My father, Ian Robertson, who has died aged 85, was a passionate educator, family man and raconteur. Eleven years after qualifying as a teacher he became principal lecturer in chemistry at Jordanhill College of Education in Glasgow and soon after that a Scottish schools inspector, becoming the national specialist for chemistry. Widely published, he worked tirelessly to improve primary and secondary education in Scotland.
Bombing, dogfights and V1 bombs marked his early years in Sheerness on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent. The son of Donald, a glass factory manager and veteran of both world wars, and Vera (nee Neame), a nurse and housewife, Ian moved with his family to Fife in 1945, where he pestered the local fishermen to teach him what they knew. In his wee boat, the MYOB (Mind Your Own Business), he caught mackerel; while at school at George Watson’s college in Edinburgh, he started fly-fishing. From the Tweed, he went on to summers as a gillie on the Oykel, earning enough to run his first car.
