A Bible belonging to a heroic Scottish Christian minister of the Second World War has been returned to his former church.
The Rev Dr Donald Caskie was known in WWII as the 'Tartan Pimpernel', remembered for helping save more than 2,000 lives during the war.
Now his nephew, Tom Caskie, has gifted the reverend's Gaelic Bible to the Scots Kirk in Paris, the church Donald led when Germany invaded France in 1940, according to the Church of Scotland.
This Bible was used by the reverend at the time, who used the Gaelic language to hide sensitive information from the enemy, Tom said. Caskie had denounced the Nazis from his pulpit, and had to flee when the Germans invaded.
But instead of seeking safety in the UK, Donald remained on mainland Europe and instead went to Marsaille, France where he lived a double life, running a Seaman's Mission and secretly helping British and Allied soldiers through the mountains and into Spain.
He was later recruited by British Intelligence to continue in his work protecting the military there.
Caskie was eventually betrayed and subsequently arrested by the Nazi-aligned Vichy police. They had him banished from Marsaille, but his work continued when he went to Grenoble, where as a university chaplain he secretly helped allied soldiers, seamen and airmen escape.
The reverend narrowly escaped a death sentence from the Gestapo and was a prisoner of war before returning to Scotland when the war finished, where he died in 1983. The tales of his wartime exploits were documented in Donald's autobiography, The Tartan Pimpernel, still in print today.
'Donald was motivated and sustained by his Christian faith,' said Thomas Caskie.
'He was a very gentle person and clearly he loved humanity and would help anyone he could. Donald rejected the chance of personal safety and risked his life time and again to ensure others could be safe and free.'
Thomas inherited the Bible from his father, who had received it from his brother, Donald.
'When I heard that the Scots Kirk wanted to install a permanent memorial to my uncle, I thought it was more appropriate that the Bible lived there rather than anywhere else,' he said.
The Rev Jan Steyn, 56, the current minister of Scots Kirk, was delighted about the gift.
'I gladly accepted it and as the inscription in the front of the Bible indicates, he acquired it while still in Paris,' he said.
'Its return marks a homecoming after more than 50 years.'
