Lt-Col Donald Maclean

Thursday 4 October 2012

Soldier and voluntary charity worker.

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Maxwell MacLeod

Born: June 25, 1936; Died: September 25, 2012.

Lt-Col Donald Maclean, who has died aged 76, was one of Glasgow's most loved retired professional soldiers and a man who worked tirelessly for the city's Rotary Club, of which he was president. He was also the Army's senior recruiting officer in the city.

During his 24-year Army career he had achieved a good deal, rising to the position of Commander Royal Engineers in Scotland and then being selected for one of the few, and very sought after, paid Army-related jobs that are available to retiring officers, that of head of recruiting.He was also one of the main springs of one of the most successful clan societies in Scotland, the Macleans, and organised their annual meetings for 25 years, culminating in last summer's huge jamboree on Mull which as attened by more than 1000 people. That meeting was the centenary of the one that had been organised by his great grandfather in 1912. Donald Maclean was born in Bishopbriggs to a family steeped in engineering. His great-grandfather, Andrew Maclean, had started an engineering business producing electrical cables there and latterly his father was to be made a director of the company.Educated at Glasgow Academy, and then at Glasgow Tech and eventually at Glasgow University, he initially joined the Army for National Service but liked it so much he signed on as a career soldier.His years of military service took him all over the world including locations as diverse as Anguilla in the West Indies and Northern Ireland at the peak of the Troubles,where he commanded 6 Squadron Royal Engineers.Other appointments included five tours in Germany, Cyprus, Gibraltar and Canada where he was an instructor at a military school of engineering in Chilliwack, British Columbia.He married his first wife, Sally in 1960 and in their first three years of happy marriage they were to have three children, Hamish, Sara, and Sandy. Sally predeceased him in 1993.After retirement from the Army in 1983 he started to make some serious voluntary contributions to Scottish charity life, often through the Rotarians for whom he organised a number of Charathons and international conferences. His hobby was sailing and at one point he set off to skipper his Nicholson 32 on a round-the-world voyage that was due to last for three years, though he was to return early after crossing the Atlantic both ways, much to the relief of his family and friends and indeed the countless charitable causes that had relied on him.Politically he was fiercely anti-Nationalist and in a tribute at his funeral (which was attended by more than 400 people) his friend of 46 years, Lt-General Sir Peter Graham, observed: "He clearly saw the real dangers that the current rising tensions over the move to independence will cause between Scots – let alone between England and Scotland."Donald Maclean, who was made an MBE, had the ability to present himself, with great sincerity, as being a relaxed, amiable and cheerful leader at the same time as performing a role as a perfectionist when it came to the detail of organising events and campaigns, and he was held in both respect and affection by many.His second equally successful marriage was to Vera, who survives him, as do all his children and a greatly saddened group of grandchildren, friends and admirers.

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Lt-Col Donald Maclean

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