I was born on 23 November 1950, after what my parents regarded as a long-awaited blessing. Before my birth, my mother suffered two miscarriages and the stillbirth of a little girl. My parents, Thomas Scott Thomson and Ivy Naylor, first met while both families were on holiday in the same boarding house in Blackpool. They conducted what might be called an “epistolary courtship”, writing letters to one another across the distance between Scotland and England. They eventually married and settled in Scotland.

I come from a family with deep Christian roots. My mother came from the Church of England tradition and my father from the Church of Scotland. My paternal grandmother descended from Covenanters who fought at Drumclog and Bothwell Brig, and from the family of George Wishart, the Protestant martyr who was burned at the stake in St Andrews. Family history also linked us with the Leslie family involved in the killing of Cardinal David Beaton. My paternal grandfather, George Thomson, served in Mesopotamia, Persia and Constantinople during the First World War. On my mother’s side, the family were active Anglicans. My great-grandmother, Margaret Ellen (Nellie) Naylor, was a Suffragist, not a Suffragette. She believed firmly in constitutional methods, belonged to the Liberal Party and the Women’s Liberal Association, and knew several prominent political figures of her day. 

In 1964, while attending a Youth Camp of the Iona Community, I became what would be described as a born-again Christian. Faith was already important to me, and this experience deepened my spiritual search. 

My first contact with the Bahá’í Faith came through Sohrab Sabet. He had pioneered to my hometown of Motherwell. Although he attended a different primary school, he knew my best friend, and later the three of us attended the same secondary school and university. Sohrab became my first contact with the Faith, while Nuri Sabet became my first teacher. 

I was taught by a remarkable circle of Bahá’ís. The extended Sabet family had a profound influence on me, as did the Navai family, Dr and Mrs Tahzib and their children, Paul Adams, Bahiyyih Nakhjavani, Mehran (Ronnie) Nakhjavani, Mrs Banani, Dr. Iain Palin, Dr. Lameh Fananapazir, Surgeon Commander John More-Nisbet, and many others. I was also fortunate to meet and learn from distinguished servants of the Faith, including Hands of the Cause Ugo Giachery, Adelbert Mühlschlegel and John Robarts, Counsellor Betty Reid, Ian Semple, Adib Taherzadeh and Charles Macdonald. 

I recognised Bahá’u’lláh as Christ returned in the Glory of the Father in 1968. In 1969 at Harlech Summer School, I declared my faith to National Spiritual Assembly Secretary Charles Macdonald and Universal House of Justice member Ian Semple, but I did not sign a Declaration Card, as my Scottish family threatened to disown me. My English family were more circumspect. Harlech remains a cherished memory. I travelled there with Nassim Tahzib, Sohrab Sabet and Kenneth Fyfe. We rented a house in Harlech and Rodney “Kiwi” Charters stayed with us. Later, Rodney became known for producing a film about Ruhiyyih Khanum and Violette Nakhjavani’s teaching trip up the Amazon. 

The wider Tahzib family joined us during the middle weekend: Dr and Mrs Tahzib, Aziz and Senobar, Nahid, Ruhi and Shamim. Mrs Senobar Tahzib later gave me a phrase I never forgot. During periods when I drifted from my highest ideals, she would say, “You were not thinking.” Looking back, there was a period of my life when that description fitted all too well, and I remain ashamed of some of those shortcomings. 

In 1973 I pioneered to the Orkney Islands. From 1973 to 1975 I served as Treasurer of the Local Spiritual Assembly of Kirkwall and later Treasurer of the Local Spiritual Assembly of Orkney. During that period Jackie Mehrabi, Doreen Wake, Verdun Wake and I presented the Faith in every parish on the Orkney mainland. 

Also in 1973, Professor W. Montgomery Watt invited me to participate in a “Sharing of Faiths” event at Iona Abbey. Buddhists, Hindus, Christians and a Bahá’í would each give presentations. By a wonderful coincidence, just weeks beforehand I had attended the Waterford Summer School in Ireland and listened to around ten lectures by Adib Taherzadeh on Islam and the Bahá’í Faith. Those lectures prepared me well for the discussions at Iona.

The gathering at Iona was a memorable occasion. The Countess of Mar and Kellie was present, as was Lord George MacLeod of Fuinary, founder of the modern Iona Community. Distinguished representatives of several faith traditions attended. Life at the Abbey included three services each day, and everyone shared responsibility for cooking, cleaning and other daily tasks.I was ably assisted in this proclamatoon work by Denise and Jeremy Fox from Tobermory, Mull and Jane Villiers Stuart from Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland.  I started my talk to all these assembled Buddhists, Hindus, and Christians with the words of the Blessed Perfection, “Tell the Priest to ring the bell no longer”.

In July 1974 I made my first Pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Among my fellow pilgrims were Ann and Paddy Vickers and Anne and Sohrab Sabet. Bahá’í Pilgrimage lasted nine days in 1974, but as long as you left the Haifa/Akka area you could stay as long as you wanted.  Sohrab and I stayed sixteen days, five in Jerusalem and two in Tel Aviv.We spent time in Jerusalem at the Holocaust Memorial, Bethlehem, Bethany, Ein Gedi, the Dead Sea, the two Churches of the Nativity, Greek and Latin, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Wailing Wall now called the Western Wall, the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa Mosque.  It was a wonderful experience. 

During that pilgrimage Hooper Dunbar encouraged me to pioneer to the Falkland Islands. It was one of several opportunities I received over the years. In 1976, while travel teaching in Cyprus, Eric Hellicar encouraged me to pioneer there. Later, in 1979, the Navai family encouraged me to move to Hawaii. I declined all of these invitations. Looking back, I sometimes think, “So many golden opportunities wasted by me.”

From 1973 to 1975 I remained in Orkney as a pioneer. In 1976 I undertook travel teaching work in Cyprus. Then, in 1980, I pioneered to North Ayrshire, my home ever since. This area includes the Scottish mainland district together with Arran, Pladda, Holy Isle, Great Cumbrae and Wee Cumbrae.

I have served the Faith in various capacities over the years. I have been Chairman of the North Ayrshire Bahá’í Group from 1980 to 2011 and again from 2023 to the present. I was appointed Chairman of the National Teaching Committee of the National Spiritual Assembly of the United Kingdom. I served as a Bahá’í Marriage Officer for Scotland through three terms, a total of nine years, conducting approximately twenty-five to thirty weddings. I have served on the UK Bahá’í Schools Committee, the Bahá’í Education Committee and the Bahá’í Reconciliation Committee.

Travel teaching became one of the great joys of my life. I made some fifty to sixty teaching trips to places including Iona, Mull, Skye, Orkney and Shetland. I attended summer schools in Scotland, Ireland, Northern Ireland, England and Wales, sometimes serving as chairman.

One of the most influential teachers I ever met was Zebbie Whitehead. He was an inspirational teacher and proclaimer of the Cause. I vividly remember his enormous teapot, perhaps five times larger than a normal one, and a matching bone china tea service for twelve. He had been brought up on Manhattan’s Upper East Side overlooking Central Park. His most treasured possession was a signed portrait from Katharine Hepburn expressing her affection for him. On my trip home from the Waterford Summer School in 1973 I was fortunate to attend one of his firesides in Dublin, an experience that left a lasting impression. 

My wife, Lizbeth Thomson, has done far more for the Faith than I ever have. She served as a teacher, travel teacher and pioneer, including service in Shetland and Stirling. She has also been on pilgrimage to the Holy Land and to the House of Worship in Wilmette. She was a librarian until the age of seventy. She has served as Secretary of the North Ayrshire Bahá’í community continuously since 1977 when I attended my second pilgrimage to the Holy Land, this time with my wife Lizbeth Thomson.  Together we have three children and five grandchildren, a family that continues to grow.

Sadly, my bipolar disorder placed enormous strains upon our marriage. In 2011 we became legally separated. We maintain separate households and finances, yet strive to be the most loving sister and brother possible. I remain deeply grateful for her many sacrifices and years of service. 

In 2010 I had the bounty of a second pilgrimage to the Holy Land, renewing memories of my first pilgrimage thirty-six years earlier.

As I write these notes in September 2026, I am in Crosshouse University Hospital. I was admitted in July with an aggressive and advanced prostate cancer. The tumour has spread from my prostate to my bladder. I have a catheter and live with both day and night drainage bags.

Funny how a cancer diagnosis sharpens the mind. 

I find myself reflecting on the extraordinary bounty that Bahá’u’lláh has showered upon me throughout my life: the teachers who nurtured me, the friends who accompanied me, the opportunities to pioneer, travel teach, serve institutions and visit the Holy Land.

I have already arranged my funeral. All of the readings and the cord-holding will be undertaken by women. In this small way I hope to contribute to the fulfilment of the beloved Master’s vision that only when women take their rightful place in society will warfare cease. I have arranged payment for both my funeral and headstone and have even designed the stone myself. 

As I look back over seventy-five years, I feel gratitude for the family that raised me, for the many believers who taught me, and for the privilege of serving the Faith since becoming a Bahá’í in 1968. My life has been far from perfect, yet the mercy of God has been abundant. Whatever time remains, my prayer is simply to remain grateful for the countless blessings bestowed upon me.

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Scott Thomson

September 2026

Fardalehill, Scotland

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