Bruce MacManaway

Patrick MacManaway writes that: "My father, Major Bruce MacManaway, felt the call of healing in 1939 aged nineteen whilst involved in rearguard combat outside Dunkirk. No soft tones of new-age music or pastel colours were involved in his early practice - as an infantry officer he had two pressing tasks to concern him - how to confront a division of Panzer tanks without artillery and how to attend to wounded and dismembered soldiers without recourse to any medical facility.

"In the heat of battle he discovered the profound human miracle of laying-on-hands, and spent the rest of his life serving the healing spirit that had inspired and guided him.

"For twenty years his healing practice was quiet and private. Healing outside of Christian ministry was not widely sanctioned. The Witchcraft Act was still in effect at the end of the war. In 1959 he felt the call to go public and open a healing centre. Pursuing this against all economic reason and public opinion, he trusted the spirit that guided him and The Westbank Healing and Teaching Centre in Strathmiglo, Scotland, blossomed and flourished as an international venue for healing practice, teaching, discussion and conference."

He was married to Patricia MacManaway .

Books

• Bruce MacManaway and Johanna Turcan, Healing: A straightforward look into all aspects of the healing phenomenon (Thorsons, 1983). Foreword by Ludovic Kennedy. In the acknowledgements for this book he writes: "Many people, by and through whom my awareness has been expanded, include Louisa Ashdown, whose remarkable gifts I have never seen equalled, far less excelled, Grace Cooke, Harry Edwards, Sir George Trevelyan, Pir Vilayat Khan, Rimpoche Chögyam Trungpa, Father Andrew Glasewski and the Rev. Dr Kenneth Cumming. Through them, my attention was drawn beyond allopathic medicine into what is becoming known as complementary medicine, and similarly beyond Christian teachings towards those of other religions and philosophies."