When I read the article by the Rt Rev Susan Brown headed ‘Science and Faith’ in the September issue, she said in her opening narrative: “I have come to realise that there are many fantastic ministers and congregations around.’

Although I don’t attend the Kirk, I respect it and all who attend and living in a Perthshire village in my years since a wee lad (now a pensioner) I have known many parish ministers.

But one I remember, perhaps as stated by the Rev Susan Brown, was the Rev Dr Donald Smith. I so recall when first he came to Bankfoot.

One evening he came to visit with the elder and said to my dad: “Were you an army man, Jack?’ and when my father said he was, Donald said: “Yes, I thought so, you have never lost your marching step” as my father was a village postman.

My father told Donald of his wartime service when in the Holy Land with the Black Watch and then Donald told dad and I of his capture at the hands of the Japanese and of times when he saw and heard the very worst of man’s humanity and as I listened to Donald in his soft voice I thought to myself: “How had he found God through the Gates of Hell?’ But he did.

When my father lay dying in pain with cancer Donald was such a comfort and as dad’s life ebbed away, it must have rekindled thoughts of what he had experienced in his own life in days of captivity.

Donald Smith was a lovely man, so too his wife. I so remember he was asked: “You must hate those who were so cruel.” Donald just said: “No, I could never hate anyone.” In the words of Susan Brown ‘a fantastic minister’.

Thomas Brown, Bankfoot, Perthshire