“DON'T THINK OF IT AS DYING,” said Death. “JUST THINK OF IT AS LEAVING EARLY TO AVOID THE RUSH.”
Terry Pratchett, Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

David died on 14 February 2016, suddenly and unexpectedly.

He and his wife, Mavis, were spending a weekend by the beach in North Berwick, housesitting for his daughter Ailsa and husband Duncan while they had a weekend away with the children. They loved it by the sea.

He has gone leaving a David/Dad/Grandad sized hole in all of our lives that will always be there.

His wife Mavis, his daughters Fiona, Ailsa and Catriona, his sons in law Matt, Duncan, Sean and his grandchildren Poppy and Thomas – all miss him more than could ever be expressed in words.

Prior to retirement, David was a Senior Nursing Officer at Woodilee Hospital in Lenzie. He'd previously worked at Rosslynlee Hospital, Dykebar, the John Connolly Hospital in Birmingham, the St Clements Drug Unit at the London Hospital, and the Ipswich & East Anglia.

The funeral will be held on Thursday 25 February - details can be found towards the bottom of the page.

Instead of flowers, we are raising funds for Medecins Sans Frontieres, a charity very close to David’s heart, as an ex-nurse and as someone who had left home in search of a better life. The button is on the right - or track donations at the bottom of the page.

You can also add messages, memories, videos, photos and anything else you fancy to the site - have a look at the buttons above.

A life that counted

David was unique. A 'legend'. A 'true independent thinker'. Someone you never forgot.

A man who had a story for every occasion and who'd lived a fascinating life to be proud of.

The coffee maker he'd got from an Italian urban guerilla. The OED a junkie at the drug unit he worked at had nicked hot off the press. The time he ended up having a drink with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor in a small pub in Wales.

And a wealth of other stories he would tell about working in London, in the drug unit, about life in New Cumnock, about working in psychiatric hospitals all over the country, of the weird cases that used to come in from the US bases at the hospital in Suffolk he worked in when he was general and surgical nursing.

We were and are and always will be hugely proud of him.

David was born in New Cumnock on in September 1940. He spent much of his early life in Connel Park before moving to New Cumnock proper, where he lived with his uncles Bill and Sandy Graham.

He left the destiny life had picked out for him - going down the pit - and chose his own path, heading south for Wolverhampton when he was 17(after a brief foray at 15 to Germany with the British Army in a case of mistaken identity).

He attended theological college, he worked in a steel plant (Stewarts and Lloyds in Bilston), he dug graves, he became a nurse. He helped set up a world-leading drug addiction unit in the east end at the London Hospital (which his daughters only found out about as kids after finding pictures of him in a journal that had been donated for a jumble sale).

He was a trade union official and a socialist in his time, he loved Beethoven - the music and the man's politics, and had a lifelong passion for photography and technology. From the day he set up his first BBC B microcomputer he was hooked.

David loved baseball – he learned the sport as a boy in New Cumnock – and the internet meant that he could finally watch games and follow the progress of the Boston Red Sox and Yankees, his teams of choice.

He found later in life he finally had the time to devote to football – becoming a Rangers season ticket holder and shareholder, and finding companionship on the stands and at the Kirkintilloch Rangers Supporters Club.

David was also a man of faith – thanks in part to his relationship with Father David Wood, who he met in Wolverhampton, and his membership of the Brotherhood of Prayer and Action.

This is something many who met him would have been completely unaware of, especially since his daughters were not baptised as he was clear it was ultimately their decision.

David believed the way to God was through other people and and our relationships with them.

The chances he wasn't given in life he made up for himself - he studied with the Open University and loved art, archaeology, the sciences, geology, music, history and literature.

When he died he was learning Latin, and had just purchased a bespoke PC tweaked to his particularly stringent requirements.

He also acquired a string of professional and management qualifications during his working life.

Both David and Mavis believed and believe that all are born equal.

They were Labour party activists back when the party still cared about the common man. They marched with CND and housed striking miners in 1982 in need. David was a shop steward for Cohse and then Unison for many years.

They made sure their daughters were given the chances in life that they hadn’t – taking them to art galleries, museums, castles, stately homes and out into the countryside whenever they could.

Weekends and holidays were spent camping around the country, especially the Mull of Kintyre. And every summer possible the family would pack up the car and Mavis would drive hell for leather from Glasgow down to the south coast to spend summer holidays travelling and camping in France.

When his granddaughter Poppy and then grandson Thomas came along this changed his life again for the better – they were very much the light of his life, and they adored him almost as much as he adored them.

David should have had more time. We all thought he did. He was an active, fit and fairly healthy man who would walk miles each day to keep in shape, and was a familiar sight to many in his cheesecutter hat on his walks.

He was amazing. And we loved him.

You think there will be some warning. You think there will be time. And then there isn't. There's just a deep empty silence and a feeling that somehow there's been this huge mistake. But you don't know how to fix it.