Alan Ferguson obituary

Original article by Ann Burnett

My brother, Alan Ferguson, who has died aged 79, was a Scotsman who began his working life as a geography lecturer at Nairobi University in Kenya, before working with aid agencies in that country.

Alan joined the university in 1972, but left after a couple of years to teach in Britain at Cambridge University, and then in the US at NorthEastern University in Chicago.

However, Kenya had got a hold on him, and he returned to work there, first for Amref, a Dutch organisation, and then GTZ, a German body, mainly in family planning and public health. Eventually he went freelance, helping various aid agencies with their work in Kenya, until a serious accident incapacitated him, forcing him to retire to Scotland.

Born in Glasgow, Alan was the son of Bill, an analytical chemist, and Jessie (nee Moncrieff), a shorthand typist. At the local Angus Oval primary school his hair was permanently unruly and his mum decided one day to plaster it with Brylcreem into a cow’s lick. Alan came back from school in a huff; clearly comments had been made. “But Prince Charles has a cow’s lick,” mum pointed out. “Prince Charles doesnae go to Angus Oval,” was the terse reply.

After Queen’s Park senior secondary, Glasgow – where he and some friends formed a band, the V5, which played gigs around the west of Scotland – he moved on to Strathclyde University to study geography (1965-69) before completing a PhD at Bristol University.

Alan went straight on to Nairobi University but eventually left after a disagreement over student grading, and decided to go back to the UK. Once he returned to Kenya, his work with aid agencies took him to remote rural parts of the country where he was often the first white man many of the locals had seen in the flesh, and where his hairy legs were a great novelty. He was different from many other foreign workers in that he spoke Swahili, integrated with the people and was curious about their lives.

His attachment to Kenya was strengthened when he met a local registered nurse, Florence Miyawa, whom he married in 1982. They settled happily in Nairobi, where they had three daughters, Janice, Lynne and Iona.

Sundays were an important day for Alan in Kenya, as the airmail edition of the Observer would be delivered to him. He would quickly settle down to tackle the cryptic crossword and would then wing his completed answers back to the UK, often winning the weekly prize.

Having turned freelance, he was about to embark on a new project with the global health management consultancy Constella Futures in 2009 when he was knocked down by a bus while he was out jogging, sustaining serious head injuries that meant he was unable to drive or continue working. In 2014, fed up at having to renew his visa every few months as he did not have a job, he returned home to Glasgow with Florence.

He is survived by Florence, their daughters, granddaughter Rowena, and by me.