Usually, my speeches are all about strawberries, rather than a eulogy of my brother, which sadly should not of been for at least another 20 years. But here we all are and we are all very over whelmed by the amount of people here today. I will do a brief history on Allan’s family life and Joanne will talk about Allan’s work over the past 34 years at SCRI/James Hutton institute then Jim Honeyman will share with us his sporting memories. Rugby was Allan’s passion, ever since he joined the school.
 Allan Booth , father to Holly , son of Mary and The Late Alexander , brother to Bob , Brian , Elaine , Sandy and Scott , uncle , friend, colleague  and so much more , too many too list . Allan grew up at Murdochcairnie farm and went to Rathillet primary school.  Every morning for him and all of us siblings was either a treacherous walk to school or possibly a lift from the Lang’s if we got past the geese first , which  love to peck you so that was known as the 200m dash to safety.
Allan was a church goer from the age of 3, always at Sunday school and always thought the minister looked like Batman but couldn’t understand why Robin never appeared with the minister . Then onto Bell Baxter high school where he found his love of cricket, Rugby, football and running, he loved his sports.  From then on, me, Allan and  Scott enjoyed our days playing cricket and rugby in the field where there were bulls, which we had to dodge or on the farm road dodging Dad in the tractor.
They were great times when you look back now.
Allan stayed onto 6th year and was the only one in the family to do so , he was the academic one .
Recently we were going through Allan’s belongings and came across an old Bell Baxter jotter book from 1981-82, where there were records of who had played that day and the scores of each game for that year. Allan was a captain for the firsts for most of that year. During that year Allan was in his 6th year and I was just starting my 2nd year in school. We even found a page in the book from that year with both of us on a page for rugby, it was quite surreal, sorry for stealing your thunder Jim.   Once he left sixth year he had a few different jobs from working for the council,  Danskins a haulage company to working the summer on a fruit farm before he went to Napier university to do a scientific course.
After that, in March 1986 he started his working career at SCRI/James Hutton Institute till this day and Joanne will fill you in on what he did there for the past 34 years.  In this day and age is quite unusual for someone to stay in one job for so long. Just shows you how passionate he was.

Allan got Married to Clare on the 4th August 2000, they had a beautiful daughter Holly who is now 17 and Allan was always very proud of all her achievements and was always talking about how wonderful she is. The Booths that are here today will make sure that she is supported throughout her life in whatever she does in the future.
Allan had such a wide base of friends from all over the UK, especially Wales as you will see in the songs he wanted in the crematorium and the church , work colleagues from all over the world have sent their condolences , and of course as a family he will be missed dearly .
We had very fond memories of Christmas 2018, which was the first Christmas in ten years we spent together. Lots of laughter and of course cheating at cards, which is a Booth Tradition that still goes on.
One moment I will share with you is that  I was lucky to spend the last day with him and it was hard watching someone you love in so much pain but at  3am on the 1st of January  for about 40 minutes he was playing his last game of rugby, A few bad words were said but the one phrase he repeated over and over again  is (come on then what are you waiting for) and this was said over and over again until me and Elaine said you’ve scored a try and then he moved onto something else, this was a special moment we won’t forget . And me and Elaine where just playing along with him encouraging him as he seemed to be forgetting the pain.
Think I’ve ranted on enough now be good to hear other stories in the rugby club after church.
Allan will be dearly missed by all and I know Allan would not want us crying , he would want us to remember his cheeky smile , cheeky sense of humour and his cheeky grins that he was always pulling so please join us after this at the rugby club for a cheeky pint or two.
Allan you will never be forgotten and you will always be in our memories!