02/04/2026
View from the Sofa
Tribute
As most of you will know, on Monday we laid my beloved husband David to rest and gave thanks for his life. At the Thanksgiving Service I was privileged to give a tribute to David, talking about our life together, who he was and what he accomplished. I’m sending it out in full to especially share it with those who were unable to join us for the occasion. It’s quite long because we were together for over 50 years, but I did restrain myself because if I had included everything I wanted to say, we would have been there for hours! So if you have the time, clear yourself a few minutes, make yourself a cuppa, and read about the extraordinary man that I shared my life with.
Love,
Janice x
Tribute to David
When I sat down in the school hall for my first-year exams in 1971, there was no way that I could have known that the second-year boy sitting opposite me would be my future husband. I remember that the depute head, Miss Fisher (known to all as Fishie and who had a fearsome reputation) came over and said to me that I should have my hair tied back for exams – then she turned to David and commented that he was close to needing his hair tied back too. His longer hair was fashionable, but his mother hated it!
It wasn’t until the Christmas of 1974 that we finally met up at a friend’s teenage party in Kilmacolm and we started going out. David loved to tell that story – to family, here at the church, and to his students at Loudoun Academy. From that point on we were inseparable. We didn’t have much money for going out so we would spend time at each other’s houses and we became part of each other’s families, and in the summer we would go for long walks together.
I soon discovered that he and his family were in the Salvation Army, so I learned that if I wanted to see him on a Sunday, I had to go to the Salvation Army too. I was fine with that, I had always been comfortable with things around faith. In fact I was probably more comfortable than he was – as you’ve already heard - so when he decided in the summer of 1975, just as we were starting Uni, that he was going to leave the Salvation Army, I said I wanted to keep attending the services. So on a Sunday night we would sit at the back of the hall together, David no longer wearing his uniform.
That summer, though, David’s Dad Alec asked us both if we wanted to go to the Salvation Army Congress which was held in the Kelvin Hall every September. I can still remember the smell of the elephants, the carnival having only just finished. At the end of the evening session, when people were being invited to become Christians and follow Jesus, David made to get up and leave but was stopped in his tracks by a Salvation Army Officer called Janine Neale who challenged him about what he was thinking. Long story short, that night both David and I gave our lives to Jesus. It wasn’t just an outward change for us, but a deep, lasting, life-changing commitment. We were, as CS Lewis would put it, surprised by joy. So profound was the change for David that I remember once sitting on the train and overhearing two friends of his from school talking about him. “Church and all that is OK up to a point,” one of them said, “but David Wotherspoon has taken it too far!” He certainly never did things by half.
David and I then started Uni at the end of that month – he went to Starthclyde and I went to Glasgow - so we were both in the town and used to travel up together. Sometimes we didn’t make it to the first lecture because we couldn’t bear to part and we went to a café instead – the Kardoma on Buchanan Street and the Grosvenor Cafe on Byres Road come to mind. As Uni went on though both of us together had a growing sense of being called to fulltime ministry. We got married the year after graduating and in 1980 we headed off to London to train as Salvation Army Officers, part of the God’s Messengers session. There we made great friends, but after being commissioned we were sent to Buckie, then served in Dundee, Portree, Kyle of Lochalsh and Buckhaven.
Over those years we added to our family, Nicola being born in 1983 at Buckie, and Iain in 1985 whilst we lived in Portree. David was a devoted and enthusiastic father, and he loved them with all his heart. That was partly the reason that we left the Salvation Army for David to become a Batist minister. We had lived in five places in eight years, and it was taking a toll on all of us, including the kids.
And so we came to Irvine in 1990. We always blamed the daffodils that grow along Towerlands Road which were blooming when he came to preach “with a view” – we called them the “deceitful daffodils”. That’s because although we have had many wonderful times here and have many fantastic people in our lives as a result, we have also had many difficulties and trying times, there being a particularly turbulent time in the church here in the nineties. But through it all David remained faithful. He was always authentically and genuinely himself. The David people saw at church was the same David that we knew at home – there was no side to him. Full of love and grace, forgiving those who hurt him, welcoming back those who had walked away, and continuing to fellowship with those who had unjustly accused him. He had the most integrity of anyone I know, never cutting corners, always sticking to what he believed to be right.
When the dust settled in the church and we moved into the noughties, we ran a Community Café over at Broomlands Gate with Jed at the helm, where many people in the community were touched by the love of God through the practical acts of kindness that were done there. The church remained a small but united group with a big heart, and David loved those who make up our church here like family. The very last time he led the service here, we were due to start and there was David sitting on the step at the front with the youngest boy in our church. They were looking at Lego together on David’s phone!
In the mid-noughties when the church could no longer afford to offer David a fulltime stipend, he decided to follow the example of St Paul and find other employment so that he could continue here as minister. He did interview for a chaplaincy job at Barlinnie, but the one thing he felt he wanted to do was teach RMPS and have an opportunity to connect with young people about his faith, and so he trained as a teacher and got a job at Loudoun Academy where he remained for 18 years.
Over these years we were delighted to have four grandchildren join our family – Lucas, Kara, Alba and Alex. He was such a doting Granda and he would do anything for them. They benefitted from his love for children and young people. He had always been involved in working with and teaching youngsters. When we left Kyle of Lochalsh in 1989 the youngsters all saw us off, running after the car until we disappeared down the road, and he continued that ministry to kids right up to the present day as he was still leading our LifeYouth Group here. He would say to me, “How long can I go on being the youth leader, I’m nearly 68!” But I’m told by the young people that what made LifeYouth great, in the midst of all their Bible study, was that David made it so much fun.
David went into teaching out of necessity, but it seemed right and from what I could tell, he made a fantastic job of it. If you’ve seen the comments on our Church’s page, you’ll realise the kind of teacher he was, giving everyone a chance – even the “roasters”. That was because he had been one himself. We came to realise just in the last few years that David probably had ADHD, explaining his behaviour as a child and at school, and his ability to work all hours, doing two jobs at once. This gave him great insight into the children under his care. He had a fantastic singing voice and he delighted the kids by singing pop and rock anthems at school for fundraising events, with his department colleagues as backing singers, songs including “I’m still standing”, “Human”, “Living on a Prayer”, and I’m told he particularly brought the house down with a rendition of Gerry Cinnamon’s “Belter”. I like to think he was singing that one about me.
He was extraordinarily clever, achieving Dux of his primary school. His original degree at Strathclyde was in Maths and Accounting, followed up with his 1st Class Honours in Theology when he was in his forties. His preaching at church was first class, and in school woe betide any pupil who turned up in his class with some spurious argument against the existence of God. He would then, with respect, systematically take their argument apart. Many went on a journey with him as they looked at what they believed, or didn’t believe, and why.
David retired from teaching in June 2024 but continued on as Senior Pastor at the church. We were hoping for more time together. We’d had 51 years – 46 married – but we would always have wanted more.
His children & grandchildren were the apple of his eye. He was very proud of Nicola and Iain, who they were and what they had achieved. He shared his love of theology with Iain who has a PhD in the subject, and David and Nicola talked all the time about teaching as she is a depute head in an ASN school. The delight of his life though was having his whole immediate family as part of this church, loving and serving Jesus together. He loved spending time with his grandchildren – Lucas, Kara, Alba & Alex, and between chatting to them about the world, God, and the meaning of life, could always be found jumping about the place with them. He loved to dance – later we’ll sing a song he loved that’s all about David’s approach to worship – how he loved to lead worship! He had the heart of a dancer although maybe not the feet or coordination… We have lots of videos of him trying to do the floss, or a roly-poly, or his version of the Lord of the Dance, or the Highland Fling. He was always so full of life!
David and I loved going for coffees, watching detective programmes, going on holiday in the UK, visiting the National Trust, cinema, theatre – what a rich life we had. The only thing we did separately was his love for football – Greenock Morton and the Scotland national team. How thrilled he was when Scotland qualified for the World Cup! He was my promoter and protector, fully supportive of my ministry in the church (especially where there wasn’t universal support for women) and protective of my ME/CFS, warning me if he thought I was overdoing it. I tried to do the same for him but trying to tell David what he could do was like trying to put a halter on a wild horse.
He put all that energy into his living. He told me once that one of the other teachers at school said to him, “Of course your passion is Morton” to which he replied in no uncertain terms, “No! My passion is Jesus.” We knew David’s priorities, Jesus, then family, and then Morton….
A favourite verse of David’s began flitting around my brain when we began to prepare for this service. I knew he had Samantha ice it onto the birthday cake he had here at church when he turned 60. It was a few days later when I was in his study that I remembered that it was the photo he had put on his computer desktop: “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” Philippians 1:21
That’s how David lived, and I believe he has now gained the eternal life with Jesus that was at the centre of his life.
In a moment Allan is going to sing a song called “Made for More”. David loved this song, it really is his testimony of how God took his life, this awkward lively boy, turning it around and using it for good. He had realised that he was made for more than just drifting through life, and that God had a purpose for him. He became a loving, kind, compassionate man who never gave up on anyone, although God still used his innate personality. Those of you who have read The View – our church’s blog that we took turns at writing – might remember that I would be writing about snowdrops and children’s laughter, and David would be writing about toilet rolls and bodily functions!
The words of the song that Allan will now sing speaks of the future, and we all know that David’s future is different now – that’s a matter of eternity. However, every one of you here has a future – even if it’s only today – and I know David would love it if you would take a moment to listen to this song and consider what you were made for, and what our futures can look like if we, like him, follow Jesus.
Song: Made for More by Josh Baldwin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gsDVEBJlO8&list=RD1gsDVEBJlO8&start_radio=1
