Retired GP 'honoured' to be chieftain of 2023 Assynt Games
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A RETIRED north-west Sutherland GP has been named as chieftain of Assynt Highland Games.
David Slator will preside over the popular games – also known as the “friendly games” – which take place at Culag Park next Friday, August 11.
Born in Norfolk in 1952, David attended Oxford University where he graduated with a medical degree.
Following several years of junior hospital jobs, he became a partner in a General Practice in Margate Kent in 1983, and remained there for 20 years.
During this time he completed training as a counsellor and in managing drug addiction, becoming a specialist GP in the local addiction services.
He had a two-year break in the middle of this period to focus on counselling and health education.
David met his wife, Vanessa, at university and they married in 1974. They have two children and three grandchildren.
The couple always loved the remote west coast, and first visited the Assynt area nearly 50 years ago. In 1985 they bought a house in Clachtoll and thereafter were regular visitors.
In 2002 a GP vacancy at the Lochinver surgery came up, and the family moved to Clachtoll permanently.
In 2005 David and Vanessa moved from Clachtoll to Laid, Clashnessie, taking on a croft and the renovation of the buildings. They have kept a flock of Hebridean sheep and run two letting properties at Laid.
David served as a GP in Assynt until 2007 when he left the Lochinver practice.
After a period of locum work around the north and west coasts, he became a partner at the Lairg surgery until retirement in 2014.
Outside medicine, David has been heavily involved in other community issues.
In 2005, when Highland Council decided to close the Assynt Centre in Lochinver, he became chairman of the Assynt Centre Action Group, set up to prevent this.
With help from many people, Community Care Assynt was set up in 2010 to run the Assynt Centre. David remained as chairman until 2022.
He was also chairman of Assynt Community Council from 2015 to 2018, leaving the group in 2019.
David has run several marathons, including the Cape Wrath Marathon, and taken part in the Highland Cross and the Great Wilderness Challenge”, often raising money for Highland Hospice and the RNLI.
Both David and Vanessa are keen walkers and for many years have been members of the Mountain Bothy Association. For the past six years they have been maintenance officers for the local bothy, Suileag.
David said he was honoured to be asked to act as chieftain for the 2023 Games.
