Many years ago, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, who died on 7 July, aged 99, was kind enough to invite me for tea at the Palace of Westminster. This was not through any merit or distinction on my part. At the time, I was working as a young assistant minister at a church in East London.
In the small youth group that my wife and I ran at the time, there was a teenage boy who was distinctive among his secular peers in the area not only for being a Christian but also, in the ultimate act of rebellion, for being a young Conservative! (This was in an area where even the vicar put up Vote Labour posters!)
I thought it might encourage the young man both in his Christian faith and in his embryonic political career to meet with a committed Christian in a senior political position. After I sent a brief letter, Lord Mackay was kind enough to invite us both up to London for afternoon tea. It seems to have been typical of the man. For ten years he was Lord Chancellor, and he combined this with a noted humility, kindness and graciousness based on his devout evangelical Christian faith. As The Times newspaper put it, despite various controversies engendered in his legal work, he was always “mild-mannered, charming and considerate, [and] remained universally liked”.
Lord Mackay was a member of the Free Presbyterian Church in Scotland. Reportedly, he would never read papers or travel to court on a Sunday and was only willing to speak on the phone if there was a genuine emergency on that day. However, he was suspended as an elder within the denomination after he attended a Roman Catholic Requiem Mass for two judicial colleagues in 1986 and 1988. He decided to withdraw from the church and sometimes attended All Souls, Langham Place, London, a well-known beacon of Anglican evangelicalism. The Guardian also reported: “He latterly worshipped with the breakaway Associated Presbyterian Church. Mackay remained [Honorary] President of the Scottish Bible Society.”
He married Elizabeth Hymers in 1958. She, their son, James, and two daughters, Elizabeth and Shona, now survive him. Lady Thatcher once said of him: “What forms his whole life is to try to use his talents to the glory of God.” She added that when he would die, “there will be a massive guard of honour by the whole heavenly host in the next world! There really will, because he has been such a marvellous example.”
