I have done was planned from the beginning. This alone took 15 years to become an idea! Such are sometimes the mysterious providences of God!