A voice from the gallery

Even as a child Norman Macfarlane was good with money. Not that he had access to wads of it - the family means were modest - but right from the start he seemed possessed by that instinctive knack to make it grow. ''You see this in some children,'' he says. ''There are those who can't hang on to a penny and others who are natural savers and investors. We didn't have much, but somehow I always had enough in my pocket.'' This kind of admission usually confirms thrift as the first principle of the rich, but Lord Macfarlane's generosity has been so spontaneous and far-reaching over the years that thrift seems the very last quality others associate

with him.

Yet he himself would never downplay Scottish prudence : ''We have a big advantage there, not because we're mean but because we've been brought up not to waste money, although there are times when it's good fun to do that.'' But entrepreneurs, he says, are born. ''They might not always know quite where they're going, yet they'll get there, anyway.'' Now, as he contemplates leaving the helm of the company he founded almost 50 years ago, he reflects that much of his driving force was the consequence of tragedy: when Norman was 17 his brother, Richard, was shot down and killed over German-occupied Belgium. Only weeks before,

this bright, dashing hero to two younger siblings, had navigated for Group Captain Guy Gibson on the historic Dambusters raid.

''We hadn't known the nature of his work, of course, but we understood it was something special. Then at 23 he was dead. He was in every way a super brother, and it was terribly sad for us all but, obviously, for my mother and father. No-one could replace Richard, but his death made me want to make the very most of life for their sake, and as a way to honour him.''

But three years later bad news was reaching his parents once again. On leaving Glasgow High School, Norman Macfarlane was commissioned in the Royal Artillery and despatched to Palestine where he commanded an anti-terrorist unit. However, within seconds his Army career was finished by an early morning swim. A disastrous dive had broken his back and neck and Macfarlane spent the next six months in plaster, unable to move. Whatever his sense of failure then, the fact that he'd survived at all seemed miraculous. ''I never really knew what had happened but the Mediterranean goes down very steeply in some places and I simply must have hit my head, but it was a

doubly awful time for my poor mother, coming so soon after Richard's death.''

At school Macfarlane's cricketing skill had once bowled out Leary Constantine, and his general sporting prowess was well known. With that in jeopardy he found distraction during the interminable hospital months by formulating plans for his own stationery and packaging business. His father, for many years a Progressive councillor for Partick, had worked in a similar line for an American company, and now he and his recuperating son were to join forces. Equipped with an Army gratuity of #400, a room in Glasgow's Bath Street and a battered old van, Norman founded NS Macfarlane, which grew into the solidly successful Macfarlane (Clansman) group.

He has always belonged to the West of Scotland's church-going bourgeoisie, and as he lay in Cowglen military hospital Macfarlane never forgot his prayers of gratitude for ''being spared''. Forty years later, once the share-rigging scandal by Guinness in its takeover of United Distillers, had passed its worst, he would offer up a similar sentiment to the heavens. At the darkest times what he calls his ''simple Scottish faith'' has never failed to bring him comfort.

Macfarlane's stewardship of the UK's leading drinks company in the late eighties was a masterclass in how old-fashioned values of probity, courtesy and sensitivity to the common good could triumph over the smash 'n' grab mentality of City wide boys in an ugly,

loadsamoney culture. Of course, integrity and good manners are not the sum total of his talents. Close observers say there is the steely shrewdness of a tough negotiator there, and a much-tested determination not to be beaten. But if it's true that Macfarlane was a scarcely known personality in the City before the Guinness imbroglio, he left that particular stage having gained international kudos and many influential friends during his redemptive chairmanship of the company from 1987 to 1989.

A patriot rather than a nationalist - he inherited his loyalty to Scotland from his parents - one suspects it never crossed his mind to move the family house from Bearsden to London at that time. Yet, as the pressures intensified, did he ever regret being landed with the mess? ''I think, very often. When I told Greta, my wife, that I was going to get involved, well, I won't tell you what she said exactly, but it was to the effect of: 'When will you grow up?'. After she'd said her piece I mentioned that there were some compensations: the company owned Gleneagles where I'd always had difficulty getting time on the golf course, and we owned Gordon's Gin in which she had a considerable interest.'' And does honour still command respect in today's business world? ''Oh, I'm a great optimist in this respect. The Guinness case became a yardstick of what was and wasn't acceptable behaviour, and many

safeguards have been put in place since then. So no, I'm not at all depressed about the quality of people who will follow me, and I'm a huge admirer of the young. They're clever and caring, and more confident and professional than my generation ever were.''

Through all the Guinness warfare Macfarlane remained as urbanely well mannered as ever. Maybe it's something to do with that groomed silveriness, the neat moustache and athleticism he still retains at 72, but there has always been a matinee idol look about Norman Macfarlane, something of that tiptop charm and attentiveness which distinguishes the gallant in vintage black and white movies. Both proper and debonair, his style was impeccably demonstrated during his duties as Lord High Commissioner at the General Assembly in 1992 and 1993, but despite the gleam of countless honours, the work burdens and jet-hopping, he is still very much the pater familias. ''I've been fortunate in having a tremendously supportive wife and five children who've always been great. But getting that very difficult balance right between family, business and cultural life is crucially important.''

When the Guinness turmoil was at its most unremitting Macfarlane was occasionally in the depths of despair, and he would nip out of the office back door in London to avoid the media, then spend an hour looking at the paintings in the National Gallery. ''Afterwards I felt quite different, almost spiritually refreshed.'' But perhaps any art gallery would be his spiritual home. Ever since reading about the Glasgow Boys in his youth, he has loved art and his private collection of Scottish paintings is extensive and exceptional, a fine testament to his knowledgeable eye. But it was his first trip to Paris in 1948 which hooked him on collecting. ''I had no money to speak of - certainly not enough to allow a young man to drink properly - but I came back with two paintings, neither of which really cost anything. I still have one, a river scene in oils, which I must have purchased from the railings

along the Seine.''

In that grand tradition of the industrialist-patron, he believes in bringing art into the workplace and listening intently to the staff's responses. But he also delights in the company of artists themselves, and among his dearest friends was Emilio Coia, the Italian-Scottish caricaturist who died last year and whose work will be commemorated in an exhibition at the Glasgow Art Club from May 15. For close on 20 years Coia, then widowed, spent Christmas day with Norrie and Greta, their four daughters and one son, the tribe rising to around 30 with respective spouses and grandchildren. This ''seething, uninhibited mass of humanity'' was ideally suited to Coia's incorrigible brio, so much so that one grandchild inquired, as Christmas approached, if ''the man who kisses Grandad

is coming.''

In his eulogy to Coia, Lord Macfarlane affectionately described his irreplaceable pal with a phrase borrowed from Glaswegian patois: he was not nothing, he said. A shift of tense, and the words become the perfect fit for a true gentleman millionaire.