John Macpherson
John Macpherson was born in Inverness in
1952. He and his twin brother, Hamish, were
the first children of John Macpherson and
Betty Cowan. His father, John, was from an old
established Kingussie family going right back to
the first settlers in the planned village; he was
a coal merchant and also ran a small holding
and dairy retail business in Kingussie. His
mother, Betty, had moved to the area with her
family, from Ayrshire. John and Betty had a
third son, Alasdair, a few years after the birth of the twins. John senior died when the twins
were seven years old, leaving Betty as a widow with three small children, one with learning
difficulties.
John attended Kingussie School. A lot of his time outwith school was spent helping on his
mother’s family farm, Gordonhall. He also enjoyed many outdoor pursuits e.g. skiing, sailing
and canoeing. After leaving School, he lived in Edinburgh for a year, working and attending
night school, which enabled him to take up a place at St.Johns College in York to study P.E.
After graduating from there, he taught briefly at a boys’ public school in York before
returning to Kingussie, where he took on the tenancy of Aultlarie Croft and also took up a
post, working offshore with Shell.
John married Gail Robertson in 1982 and they spent the first part of their married life living
in Nigeria. Their eldest daughter, Eilidh, was born in inverness in 1983, and when she was 18
months old, they moved to Qatar in the Middle East for a year. They returned to Kingussie
again and second daughter, Lindsay, was born in 1986. The next move was to Sarawak in
Borneo where they spent five years, and the girls did most of their primary schooling before
returning to Kingussie in 1994. Because of the girls’ education, the family were thereafter
based in Kingussie though John continued to work abroad on occasions in places such as
China, South Korea, Australia and
New Zealand.
A Golden Wedding Photo from
1919, celebrating John’s Great
Grandfather’s
50th
wedding
anniversary. Two Stewart sisters
from Strone, Newtonmore, married
two James Macpherson’s (not
related)
spawning
many
Macpherson ‘cousins’.