The roots of actor Alec Heggie’s successful stage and screen career can be traced to a factory floor in Glenrothes.
It was there, among the heavy machinery of a wireworks that the future High Road star, who also played alongside Bob Hoskins that Alec, who has died aged 78, took his first steps towards the stage.
He had always been drawn to performance art as a Perth High School pupil but it was while working in Glenrothes that he was motivated to join an amateur dramatic society in the town to pursue his dream.
Alec was awarded a scholarship to the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow and was able launch a four-decade career on television, stage and film.
Among the many roles he performed was as Lachie McIvor in High Road and his marriage to Mairi in the final episode in 2003 has entered folk history.
Alec had a string of television credits to his name including Still Game, Taggart and as the police officer in Rab C. Nesbitt.
But throughout his life he remained rooted in his native Perth where he lived with wife Jenny.
Alec volunteered for a decade at the CHAS hospice in Kinross and was a confirmed bibliophile which bequeathed him with outstanding knowledge.
He was born in Perth in January, 1944, the son of Sandy and Rita (Margaret) Heggie.
The family lived near South Inch and Alec attended Craigie Primary School before moving on to Perth High School.
After a brief spell working in grocery retail in Perth, Alec joined the wire works in Kirkcaldy where his father was already working.
Career begins
After graduating from the RSAMD, he moved to the Nottingham Playhouse and later joined the Young Lyceum Company in Edinburgh. He soon landed a role in the television thriller series, The Haggard Falcon in 1974.
In the same year he came to Perth Theatre for a season and it was here he met his future wife, Jenny, who was PA to director Joan Knight.
Marriage
The couple married at Perth Registrar in 1975. They had a daughter, Joanne, who died in 1980 and a son, Jonathan, who is now fundraising director with St Columba’s Hospice in Edinburgh.
Over the years Alec had spells at Nottingham Playhouse, the Royal Court and the Young Vic where he performed alongside Bob Hoskins and Vanessa Redgrave.
Alec played several seasons at Pitlochry Festival Theatre in between television work.
He will be remembered in particular for his role as John Shand in BBC Television’s What Every Woman Knows in which he played opposite Hannah Gordon.
His wife, Jenny said: “Despite a successful career, Alec was fundamentally a very private man. He was a devoted husband, dad, grandad and father-in-law.
“He was a true bibliophile and his stack of books were a testament to his appetite for knowledge and culture.
“To those who knew him well, he was a beacon of warmth and energy.”
Alec is survived by Jenny, son Jon, daughter-in-law Kate and grandchildren Anna and Jamie.
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