Lunch with a President (continued)

Artworks and atmosphere within Café Circa

While the conversation flowed we'd been clearing our plates. Alastair thought the grilled monkfish was excellent. His comment - "Cooking fish well is a real skill. This was perfect and the presentation was really superb."

My venison steak was very good with a delicious sauce - but the only word for the skirlie was "fantastic"! I'm certain it's the best I've ever tasted in Perthshire. My scribe said the pasta was just right with the sauce and the Italian sausage getting top marks for flavour.

We all agreed that the wine was full and round on the palate. Normally Montepulciano is lighter and softer in style - but this was excellent.

For pudding Alastair chose crême brulé served with fresh fruit. I chose the sticky toffee pudding. (Athole could write a book on this subject! - The Scribe.)
My scribe chose a crêpe with fresh berries.

I knew Alastair had served for 30 years in the TA. Would he, I wonder, want to do it all over again, given present-day world problems?

Yes, I'd rejoin the TA. I was with the Royal Artillery and it was the most sustained and challengingly satisfying experience I have had. Thirty years of extreme satisfaction, lots of laughter, some sorrow, a great deal of personal challenge.

I got a sense of service and had the great pleasure of working with superb people. I'd encourage anyone to join but, business life today comes with commitments that aren't too compatible with the new r™les of the TA - but it's exciting. For me it was a 30-year adrenalin burst! It teaches self-sufficiency. It teaches self-respect -and other values all basic to the rule of law.

As Chairman of the Perth College Development Trust can you outline for me what the Trust is currently undertaking?

The purpose of the Trust is the development of facilities at Perth College. The Development Trust is separate from the College to ease any facility's funders ability to give money to it. This money is used to fund capital projects. The new Campus Link- a students union- is our current undertaking. It is costing in the region of £2.04 million. Over the past 10 years the Trust has helped the College with around £11 to 12 million. What people don't realise is that Colleges aren't funded in any major way by central authority for capital projects. They either have to borrow money and hope the loan can be paid back from revenue somehow, or else they must look for Trust monies.

Doesn't this Trust take up an awful lot of your time?

No, not really. We have a team of people responsible for raising the money. When I was with Perth College Board that was more time consuming - although I got the same kind of buzz from doing that as I did from the TA.

From business to pleasure - how did your love of Scottish contemporary art begin?

I love all art - from the Impressionists on. I like art that communicates impression or the spirit of the subject. Scottish contemporary art is vibrant, lively. Miller Hendry is very involved in the Scottish art scene. We sponsor exhibitions including Jack Vettraino's very first exhibition at the Atholl Gallery in Dunkeld. My own personal collection includes work by George Johnston, Nael Hannah, Anda Paterson, Bill Wright and Angus McEwan as well as other local artists.

At this point the puddings were served - the presentation once again as pretty as a picture - so it was the right moment to ask about Alastair's other loves, for good food and wine.

First of all Anne, my wife, is a fine cook and we love continental food. Mediterranean style, mostly. I love Spanish, French and Italian cooking. And, of course, I think our local food is superb. We are so very lucky to live in this part of the world with so much first class food.

As for wine - I've been sampling and enjoying wine for nearly 30 years. I have a small cellar. I started off with sweet wine - fragrant German wines, French Barsac, and so on. Then I "migrated" to dry whites and from them to all the reds and now I'm veering back to an interest in the sweet whites again. There's an awful lot of very good wine around - and from all over the world.

With all your interests is there any particular way you really switch off and relax?

I enjoy good food and wine. I enjoy walking. I did a lot of sport when I was younger. We go abroad two or three times a year, but today my chief relaxations are reading - I read a lot - and going to art exhibitions. It's the aesthetics of life that I truly love and value. I like wandering round the Edinburgh Art Galleries. In fact, a perfect day for me would be doing several galleries and having a good lunch with a decent bottle of wine. Oh, and I am passionate about jazz. I love the cool jazz of the 50s and 60's - early Miles, Stan Getz, Dave Brubeck, Phil Desmond, Bill Evans, and Sarah Vaughan, Nina Simone and, of course, Frank Sinatra.

And, talking of good food, that crême brulé had a very good flavour and the presentation with the summer fruit was beautiful.

My sticky toffee pudding - of which I had selflessly allowed the others to taste a tiny bit! - was certainly up there with the rest of them. My scribe's crepe was delicious and loaded with cream. But back to reality....

As the new President of Perthshire Chamber of Commerce, Alastair, have you set yourself, or others, goals for your two-year tenure? Do you have particular ambitions for the Chamber?

The Perthshire Chamber is successful but I would like to develop its activities further. We've reconstructed the Board in order to engage more with the Members, and with the community at large. We must work with the stakeholders in the collaborative sense. We share common aims and should work together to address them. 

Another thing the Chamber Board are agreed on is that we must try to have an understanding of the breadth of Local Government responsibility. It is vital that we maintain an open dialogue always with Local Government, with our MSPs, MPs and MEPs as well as with the Scottish Enterprise. I have a good Board and three very good vice Presidents in Ally Ballingall, Euan Ferguson and Chris Livingstone. And there's a great office team.

So, let me put it this way, I don't have huge changes in mind, just a re-focusing and restructuring to deliver on that focus.

I am looking forward to a good decision being made on the future of the City Hall and its area. I will also do my utmost to keep on pressing for city status for Perth. I'd like to see an emphasis being placed on the needs of the retail sector throughout the area - and we must be more aware of the needs of the rural economy. There is tremendous potential there for development.

I was really encouraged by my welcome from the stakeholders. We have a good opportunity of working together for our common aim - commercial prosperity.

And with that, it was time to go - to walk off some of that splendid lunch by taking in some more of the amazing, and still growing, Scottish Antique Centre.