David Callam MacKessack-Leitch, who has died aged 79, was truly a man for all seasons.

The younger son of a well-known farming family, he was born at Carden, near Alves, in 1922 and was educated at Elgin Academy. To those who knew him later in life as a stalwart of the Elgin Burns Club, it will come as no surprise to hear that his first job was treading the boards at Perth Repertory Theatre.

Aged 18, he left acting behind to join the army. He went on to serve as a divisional signals officer with the 51st Highland Division and the 7th Armoured Division (The Desert Rats) throughout the desert campaign. Later, he took part in the D-Day plus two landing and the subsequent north-west Europe campaign, culminating in the Allied victory in Europe in 1945. The family with which he was billeted in Brussels remained among David's closest friends.

He returned from the war to the family farming business. It was on the tractor, ploughing the fields, that the ''farmer's loon'', a book of verse balanced precariously before him, developed his passion for Shakespeare and Burns. His ability to conjure up an apposite quote never diminished. In 1950 he married and moved to Inchstelly (the Leitch family has lived there for 200 years) where he and Ann Dark raised their family - Julia, Tina, Gavin, and John. He continued to be involved in the mixed arable enterprise and eventually took over the running of Inchstelly Farms from his father in the early 1970s.

With the purchase of the Brumley Brae slaughter house in 1954, David unleashed an entrepreneurial zeal which spawned a series of enterprises. Initially Elgin Animal By Products concentrated on rendering, bone meal, and tallow. Next he opened boarding kennels. Later the factories at Brumley Brae, and from 1976 Alcaig in the Black Isle, also produced pet foods and fertiliser. When the business experienced delivery problems, David's solution was to set up his own transport company. In 1963 he and his wife opened Laichmor, a Scottish gift shop and a few years later a second shop in Elgin - Luckpenny. Something of an engineer/innovator, he also patented and sold his designs for double and three-way children's dolls. As well as his own enterprises, for 20 years he was managing director of the Moray & Nairn Egg Packing Station. He was also a non-executive director of Newmill Foundry.

Not content just to sit back and count the profits, he sought to further the interests of the industries in which he was involved and the community in which he lived. Over the years, he served as a chairman of the Moray NFU, a member of the UK Poultry Committee of the NFU, a CBI small business representative, deputy chairman of the Moray District Valuation Panel, a member of the Grampian Health Board, a member of Lodge Trinity 148, chairman of Blairmore School Educational Trust, and as a general commissioner of the Inland Revenue.

David's letters to newspapers would often elicit a smile from the reader, whether a political friend or foe. His interest in politics was longstanding. Fifty years ago, he regularly spoke at the hustings for James Smart and, later, Gordon Campbell. In the 1970s he was twice approached to become a prospective parliamentary candidate, but declined due to his many other commitments. From 1987 to 1990 he was chairman of the Moray & West Banff Conservative Association and latterly promoter of the Moray Conservative 200-plus Club. He argued his politics with conviction and with a mischievous glint in his eye.

In the years following the death of Ann in 1983, he began to hand over the baton to his children. In 1989 he married for the second time. In retirement he put more emphasis on pleasure and leisure, but was approached with the same energy and enthusiasm as his working life. He indulged his interests in shooting and fishing and travelled extensively. David and Hilda were never happier, however, than when they were able to share their home and good fortune with their families and many friends. Evenings

at Inchstelly were memorable. Imagine, if you can, a combination of Hilda's mouth-watering fare

and David, clad in an embroidered velvet waistcoat, pouring his

home-made elderberry or birch-sap wine, while instigating an

animated discussion on the merits of the euro, interspersed with the odd iambic pentameter.

He died after a long and difficult illness bravely borne. He

is survived by his second wife and four children.

David MacKessack-Leitch; born 1922, died June 19, 2002.