Fighting Mac is brought to book

AN author whose curiosity in a local hero was first piqued whilst a schoolboy in Dingwall 65 years ago will this weekend launch a book on the controversial figure after uncovering fresh information.

The life of Sir Hector Macdonald, focus of a 100ft memorial tower which is one of Dingwall’s best-known landmarks, has inspired a number of books down the years.

Ewan McVicar says he first became aware of the Black Isle crofter’s son, who rose through the ranks from private to major general, while "trudging home from Dingwall Academy 65 years ago and looking up at Mitchell Hill", the commanding location of the tower in the late soldier’s memory.

Knighted for his services in the Second Boer War, the man nicknamed Fighting Mac died in 1903 in a Paris hotel by his own hand in controversial circumstances.

Mr McVicar, whose book will be launched in the town this weekend, said he had thought no more about the matter until "idly thinking about a favourite traditional tune called Hector The Hero" and discovering to his surprise it was about the Mulbuie-born Macdonald.

After delving into biographies, he began to wonder and learn about how the monument, and another erected by friends at Mulbuie, were built.

He says he "learned about the landowners who helped themselves to the common land, the Commonty of Mulbuie, then planted evicted crofters from Strathconon and other glens on the wild scrub land to reclaim it – and on occasion to evict them again when they had tamed the land and sell it on to farmers with money".

He said Macdonald’s own family had been luckier in their landlord, but eventually the farm was sold on, and is now the home of Black Isle Dairy of ice cream fame.

Mr McVicar, who also sought help from Dingwall-based researcher Jonathan McColl, and pondered the displays about Macdonald in Dingwall Museum, will launch Hector the Hero of the North at Highflight Books on Saturday at 2pm.