Education:
Eton College, Windsor
Balliol College, Oxford
Harvard Business School, USA
Military:
Commissioned into HM Coldstream Guards 1948 – 1948. Served in North Africa
Member of Council of the Royal United Services Institute (1980 -1984)
Member, Queens Bodyguard for Scotland (1958 to present)
Business Career: J. & P. Coats Ltd (1953- 1969)
- Worked in Uruguay, Canada, Spain, Holland, Portugal, Pakistan and again in Holland.
- D. : J.& P. Coats, Pakistan, Ltd (1961 to 1966);
- D. : J.A. Carp’s Garenfabrieken (1966 to 1969)
Philips Electronics (1969-1979)
- Chairman and Managing Director Philips Electrical Ltd (Consumer goods arm of Philips Industries U.K.) (1970-1975);
- Managing Director of Pye of Cambridge Ltd (Professional arm of Philips Industries UK, with 25 companies and employing 23,000 people) (1975 – 1979)
A Non-Executive Director of several companies
(1979 – 1999)
Chairman and Managing Director of Dundas Castle Ltd
(1996 – Present)
Political Career:
Member of the European Parliament
- for East Sussex from 1979-1999
- Vice-President of the European Parliament 1992-1997
- Treasurer and Member of the Policy Bureau of the British Conservatives in the European Parliament 1979-1992
- Chairman of the E.P. delegation to Canada 1979-1984
- Vice-Chairman of the E.P. delegation to Japan 1984-1995
- Honorary Vice-President of the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party from 1999 to 2001
Drugs of Abuse:
- Author and Rapporteur of a special committee of enquiry into drugs in 1996
- Represented the European Parliament on the Policy Bureau and Board of EMCDDA (European Council for Drugs and Drugs Abuse) in Lisbon (1999 – 2005)
- Creator and joint organizer with UNDCP of the Inter-parliamentary Conference on Drugs from 1998 to 2004 (meetings in Scotland, Vienna, Washington, Bolivia, Japan and Sweden)
- Member of the Board of Trustees of the Mentor (UK) Foundation – preventing alcohol and drugs abuse amongst young people. Responsible for setting up the Scottish office of the Foundation (1999 – 2014)
Interests:
- Religion: Facilitator of ‘Life of Jesus Christ’ play at Dundas Castle, in Glasgow, in Uganda, at Louisiana State Penitentiary, Belo Horizonte, Brazil and in Milan.
- Music: Creator of ‘Concerts in the Kirk’ at Dalmeny church
- Photography: Associate of the Royal Photographic Society
- Paintings and clocks
- Travel: Europe, India, Bhutan, Brazil, China, Peru, Argentina, Myanmar
- Golf