WELL-KNOWN Angus farmer, livestock agent and haulier Arthur McEwan has died only four months after celebrating his 65th wedding anniversary and at the age of 91.

For many years a regular attendee at livestock markets up and down the country, Mr McEwan built up a reputation as a large scale purchaser and dealer in cattle and sheep.

There were rarely fewer than 650 cattle at the McEwan base at West Mains of Colliston, with consignments moving in and out on a daily basis. On one pre-Christmas day alone he sent 100 prime cattle to meat wholesaler W Drysdale in Dundee. Customers in Wishaw, Paisley and Glasgow were also supplied with cattle and sheep cannily bought for the purpose around auction rings in Angus and further beyond

Born in 1922, Mr McEwan was brought up at West Mains and was only nine years old when his father died. After schooling at Colliston and then Arbroath High School, he set to work at home helping his mother run the farm and attending markets whenever he could, even it meant cycling long distances.

He met his future wife, Margaret Beattie, while delivering eggs in Arbroath. The habit of going to markets and doing business there was to last until he was 85 years old and along the way he was able to expand his farming business and start the haulage business which has now become R T McEwan Haulage.

By 1983 he had added Hillhead of Ascurry, Burnside of Boysack, Blairbank, Brax Wood and Gask Wood to the original holding at West Mains. Blairbank was eventually to become home and it was there in May of this year that he and Mrs McEwan celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary. It was a far cry from their first marital home in a but and ben at West Mains with no electricity and running water.

Their daughter Margaret Wilson reflected that it was her father's love for livestock and his success as dealer that allowed the family to move on to develop their own businesses. "His work and family were his life and he had few hobbies beyond curling and at one time the Young Farmers Club," she said.

Mr McEwan is survived by his wife and children William, Raymond, Michael and Margaret and their children and grand-children. He died four years and a day after the death of his grand-daughter, the promising young jockey Jan Wilson.