ONE of Gaeldom's most famous sons - who exported the culture of the Highlands and Islands across the world - was laid to rest yesterday.

The funeral of Calum Kennedy, the greatest Gaelic singer of his generation and one of Scotland's best-loved entertainers of the 1960s and 1970s, was held in Glasgow's "Highland Cathedral".

Relatives of the entertainer, who died aged 77 in an Aberdeen nursing home last weekend after a long illness, were joined by friends and fellow singers at St Columba Church in the city centre.

More than 200 people packed the church, known as Caraid nan Gaidheal, or Friend of the Highlanders, which has been a centre of Gaelic life in Glasgow since the eighteenth century.

A piper played a lament as the coffin, draped in tartan, was carried inside for the service.

Kennedy found fame after winning a gold medal in the 1955 National Mod in Aberdeen, before an audience which included the late Queen Mother and Princess Margaret.

Two years on, he met Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet premier, and sang at the Bolshoi after a winning performance in the World Competition at Moscow.

Before being discovered as a singer, he had worked as an apprentice plater in John Brown's shipyard on the Clyde, and attended Glasgow University for a year.

A father of six daughters, he grew up in Orasay on Lewis, and reached the peak of his fame in the 1960s and 1970s with the Calum's Ceilidh TV series.

The service yesterday was conducted mostly in English but hymns sung by a 30-strong choir and individual ballads were performed in Gaelic.

Johnny Beattie, the actor and entertainer; Brian Wilson, the former Labour MP; and Alasdair Gillies, Kennedy's contemporary Gaelic singing star, were among those paying their respects.

His daughter, the singer and television presenter Fiona Kennedy, told the congregation that growing up in the Kennedy household was like being a von Trapp child.

She said: "We all have happy memories of the man who wasn't just the entertainer - he was Dad.

"He was flamboyant, vibrant, unpredictable and embarrassing."

She recalled how he used to wear a canary yellow suit he bought in Canada and would open vintage wines to have with fish and chips.

Neil Fraser, a friend, paid tribute to the singer's "beautiful, mellifluous Gaelic voice" as well as his "lovely personality and generous sense of mischief".

Kennedy suffered a stroke last year and had been fighting a chest infection.

The singer's first wife, Anne, died at the age of 40 in 1974. He lost his voice for two years after her death. He married his second wife, Christine, in 1986, and they had a daughter, Eilidh, before divorcing in 1999.

Kennedy made a comeback in the mid-1990s after a heart bypass operation and was still performing at the age of 70.