John MacLeod

1 month ago | msn.com | John MacLeod

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1 month ago | dailymail.co.uk | John MacLeod

It’s a muggy day in August 1979 and, atop a bicycle slightly too big for him, a mop-haired 13 year-old heads determinedly through western Glasgow by Anniesland Road, Kingsway and the main drag to Dumbarton. He’s a bit lonely, very bookish and, worst of all, thirteen. But he likes ferries. They suggest change, transition, deliverance.

1 month ago | dailymail.co.uk | John MacLeod

In May 2000 I had a memorable break in Raasay, a lush and fascinating island sandwiched roughly between Portree and Applecross. And found myself one afternoon, briefly at the tiller, helming a sailboat in the kindly sou’easter of a summer breeze, of a design that would have been immediately familiar to my four great-grandfathers, all of whom were fishermen.

1 month ago | dailymail.co.uk | John MacLeod

When word came on Tuesday that the Scottish parliament had voted – and by an unexpectedly large margin – to legalise ‘assisted dying’, my reaction was not one of bewilderment or shock. Rather, a cold wriggle in my guts, and of fear. I am in my sixtieth year. I live alone. I am childless. So far I enjoy a vigorous life, a clear mind and robust good health. But, two or three decades down the pike, how might matters stand then, in a Scotland where a decisive moral line has now been crossed?

1 month ago | dailymail.co.uk | John MacLeod

I am meant to be in Glasgow next Thursday evening for some glitzy function – all starched shirtfronts and varnished hors d’oeuvres – but between the mainland and I are miles of roiling Hebridean sea. And, as so often these days in the Western Isles, few plans of action survive contact with Caledonian MacBrayne. The lad at their Stornoway booking-office on Monday could not have been nicer.