Murdo Ewen Macdonald - Padre Mac: The Autobiography of Murdo Ewen Macdonald of Harris

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PADRE MAC

This edition published in 2014 by
Birlinn Ltd
West Newington House
10 Newington Road
Edinburgh eh9 1qs
www.birlinn.co.uk

First published by the Stornoway Gazette in 1992

Copyright 2008 The Islands Book Trust
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form without the express written permission of the publisher.

eBook ISBN: 978-0-85790-825-4
ISBN: 978-1-78027-248-1

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

The first edition of this book was dedicated by Murdo Ewen to the memory of Angus Campbell of Plocrapool, Harris: A truly great man. More than anyone, he helped me to arrive at my decision to become a minister.

Contents

Note on the Various Editions

The first and second editions of this book were published by the Stornoway Gazette. These contained a preface by Lt General A.P. Clark and a prologue by Iain Crichton Smith, which are reproduced in this edition. The Islands Book Trust and Birlinn Limited are grateful to the Stornoway Gazette for permission to use the text of the first and second editions.

This, the third, edition is entirely faithful to the earlier editions, with the exception that a few re-wordings have been made occasionally to reflect the fact that the author is no longer alive and that the original text was written some time ago.

Acknowledgements

The following acknowledgement, written by Murdo Ewen, appeared in the second edition of this book:

I would like to record my sincere thanks to all who have helped in the making of this book. Mary Millar, my former secretary, typed the first draft perfectly. Mysteriously several errors appeared in the printed first edition, and I am indebted to friends and relations Rhoda Macleod, John Angus Macleod, my niece Catherine MacDonald, the Revd Roderick Mackinnon, Professor D.W.D. Shaw, Iain Moreland and my wife, Betty for helping to eliminate them from the second edition. Thanks to Paul Currie, Chris Sugden and my son, Alan, for their efforts in publicising the book. And I must not forget Isobel Macdonald and her late husband, Donald N. Macdonald, who introduced me to the Stornoway Gazette.

The Islands Book Trust and Murdo Ewens niece, Catherine MacDonald, would like to thank the following for their assistance in the original editions of this book:

Gordon Brown	Donnie Morrison
Alan MacDonald	Professor Bill Shaw
Alasdair MacDonald	Stornoway Gazette
Revd Roddy Mackinnon	Brian Wilson

List of Illustrations

Foreword

It is a pleasure to write these few words by way of introduction to this biography of Murdo Ewen MacDonald, who was a family friend for more than fifty years. Indeed, one of his last outings before his death in 2004 was to the christening of our son, John.

Murdo Ewen was a truly great man principled, persuasive, humorous. Even in later life, though frail, he was as engaging, interested and committed as ever to the great causes he believed in. His beliefs shone through everything he did. The story of his life and work, from early days in Harris through the adversities of prisoner-of-war camp to parish ministry and the heights of academia, deserves to be remembered and celebrated.

The Rt Hon. Gordon Brown, MP
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom 200710

Introduction

I am the niece of Murdo Ewen MacDonald, born in the house in which he was born and living in that same community in the Bays of Harris that he describes so vividly and with such fondness.

Having received telephone calls from several who wanted to know where they might get a copy of Padre Mac, I decided to read it again, especially as these calls coincided with an interest from the Islands Book Trust in re-publishing it. The last time I had read the book, after its publication in the early 1990s, I had found it very interesting and had marvelled at the range of experiences that my uncle had had in his life. I enjoyed his sense of humour, which made it so readable.

When I read it this time, however, it had a greater impact on me. Perhaps this was because on my first reading several years ago I knew that he would be up to visit us the next summer and that we would be sitting round the fire in the sitting-room with him, along with his family and friends, and that we might hear some of these stories in the course of the evening. He and my aunt Betty came to Harris regularly every summer. They would usually have family with them and there were always friends that he had introduced to Harris, some of whom have continued to visit. Among these were American friends from his prisoner-of-war days, and their wives, as well as academic colleagues and neighbours who had become close friends. As we sat down around the peat-fire he would tell his friends that this was the room in which he used to do his school homework.

While I consider all the chapters of the book to be of interest, providing a fascinating record not just of his life but of all those with whom he came into contact, I particularly treasure the first few chapters, which describe his early days in this community. He describes the crofting seasons, the shearing and dipping times, the village school and the popular headmasters of Drinishader primary school and Tarberts Sir E. Scott junior secondary school, both of whom were from the Lochs district of Lewis.

He describes the neighbouring ceilidh house, which was still a popular ceilidh house when I was growing up a generation later. He writes of local people whom he knew as a boy and whose descendants are still here in our villages. He tells stories which he heard, and which I have heard from my father and grandfather, such as that of the adventures of the crew of the schooner that would sail from Scadabay to Russia with cargoes of salted herring and return with loads of grain and Archangel tar. He brings alive for us a vibrant community of an earlier generation. I am so thankful for his good memory and that he has set these memories down on paper.

Uncle Murdo Ewen was proud of his community and the islands in which he was raised. Each time he was home he would visit friends who he had known since they were children together in the village.

He passed away suddenly but peacefully in June 2004. His wife, Betty, predeceased him in 1997. We as a family greatly miss him. But we are thankful for his life and for his leaving a record of it, and for including in that record for us a treasured picture of the community in which he grew up, and the people with whom he interacted and to whom he recognised he owed so much.

Catherine MacDonald

Tribute to Murdo Ewen MacDonald

Murdo Ewen was a many-faceted character, distinguished as a preacher, professor and political pundit, but most of all one of the most friendly of men. During the post-war years, indeed for three decades, Murdo Ewen was so well known that many people were unaware of his surname. That itself in those more formal times is an indication of his sheer humanity. He was a preacher of international repute, towering among famous contemporaries whose preaching drew great congregations and whose books were necessary reading for church people.

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