Alastair is a lifelong collector of antiques, including Stevengraphs, treen, miniature furniture, snuff mulls and snuff rasps. He recently completed a scholarly monograph, 300 Years of Tobacco Stoppers - Fine Works of Art in Miniature, based on his own 1400-piece collection. He is currently collecting Scottish pottery.

Alastair did National Service with the Royal Scots Fusiliers in Malaya in the early 1950s and continued to serve with the Territorial Army until 1962, winning the Territorial Army Pistol Cup at Bisley in 1960. He became an insurance broker at Lloyds in 1957 with Willis Faber & Dumas Ltd, becoming managing director of their Lloyds Underwriting Agency for 10 years in 1976. He was a founding director of five other Lloyds agencies, including his own, and a founding director of United Goldfields NL. He was also a director of a wide range of companies involved in wine, mining, leasing and oil services and antiques (R.A.Lee plc), retiring in 1991.

He has been a Liveryman of the Clothworkers' Company for nearly 60 years and Master of that company in 1998. He is a member of the Royal Company of Archers, the Queen's bodyguard in Scotland.

Alastair lives in Perthshire where his interests include fishing and other country pursuits.