Donald Caskie

The Rev. Dr. Donald Currie Caskie DD OBE OCF (22 May 1902 – 27 December 1983) was a minister in the Church of Scotland, best known for his exploits in France during World War II, during which he helped an estimated 2,000 Allied sailors, soldiers and airmen to escape from occupied France (mainly through Spain). The 'Fasti' - the record of all Church of Scotland ministers since the Reformation - simply mentions that he was "engaged in church and patriotic duties in France, 1939-1945". In his autobiography 'The Tartan Pimpernel' he states that 'he had been called to Paris in 1935'

Biography

The son of a crofter, he was born in Bowmore on Islay in 1902. He was educated at Bowmore School and then Dunoon Grammar School before studying arts and divinity at the University of Edinburgh. His first charge was at Gretna, before becoming the minister of the Scots Kirk in Paris in 1938. A 2001 Gaelic-language documentary aired on BBC2 stated that Caskie was gay, with documentarian Angus Peter Campbell saying that Caskie lived life as a man who was "straight at home [and] gay abroad".