Obituary: Stanley Stephen, A pioneer of post-war oil exploration in the Middle East, he found new love in his 70s

His reaction, on the eve of his departure, probably summed up his whole attitude to life: he was impatient to see what it held and relished the opportunities it threw up, whether it was on the pitch as a Highland League footballer, in the oilfields of Iran as an engineer or taking the plunge in his personal life tying the knot again at the age of 73.

He was a gregarious adventurer whose travels took him “all over the world and other places”, as he often said.

They included Aden, Algeria and then Canada, where he experienced a late-blossoming romance with the widow of a friend to whom he had been best man decades earlier.

It was an odyssey that had its origins in Hilton Smithy, outside Ellon, in the rural north-east Scotland. Though he was born there, much of his early life was spent in the village of New Deer where the family was one of the first to have a car and electricity.

After his father Alexander died when he was nine, he moved with his little sister Ada and mother Maggie into a large house in Fraserburgh’s Saltoun Place, where she rented out rooms.

And after completing his education at Fraserburgh Academy he served his apprenticeship as an engineer at the town’s Consolidated Pneumatic Tool Company, travelling to Aberdeen to study for an HND qualification at night school. A talented sportsman and keen cyclist, he was also playing football for Highland League side Fraserburgh FC.

By this time the Second World War had broken out and, with the tool works having switched to the vital business of making munitions, he was exempt from being called up. However, he had a burning desire to better himself and make more of his life, and as a result was often to be found studying the newspapers in Fraserburgh’s library. In one of them, most likely the Times, he spotted an advert for the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company which was seeking engineers.

The prospect caught his imagination. He applied and was invited for an interview. Thinking he didn’t really stand a chance, he set off for the company’s HQ at Britannic House in London but was offered the job. He met Irene Duncan at Consolidated Pneumatic and the couple were married on 15 February, 1944 in Fraserburgh and soon afterwards he set sail for Iran on a troop ship.

He was posted to Abadan, a major logistics centre during the Second World War and also the site of the world’s largest oil refinery. Though he would not see his bride for another two years, he loved the work there. Oil had been discovered in the region by the British in 1910 and there was still a pioneering spirit. Irene, a young woman born and brought up in the coastal village of Rosehearty, embraced the adventure and eventually joined him in Iran where their daughter, Marie, was born in 1948.

But there was also a crisis brewing and in 1951 the Iranian parliament voted to nationalise the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) leading to a blockade of Abadan by British warships and the imposition of sanctions. British workers were withdrawn and by 1952 the family had returned to Scotland.

Back home, the couple had a son, Alexander, who tragically lived only for three weeks, but they went on to have two more sons, Graham and Clive.

Meanwhile Stephen worked in various places, including Ellesmere Port, Grangemouth and South Wales, before taking his young family out to Aden where they lived in the multi-cultural oil refinery community of Little Aden. There he worked for the AIOC, now renamed the British Petroleum Company.

Again a crisis was looming and when the Aden Emergency began, in December 1963, the family found their lives touched by some horrific events, including the shooting of the chief of police whom they knew personally. It was also while in Aden that Stephen was involved in an event, which still gives his family a sense of pride today, when as foreman of the jury he persuaded fellow jurors to save a teenager from the death penalty for a murder, which had been a rare crime of passion between two men.

Returning to Scotland again in 1965, Stephen worked at Mac Fisheries processing factory in Fraserburgh before heading to Algeria for a pipeline project, followed by a job at BP Chemicals in Baglan Bay, South Wales and a post as project manager for the commissioning of a PVC plant. With his family settled in Neath, he retired on his 60th birthday and looked after his wife until her death from cancer at the age of 57.

Having retained a love of sport, he supported a local youth rugby team and got the opportunity to accompany them on trip to play a series of friendly matches in and around Toronto. He was 70 and dithered about going, fearing he was too old for the trip. He was persuaded by his son Graham to make the journey, and fate intervened.

During the visit he was invited to a reunion of ex-pats from Fraserburgh. It was hosted by the former Alexina Eddie who had been widowed four years earlier. Stephen had been her husband John’s best man in Fraserburgh and the pair hit it off immediately. After crossing the Atlantic five times in one year, he proposed, sold up in Neath and gave away virtually all his possessions.

Aged 73, he embarked on yet another adventure, leaving the UK for Toronto with two small packing cases and a couple of suitcases. The couple married on 15 September, 1993, the best part of half a century since his first wedding. Neither had ever envisaged remarrying but had been looking forward to their 18th anniversary this year.

He is survived by Alexina, his children Marie, Graham and Clive, step-daughters Sheena and Janice, grandson Christopher and two great-grandsons.