THE diamond-wedding celebrations over the festive period of a well-known Limekilns couple received the royal stamp of approval with a special postal greeting from Buckingham Palace.

For pride of place among the Christmas cards was a Coronation portrait of King Charles and Queen Camilla, conveying their congratulations to Craig and Jennifer Lindsay, of Waulkmill Steadings, on attaining the 60th anniversary of their wedding in December 1963, in the former St Paul’s Parish Church, Dunfermline.

Craig is no stranger to marking milestones in style for in July 1999, as the public relations officer of the Royal Air Force in Scotland, he was given a flying start to retirement with a special send-off sortie aboard a Jaguar fighter from RAF Lossiemouth.

A native of Kilbirnie, Ayrshire, Craig began his 40-year career in journalism and public relations with the Dalkeith Advertiser and the Fife Herald in Cupar before joining the publicity team of the Scottish Tourist Board in Edinburgh in 1962.

After a move in 1965 to the PR department of Vauxhall Motors in Luton, he returned to Scotland in 1970 to take up a post as a press officer at what is now Historic Environment Scotland, with whom he served for the next 10 years.

He thereafter continued his Civil Service career by joining the Scottish Office, where he was involved in handling such incidents as rioting and hostage-takings in several Scottish prisons; the aftermath of the Chernobyl reactor disaster, when radioactive rainwater was dumped on areas of Scotland, and the Piper Alpha oilrig disaster, after which he was seconded to Lord Cullen’s public inquiry to run the media facility in Aberdeen.

The Lockerbie air crash in December 1988, happened on the couple’s silver wedding anniversary, and the disaster saw Craig being on the scene for most of the following week to handle media relations.

Craig took up his post as PRO on the staff of the RAF’s Air Officer Scotland and Northern Ireland in 1989 at RAF Pitreavie Castle, where he served until the closure of the headquarters in 1995 and his subsequent transfer to RAF Kinloss.

As well as publicising all aspects of RAF activities in Scotland – such as the arrivals and departures of old and new aircraft, low flying, and the annual Battle of Britain air shows at RAF Leuchars – he was frequently involved in assisting the RAF Aeronautical Rescue Co-ordination Centre Deal with national and international media during search-and-rescue incidents around the UK.

Almost immediately in the wake of retirement in 1999 came an invitation from the Registrar General for Scotland to take on the publicity for the 2001 Scottish Census, for which Craig won a national award, the campaign resulting in more than 98 per cent of Census forms being returned within three weeks.

His Dunfermline-born wife Jennifer, nee Stark, graduated from Edinburgh College of Domestic Science and served on the teaching staff at Woodmill High School, Dunfermline, before going on to hold posts as a lecturer at Lauder College and at West Fife Enterprise at High Valleyfield, where the training facilities aimed at getting unemployed women back into worthwhile jobs.

Craig and Jennifer- who have four of a family and six grandchildren – have both been prominent figures in village life since returning to Fife in 1970.

For five years, Jennifer ran The Anchorage restaurant in Main Street, Limekilns, and as a long-standing elder of Limekilns Parish Church, she has played a leading role in the running of the popular Wednesday tearoom in the church hall. Started as a one-off fundraiser 22 years ago to pay for a repair to the church ceiling rose, the popular tearoom has now raised more than £130,000 for the church.

Craig is a former chairman of Limekilns and Charlestown Community Council, has served as a member of the Queen’s Hall committee in Charlestown, and is a past chair and trustee of the former Dunfermline Heritage Trust.   He currently serves as a trustee on Limekilns Heritage Trust, the group campaigning for the restoration of the historic Limekilns Pier.

A Queen’s Scout himself, he led the 81st Fife (Broomhall) Sea Scout Group from 1971, eventually serving as chair of the group executive committee and as a trustee of the Dunfermline District Scout Committee.

He retired as an active member of Scouting in 2022 after 70 years’ service to the movement.