Brigadier Thomas McMicking, soldier, farmer, and businessman; born March 17, 1932, died April 15, 1998

BRIGADIER Thomas McMicking, who died in an accident

on April 15, was a former

Commanding Officer of the 1st Battalion, The Black Watch, who later became managing director of Reliant Security and also farmed the family estate of 3000 acres.

Thomas Neil McMicking, elder son of Major General Neil McMicking, CB, CBE, DSO, MC, DL, was educated at Eton and joined the Black Watch as a private in 1950. He went to Sandhurst in 1951 and was commissioned in 1952.

He served with the 2nd Battalion, the Black Watch, in

Germany and British Guiana

(as it then was) and from 1956 with the 1st Battalion in Berlin and Cyprus.

He returned to the UK to become Adjutant of the Combined Depot of the Black Watch and Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders at Stirling in 1960, attended the Staff College, Camberley, in 1964, filled

various staff and regimental appointments, attended the Joint Services Staff College, and was then appointed Military Assistant to the Quartermaster General, Sir Richard Worsley.

His next appointment was CO of the 1st Battalion of the Black Watch in Hong Kong, after which he returned to Britain to serve at Colchester, from which he took the Battalion for tours of duty in Northern Ireland, and attended a course at the Canad-ian Staff College. The Battalion received new colours from Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother during this period.

He was then appointed Commander, Cyprus Garrison, and in 1978 returned to Germany as Commander of the Berlin Brigade. His final appointment was on the staff of Northern Army Group.

After retiring from the army he joined Reliant Security in which he rose to become managing director and subsequently a consultant. He also farmed the family lands (which had been in their possession for centuries) of 3000 acres at Miltonise, Glenwhilly, Dumfries & Galloway, where he bred Blackface sheep and Galloway cattle.

Tom McMicking was a large man who has been aptly described as ''larger than life'' for the energy and enthusiasm he brought to his work and social life.

He was particularly interested in nineteenth and twentieth-

century watercolours, some of which he bought abroad. He

was noted for his combination of physical and moral courage and was not deterred from raising a point of principle if he thought it was necessary, even though it might make him

temporarily unpopular. A competent oarsman at Eton, though not in the same category as his nephew Matthew Pinsent, of Olympic fame.

He is survived by his widow, Belinda, and two sons and a daughter.

Andrew Miles