Superman has nothing on Colin Baillie

THIS column is well used to discussing the past of local relics or ancient edifices, including those crumbling curiosities on which time has clearly taken its toll. Colin Baillie is thus a suitable subject for scrutiny.

It’s topical as I gather he’s been nominated as a candidate to carry the Olympic Torch when the sacred flame – or its high-tech successor – arrives in Inverness on 8th June next year. Prior to that it will be treated in the BMW climatic testing facility in Munich to make sure that it can withstand all weather conditions!

I gather nominations were due to close on 29th June but have now been extended to September as the organisers weren’t flattened in the rush.

The late Tom Mackenzie, such a stalwart in shinty and Inverness Highland Games, would have been an obvious candidate in different days, as would Walter Banks, who died last year after a lifetime of service to athletics.

I’m of a vintage that when I wake I stretch my arms up, and do the same with my feet. If I don’t touch wood, I smile and get up. So I’ve known Colin Baillie since we both had plenty of hair. We agree there are three signs of old age. The first is loss of memory – I forget the other two.

Colin has touched countless lives locally since he came north as a PE teacher 48 years ago. He’s actually from Dundee and lost an eye at the age of 10 in an accident with a knife. When he left Harris Academy it seemed this disability would prevent him achieving his dream of being accepted at Jordanhill College, the PE teacher training centre. Colin sat, and failed, various eyesight tests but his persistence paid off when he became the first person admitted to Jordanhill with one eye.

A fellow student was Craig Brown, later Scotland football manager, as Baillie justified the college’s faith by graduating with distinction. It was Craig’s father, Hugh Brown, Jordanhill’s principal, who said: "I’ve got a job for you in Inverness."

Colin was accepted the job as peripatetic PE teacher for Millburn Academy and Inverness Royal Academy. After five years he was given the choice of a full-time post at one of them. Choosing Millburn, little did he know he was to spend 39-and-a-half years there. In his heyday, any unsuspecting pupil passing him risked being hijacked for his school rugby teams.

The bold Baillie played for Highland Rugby Club for seven years as full back or scrum half, sustaining the many dunts which to this day given him a slightly puzzled expression. Then you talk to him and it’s you who ends up baffled.

Colin started coaching Highland’s under-18s, then took over the senior team when Nairn MacEwen left to become Scotland coach.

Baillie later spent four years as coach of North Midlands and in his career he worked with local players who distinguished themselves – George Mackie with a full cap and B caps for Donald Flockhart, Gregor Mackenzie (Tain), the late David Aitchison and Andy Dunlop (Nairn).

For decades he has coached the game at schools level and, though he will be 71 later this month, he is still a part time SRU development officer helping at schools such as Nairn, Fortrose and Glen Urquhart, where there is no regular rugby coaching. A past chairman of the club, he’s now its president. In 2003 he gained the SRU Lifetime Achievement Award which, he told me at the time, "they present to people who they want to retire".

He refereed Millburn’s match against Gordonstoun when the visiting captain was Peter Phillips, son of the Princess Royal and brother of Zara. As it came to the toss of the coin, Baillie, a sad loss to the diplomatic corps, asked Phillips: "Tails or Granny?"

He reckoned that quip delayed his MBE 10 years, but it ultimately arrived in 2000 for services to education and schools rugby, though it could have been given simply for being such an outstanding life force.

Turning to athletics, our hero coached Inverness Harriers in the 70s as well as Millburn teams. He took real pride when Millburn had a record five athletes in the Scotland schools team.

He began judging at Highland Games in 1963 and was diverted to become games announcer at Drumnadrochit (30 years), Newtonmore (25 years) and Inverness for the past 15 years, plus the Loch Ness Marathon for the past nine.

His commentating style reminded me of the guy who got his own show on hospital radio. After 10 minutes of his patter, a woman from Dalneigh, who had been in a coma for seven years, got up, walked five paces and switched the radio off.

Not so many know that he’s actually also a football fan, a devout supporter of Dundee FC, and he and I played together in the Inverness Welfare League for AI Welders. Despite his slight frame, Colin was an uncompromising defender who used his disability as an excuse, apologising when he floored attackers, saying he didn’t see them!

Colin and the late Harry Windsor set up the Inverness Amateur League and, in more recent years, he and Jock Watt pioneered the Highland Football Academy in Dingwall.

Among his other exploits was setting up the first sports injury clinic in Inverness, with Dr Colin Fettes at Red Cross House, and being president of the Inverness Boys Brigade and now honorary vice president of the BB Highland Battalion. An elder of Crown Church, he recently stepped down as team leader of the Highlands’ Alpha courses.

There have been long spells when his wife Lily and daughters Julie and Lisa didn’t see too much of him, for which they remain extremely grateful.

Colin has so much on his mind that I recall a few years back he and Lily sat down as wedding guests in the Newton Hotel, Nairn, and it was only when the happy couple arrived that Colin realised they were at the wrong wedding. The girl at the reception desk, stifling her laughter, informed them they were at the right venue, only a week early.

In debate, Colin’s enthusiasm is only matched by his lack of grasp of the facts, while in terms of modern educational and sports rules and organisation, he’s as politically correct as Attila The Hun. Last year as guest speaker at Inverness Sports Council’s dinner, he mislaid his speech, and delivered an off the cuff oration, full of laughter and outrageous criticism of various bodies.

Voted Inverness Citizen of the Year in 1999, he was even recently a judge in a "Come Dancing" contest to raise funds for Highland Hospice. He’d turn up at the opening of an envelope.

Colin’s packed more into his lifetime than my wife packs in to a holiday suitcase, which is a truly formidable achievement. He’s still as active and outspoken as ever, always fun to meet, a person of quality, integrity and wit, which is not a bad mix.

If Peter Phillips’ granny is minded to risk the Olympic Torch with Colin, it could be a recipe for mishap. He, no doubt, would end up with singed eyebrows and burnt fingers.

But no matter how bright the Olympic torch, the personality of Colin Baillie would gleam brighter.

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