100 years since the Battle of the Somme, the memoirs of one of South Uist’s First World War soldiers, Donald MacDonald, are to be released.
His memoir, “From Small Lochs to Great Lakes,” recount the stories of a sailor, soldier,
crofter and laterly, single-
The book will be launched on Satuday at Kildonan Museum, South Uist, as his family and community pay tribute to him.
Born in 1897, Donald was one of 10 children from a crofting and fishing family in South Uist. His story spans almost nine decades during the most turbulent times in modern history.
Autobiography of Uist soldier
8 July 2016
Enlisted at 16 years of age into the Cameron Highlanders, MacDonald fought and was wounded at Givenchy, at the Battle of the Somme and at Arras.
His memories recall the horrendous conditions of the trenches and battlefields: "In a heavy bombardment with death and desolation around you, your heart pounding like a piston, thinking the next shell would be yours, you thought the end of the world had come and when the shelling stopped, the brave little skylark rose high above us with her sweet song of hope and courage, you felt there is a God."
After training as a diamond cutter, Donald’s inter war years saw him traverse the Atlantic to find work in farming in Canada, in the car factories of America and as a seaman on the Great Lakes until the profound impact of the Great Depression forced him home to Uist.
During the Second World War he served in the Merchant Navy and as a rigger on the Clyde shipyards. The book charts momentous moments in island life from ‘salvaging’ whisky from the SS Politian and the introduction of road access.
It also deals plainly with the struggles of setting up house in Locheynort in appalling conditions of isolation, on very poor land.
When widowed at 57 years of age with six children all under ten years, MacDonald persevered to keep the family unified. Thanks to the help of the children’s aunt looking after the youngest, the six children were able to grow up together on the island.
MacDonald wrote his memoirs whilst in his 80’s before his death in 1985. It has now been turned into a book by his daughter Peggy to form this unique record of a remarkable life.