Someone once suggested that when we were born we boarded a train, met our parents, and believed they would always be with us.

The time would come, however, when they stepped down, leaving us to continue our journey without them.

Time passed, and others boarded that train – brothers, sisters, friends, and even the love of our life.

In the course of that journey, many would step down and leave a vacuum as they left.

Others would go and we would not even realise they had gone.

Nor do we know at which station we ourselves will eventually depart.

Now a friend has left an empty seat on my train, and I feel such a loss.

I suppose we have to accept that there are very few people in our life who travel with us, who really believe in us, accept us just as we are.

Willie Murray, who died on July 9, did that, and it placed him in a very special category.

Sadly, I accept that means you can never repay folk like Willie.

And even if you could, they wouldn’t accept it.

He had been in my life for 46 years. As a church member, as an elder, as a property convener, but more importantly as a friend.

A pal. He was special.

I treasure the times we spent at Burns suppers. The time he spent trying and failing to teach me how to play better golf.

He was such a good coach; I was just such an equally poor pupil.

The time in a drama production he played the part of an Irishman in a night gown and Wee Willie Winkie hat, trying to avoid justice by pretending to be dead!

Willie gave of himself completely, and without thought of gain or recompense, to the church, the Vale of Leven Golf Club, Argyle Bowling Club, the church singing group and drama group, Polaroid, Loch Lomond Golf Club, Vale of Leven Cricket Club and to his family and friends.

He was a man who poured himself out for others – and let me tell you that in a world that has become so selfish, that is unique.

Willie once spoke to the children of the church. He had a huge drawing of the 18th hole at St Andrews.

He spoke of golf and the things you should do and should not do while out on the course.

But then he said to the kids that golf was a bit like life.

The bunkers, he explained, were there to trap you. Stay out of them.

The only way to play golf successfully, he said, was to stay on the straight and narrow.

That is certainly how Willie lived his life – and how we should live ours.

Willie...thanks for the memories.