Robbie Lennox, a well-known sheep farmer, councillor, company director and long-serving Church of Scotland elder whose fund-raising skills helped to save one of Scotland's most famous 'wedding churches' on the Banks of Loch Lomond, has died, aged 90.

He was born at Shemore, in Luss, on Loch Lomondside, to Robert and Margaret Lennox and although he was an only child, his cousins were more like brothers and sisters to him, in particular Craig Davie.

This was fortunate since they were both helped out when Robbie's father died and he was left, at the age of just 16, with the huge responsibility of looking after Shemore and Shantron farms overlooking the loch.

He attended tiny Muirlands Primary School, in Arden and Vale of Leven Academy, Alexandria, where again he made good friends and one of them, Frazer Mellor, went on to work on the farm with him for about four years until he got his own farm to manage in Northumberland. He was Robbie's best man at both weddings.

He was a progressive, innovative and forward thinking farmer who could 'think outside the box' before that phrase was invented.

In the early 1940s, before mains electricity came to the area, he built a water wheel in a nearby river and linked it to a generator to provide electricity to the farm.

Robbie started putting the farm accounts on to computer when Amstrad launched its first PC before accounts programs were available.

In October, 1952, he married Ailsa Howie, of Drumfork, Helensburgh, and they had two children, Bobby and Margaret, and five grand-children, Gill, Allan, Kay, David and Michael and Andrew, who unfortunately died five years ago. There are two great grand-children, Blair and Ailsa.

His first wife Ailsa died in 1988 and, six years later, Robbie married Marie Duncan, of Old Kilpatrick

He was a farmer first and foremost, and on the Saturday before he died was in the sheep pens helping his son, Bobby and daughter-in-law, Anne, with sheep. Anne said: "Robbie was a typical farmer. He never retired."

He never retired either from his post as session clerk at Luss Parish Church.

As an elder, he served the tiny kirk for more than 60 years and as session clerk was always at the door greeting parishioners and visitors. He stood beside the minister as the congregation left after the service.

He would have served 50 years as session clerk in August this year and served as representative elder for Luss on Dumbarton Presbytery for over 40 years.

Despite an accident which left him with only one kidney, he was forever travelling and learning about farming. His activities within Young Farmers led to a scholarship and took him to Africa, New Zealand and Australia, as he studied sheep farming around the world.

He was held in high regard in farming circles throughout Scotland and became a councillor on the old Dunbartonshire County Council, where he sat on a committee which monitored progress on the building of the Erskine Bridge.

His Nuffield Scholarship and YF travelling started an interest in travel and went on to visit Brazil, Mexico, China, and then Egypt on honeymoon with Marie and they continued travelling to the Holy Land, Thailand, the Canaries and many more countries. His grand-children reckon he visited about 40 countries.

He attended West of Scotland Agricultural College in 1946 and was awarded the Bronze Medal, going on to be governor of the college in 1964.

He was a founder member of Loch Lomond YFC in 1944 and chairman of the NFU Scotland in 1977. His Nuffield Scholarship came in 1963 to study the wool production aspects of sheep farming in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

Appointed to the Scottish Agricultural Wages Board, he served on it for 26 years, similarly on the Agricultural Training Board, the NFU Mutual Insurance Society, where he was the Scottish director in 1965, serving for 26 years. he was also on the Department of Agriculture's farming advisory committee and the home grown timber advisory committee.

Other posts included directorship of Caledonian Marts, the Animal Diseases Research Association. and the Scottish Agricultural Arbiters Association. He also sat on the Secretary of State's Loch Lomond and Trossachs working party, drawing up proposals for a National Park and was a Justice of the Peace on the Bench at Dumbarton. He was awarded the OBE in 1977 and became a Fellow of the Royal Agricultural Society in 1987.