Charles Edward Bell Stewart, farmer, rugby internationalist, past president of the SRU; born December 23, 1935, died November 29, 1998

PRESIDENT of the Scottish Rugby Union in season 1990-91, Charlie Stewart, who has died of cancer at the age of 62, was twice capped by Scotland in the early sixties.

One of five Kelso flank forwards to play for Scotland in the post-war era - the other four being Ken Smith, Eric Paxton, John Jeffrey, and Adam Roxburgh - the popular Borders farmer made his international debut against Wales at Cardiff Arms Park in 1960. He was replaced for the Irish match by another debutant, David Edwards of Heriot's FP, who was brought in to lead the pack which he did to much effect in a nerve-tingling six-five victory over Ireland at Lansdowne Road. However, Stewart was recalled for the French game the following winter but, alas, damaged knee ligaments in that match.

That injury, together with the broken leg he subsequently sustained playing for Kelso, put paid to his Scotland career, which had included the 1960 trip to South Africa when the SRU, whose traditional image was less than avant-garde, boldly pioneered the short overseas international tour.

Ken Smith, who played for Kelso on the openside with Stewart on the blind, remembers his fellow flanker as a ''typically rumbustious Border forrit''. In fact, for all the validity of that tag, Stewart was, like Smith, partly a product of George Watson's College, having been a boarder where Smith had been a day boy.

He was only 15 when he first played for Watson's, whither he had gone from Kelso High School, and he was still at Watson's when he made his maiden appearance for Kelso, against Glasgow Academicals.

During National Service, Stewart was commissioned in the King's Own Scottish Borderers, serving in Malaya where he was a member of the Battalion XV which won the Far East Cup in Hong Kong at the expense of the Welsh Guards.

A Barbarian himself, Stewart, who toured South Africa with the Scottish Border Club, was in the Poynder Park seven which, at Melrose, knocked out an all-international Baa-Baas task force.

In his second spell as the Kelso coach, the club, in addition to myriad sevens triumphs, twice won the Border League and twice in succession the Scottish Club Championship, 1987-88, 1988-89. Many coaches have sizeable egos but, in some contrast, Stewart - whose son, Alastair, is now the Kelso director of rugby - was both a big enough man and a shrewd enough judge to know when to stand back and give up full rein to the notable tuitional and tactical abilities of his captain and hooker, Gary Callander.

President for three years of Kelso - and also, which may surprise many, a past president of the Kelso Bridge Club - he was the last Scottish Rugby Union president to attain that post without having come up through the union ranks.

An arable and stock farmer, he was a familiar exhibitor at the Duns and Kelso shows. Sundry Smithfield connoisseurs travelled to St Boswells to buy his calves while his Bluehead Leicester tups were very much a feature of the Kelso Ram Sales.

A regular attender at Eckford Parish Church, he was an elder for 34 years, session clerk for six, and treasurer for 20.

He leaves a wife, Hazel, four children, Lindsay, Neil, Alastair, and Ailsa, and seven grandchildren.