On Sunday January 13th I told the office-bearers and then the congregation that I had decided that the time had come to retire. That afternoon I left for a conference in Crieff. The conference sessions were in the morning and in the evening, and I was speaking at one of them. However the afternoons were free. One afternoon I left Crieff and drove through the Sma' Glen and over the moor to Aberfeldy. I went there for a break after the coverage of the Dunblane shooting. We had been involved in covering the service in Dunblane Cathedral tbe Sunday morning after the massacre, and, and had also set up a special service for Radio 4. I had also taken part in four broadcasts in the previous days. Very sensitively, the then Head of Religious Broadcasting for the whole of the DBC, Ernie Rea, contacted all of us who had been involved at Dunblane and suggested that we take a long weekend break at a hotel anywhere we liked and his budget would pay for it. Evelyn and Cally and I went to a hotel in Aberfeldy.

I was thinking about that as I drove over the moor, and about that strange period around the Dunblane massacre: strange because the support and team spirit of our department was almost tangible. We were all working hard, but working hard and looking after each other. And yet we were involved in such a painful moment in Scotland's history. And I began to think about the five and a half years with you here in Barony St John's, and about some of the times of real sadness and pain we have experienced together; but during them we were brought closer, and in my role I felt totally supported by so many.

The reason I was passing through Aberfeldy was to make my way to the village of Kenmore, where my uncle, Kenneth MacVicar, was minister for forty years. He retired in 1990 and he has had a wonderfully fulfilled retirement. I was licensed as a minister forty years ago this year, and if I have as fulfilled a time in the future I will be very fortunate. I may help out here and there on a Sunday or on the odd day elsewhere but I explained to the office-bearers that I won't be Interim Moderator and responsible for a congregation again, partly because nothing could equal the experience of being responsible for Barony St John's. It has been a privilege.

With best wishes

Johnston McKay