Willie McRae

Willie McRae (18 May 1923 – 7 April 1985) was a Scottish lawyer, orator, naval officer, politician and anti-nuclear campaigner.

In the Second World War he served in the British Army and then the Royal Indian Navy.

He supported the Indian independence movement and for much of his life was active in the Scottish National Party (SNP).

McRae died when his car crashed in a remote part of the Scottish Highlands.

He was found shot in the head with a revolver.

The official verdict was suicide.

McRae was born in Carron, Falkirk, where his father was an electrician.

McRae edited a local newspaper in Grangemouth at the same time as reading history at the University of Glasgow, from which he gained a first-class degree.

In the Second World War he was commissioned into the Seaforth Highlanders but transferred to the Royal Indian Navy, in which he became a lieutenant commander and aide-de-camp to Admiral Lord Mountbatten.

He supported the Indian independence movement.

After the war McRae returned to the University of Glasgow and graduated again, this time in law.

He authored the maritime law of Israel and was an emeritus professor of the University of Haifa.

After his death a forest of 3,000 trees was planted in Israel in his memory.

McRae became a solicitor and an SNP activist.

In both of the 1974 General Elections and in the 1979 General Election he stood for Parliament as the SNP candidate for Ross and Cromarty.

In October 1974 he only lost to the Conservative Hamish Gray by 633 votes, but in 1979 Gray's majority increased to 4,735.

In the latter year he also contested the SNP leadership, coming third in a three-way contest with 52 votes to Stephen Maxwell's 117 votes and winner Gordon Wilson's 530 votes.

McRae was a vocal critic of the British nuclear lobby.

Early in the 1980s he was a key figure in a campaign against the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority plans to dispose of nuclear waste in the Mullwharchar area of the Galloway Hills.

Representing the SNP in a public inquiry, McRae asked difficult questions of the UKAEA and famously declared at one meeting that "nuclear waste should be stored where Guy Fawkes put his gunpowder."

The authority's plans were rejected, and McRae was credited with "single-handedly" preventing the area from becoming a nuclear waste dump.

On 5 April 1985 McRae left his Glasgow flat at 18:30 to spend the weekend at his cottage at Ardelve near Dornie, Ross-shire.

He was not seen again until the next morning around 10:00, when two Australian tourists, Alan Crowe, an Australian airline pilot, and his wife Barbara, saw his maroon Volvo saloon car on a moor a short distance from the junction of the A887 and A87 roads Bun Loyne, Glenmoriston, Inverness-shire.

The car was straddling a burn about 90 ft from the road.

The tourists flagged down the next car to pass, whose driver turned out to be a doctor, Dorothy Messer, accompanied by her fiancé as well as David Coutts, an SNP Dundee councillor who knew McRae.

It was discovered that McRae was in the car.

His hands were "folded on his lap", his head was "slumped on his right shoulder", and there was a "considerable amount of blood on his temple".

He was not wearing a seat belt.

Another car was sent to call the emergency services.

Dr Messer examined McRae and found that he was still alive and breathing.

She noted that one of his pupils was dilated, indicating the possibility of brain damage, and estimated that he had been in that state for 10 hours.

McRae was removed by ambulance to Raigmore Hospital, Inverness, accompanied by Dr Messer.

After admission it was decided to transfer him to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary.

At Aberdeen it was realised that the incident was more than a road accident; six hours after he had been found, a nurse washing his head discovered what appeared to be the entry wound of a gunshot.

An X-ray confirmed that McRae had been shot above his right ear and a bullet was detected in his head.

His brain was severely damaged and his vital functions very weak.

The next day, Sunday 7 April, after consultation with his next of kin, McRae's life-support machine was switched off.

The investigation was headed by Chief Superintendent Andrew Lister of Northern Constabulary CID.

Despite no weapon having yet been found, McRae's car was moved at 12:00 on 7 April.

It later transpired that the police had kept no record of the precise location where the car had been found, and the position stated by them was later found to be 1 mi in error, and was corrected by a witness who had been present at the scene.