Donald MacLean

1945-2005

The island was greatly saddened on the recent death of Donald McLean. One of the most versatile workers Lismore has ever known, Donald was able to turn his hand to anything solving problems that others had pronounce insoluble. He was often so inventive that whatever he was dealing with – a water supply, an engine, central heating – was better after he had fixed it than it had been before.  

A great crowd from Oban, Tiree and Lismore gathered at his home for a traditional funeral after which one of the longest processions of cars ever seen on the island  wound itself to the Parish Church for his internment.

Donald was born in Glasgow but grew up in Tiree after moving there to be fostered in the 1950s. H went to Balemartine Primary School and then on to Cornaigmore Secondary School and when he left he worked on his foster parents’ croft. His musical talent was noticed early and he loved playing his accordion and singing at Ceilidhs.

After he was appointed shepherd on the common grazing in the Township of Barrapol  he was often to be seen on his way to work with his collie dog sitting on the petrol tank of his BSA Bantam motorcycle. Once when his motorcycle developed clutch problems and spare parts were not available, a friend suggested that the trouble lay in the cork clutch pads and so Donald found some cork and set about making them. It was for such skills that many a Lismore motorist was forever grateful. 

In the mid 60’s Donald went to Glasgow to work in haulage. It was here while working for a construction company as machine operator who had their works camp on the Glenmore Road midway between Craignure and Bunessan, that he decided during a howling gale to use his machine to hold down his caravan with the excavator bucket! 

In the early 70’s Donald signed up for the Puffer Trade serving for a number of years in the haulage of pulpwood from Mull Forests to the Scottish Pulp and Paper Mill at Corpach where they uplifted return cargoes, such as limestone and building materials for delivery to various islands on the west coast of Scotland. Around 1979 Donald began working on the Oban-Lismore ferry.  It was on this service to Lismore that he met his second wife Alison. 

Donald helped to run the farm after Alison’s father, the late Joe Stewart, died and then he was self employed handyman. There aren’t many houses on Lismore where Donald didn’t do something whether it was putting on new roof or repairing a leaking one, replacing windows, making garden gates and walls, repairing cars and tractors, in fact anything at all, even putting in septic tanks.  He worked right up till the last month before he passed away on 8^th August, 2005. 

Donald loved to hear his three Lismore children – Carol, Duncan, and Flora learning their Mod songs and poems. Being a Gaelic speaker he was a natural coach and he was also helping Flora to learn the accordion. His two children from his first marriage, Anne Marie and Donald live in Oban.