It is with great sadness that we record the passing of Dr. Donald Brownlie who died on Sunday 29th August, 2004. A former Scout Leader with 30th Troop from 1958-1962, for most of his adult life Donald lived in Africa where he served faithfully and with distinction as a medical missionary at the David Gordon Memorial (DGM) hospital in Livingstonia in Northern Malawi from 1969-80, then in South Africa and latterly Uganda from 1980-1999. In the spring of 1999, Donald responded to an urgent call for medical assistance, and travelled to Albania to work among the refugees made homeless by the crisis in Kosovo, before returning once more to his beloved Livingstonia later that summer where he did much in his last stint of service with the Overseas Board of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland to encourage and build up the work at the hospital before finally and with great reluctance retiring through ill health in May. It was a fitting tribute that he was awarded an OBE for services to healthcare and rural development in Africa in the New Year’s Honours list earlier this year.

Donald remained a true and loyal friend of the Scout and Guide Movements throughout his life, encouraging the development of Scouting and Guiding in Northern Malawi, and taking a keen interest in his old Scout Group in Gilnahirk whenever he had opportunities to return home to Belfast. Donald was a committed Christian and one of life’s gentlemen, self-sacrificing and a friend to all, who wasn’t afraid to roll up his sleeves and simply get on with the work even when the going got very tough, as it inevitably did in some of the most impoverished regions of central Africa. In mourning his passing, we take comfort in the words ‘Blessed are they who die in the Lord, for they rest from their labours and their deeds follow them’ and give thanks for his life dedicated to the service of others and the example he set to us all,

David (Editor, Scouting East)

Taken from an appreciation which appeared in Scouting East Issue 254, October 2004

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