 Lord Strathcarron's father was Ian Macpherson, a government minister in the cabinet of Lloyd George who had been created Baron Strathcarron, of Banchor, in 1936.He attended Eton College and Jesus College, Cambridge.After the outbreak of the Second World War, he joined the RAF in 1941, before he graduated, and flew Wellingtons for Coastal Command on reconnaissance and search-and-rescue missions over the Atlantic Ocean, during the Battle of the Atlantic.