A FORMER secretary-treasurer of the Carnegie Dunfermline and Hero Fund Trusts, Bill Runciman, has died at the age of 82. 

An honorary member and past-president of the Rotary Club of Dunfermline, of which he had been a member since 1994, his portfolio career also encompassed roles as police commander, charity director, potter, abseiler and mountaineer. 

In 2010 he was one of six ’chuting stars with an aggregate age of 360 who raised a five-figure sum in a tandem skydive for CHAS and Rotary campaigns.

Bill passed away on Saturday December 9 at Cameron Hospital, near Windygates.

The Greenock-born son of the manse joined Edinburgh City police in 1960, starting on the beat on the south side of the city.

Dunfermline Press: Past presidents of the Rotary Club of Dunfermline gathered together in 2022 to celebrate the club's centenary. Bill Runciman is in the back row, second from the right. Past presidents of the Rotary Club of Dunfermline gathered together in 2022 to celebrate the club's centenary. Bill Runciman is in the back row, second from the right. (Image: Jim Payne)

Selection for a new accelerated promotion course was followed by his promotion to sergeant and secondment to Edinburgh University, from which he graduated in law in 1974.

Ten years later, following service in several city divisions, he was promoted to chief superintendent, taking command of the division covering Midlothian and East Lothian.

On retirement from the force in 1988, Bill became director of the National Playing Fields Association, Scotland – at a time when the charity nationally became a fighting force to combat playing fields being sold off to developers.

A family move from Edinburgh to Charlestown followed in 1993 when Bill was appointed secretary-treasurer of the Carnegie Dunfermline and Hero Fund Trusts in succession to the late Fred Mann, a role he was to fulfil until 2002.

In “final retirement,” Bill’s long-standing interest in pottery as a hobby culminated in the achievement, by distance learning, of a BA Honours degree in Ceramic Design from the Glasgow School of Art.

He was also a member of the Scottish Mountaineering Club.

Bill, whose funeral service will be held at 11.30am on December 29 at Dunfermline Crematorium, is survived by Eileen, his wife of 58 years, two sons and four grandchildren.