The world a poorer place for his passing

'Fr Jock': a man of quiet strength
by Gerard Noel
UNIVERSAL sadness greeted the tragic news of the premature death of Fr John Dalrymple, aged 57, known to his many friends as Jock.
He was one of the great figures of the immediate postwar generation of priests who included Fr Michael Hollings, of whom he was a cousin; an immensely popular personality whose innate spirituality was always obvious but never obtrusive and a constant inspiration to all with whom he came into contact.
His parents were the last Sir Hew and Lady Hamilton Dalrymple and the family have long lived at North Berwick. It was natural no doubt that he should have been sent to the Scots College in Rome when, after his student days at Ampleforth, he remained convinced that he had a vocation to the priesthood. He was ordained in July, 1954.
It so happened that at that time St Andrew's College. Drygrange, had recently been opened as the senior seminary for the Archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh.
This provided his first appointment but within about two years he was sent to St Mary's Cathedral in Edinburgh where he remained for three years as assistant priest.
This was a fruitful period during which he founded Martin House, a hostel for women in distress such as battered wives and unmarried mothers.
The decade of 1960-70 was a momentous one for him, and many others, for it was during those years that he returned to St Andrew's and was the College's Spiritual Director. His influence on seminarians and his contribution to the shaping of the general policy of seminary training was profound and of lasting benefit.
He was later put in charge of St Ninian's, Edinburgh, where he earned the deep love of his parishioners who became increasingly concerned about his deteriorating health after two severe heart attacks.
He wrote several best-selling books on prayer and kept up his apostolic efforts to the very last moment his health would permit. Before taking up what was to have been a less onerous turn of duty, at Kirkcaldy, he went to visit a fellow priest of the diocese, also in bad health, who was recuperating from hepatitis in Florida.
It was there, on September 5, that Fr Dalrymple suffered his third and final heart attack. RIP.
*We will shortly be publishing two articles by Fr Dalrymple, "Light and Salt: A ,Version of the Priesthood".