John MacLeod was born in Lochaber in 1966. After graduating from Edinburgh University, he began his career at BBC Highland in Inverness and quickly established himself as a freelance writer. He won Scottish Journalist of the Year in 1991 and contributed regularly to The Scotsman and The Herald. He is presently a columnist with the Scottish Daily Mail and is the author of several books.
In addition to playing a brief role with Western Isles Health Board, he was famously dismissed from his Herald column after the paper published his article on the Soham deaths of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman which led with a local minister’s quote:
Had the parents of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman kept the Lord’s Day, their daughters would still be alive.
They would have spent the day at rest or the private and public worship of God, and not been wandering the countryside, prey for whatever evil finally befell them.
John currently lives on a croft on the west side of Lewis with a small, elderly dog, two melodeons, a 4-oven Aga and too many chickens. He spends his time writing to local internet news sites defending our right not to have Sunday ferry sailings and generally winding up conversely opinionated “incomers”.
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Est. 22.01.07
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Nice. There’s also his (apparently) hilarious short tenure as PR person for the Western Isles Health board.
And we’re having a poll to determine the slogan on the campaign medals for all those who wrote to Heb News and got a long letter from himself in reply. Please vote here.
Damn, forgot about that! A quick edit is required…
Guilty confession is that I really like his writing style (homophobic and other ridiculously insensitive comments aside) and have enjoyed his books. Hell, I even agree with some of his take on the ferry debate.
For shame.
The idea of employing John MacLeod as a PR person is quite hilarious. There can be few people more lacking in empathy with his fellow man, or quite so sure that they are themselves on the right track.
@croft – He’s got a flexible tongue (or pen, I guess I mean) but in this current argument his logic is distinctly lacking, which makes me doubt his wisdom generally. The Iolaire book is good – not so convinced about the Banner. A blind spot, I reckon.
Has Macleod been kicked out of Shawbost as well? The address on his rants is Maryhill (beside Marybank) on the outskirts of Stornoway. He was invited to leave Tarbert so I wouldn’t be surprised.
A rabid homophobe outed as a homo by a gay magazine? Well well, I hadn’t heard that one.
So there is a God, after all.
Not sure what has been more unpleasant during last week….Midge onslaughts (stand next to me you will be safe they are all on me!!!) or yet another letter from our prolific writer…..maybe he thinks quantity/volume will will the debate!!
I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again, I actually agree with much of his stance on the ferry sailings and I’ve quite enjoyed his contributions to a very one-sided the Heb News “debate”. Also thought many of the online responses to his, admittedly belligerent, letters were pretty ugly.
Whooly uncool to admit this publicly but there you go (as Kenny MacLeod would say when he wasn’t being arrested).
A cheerful note to ask the author of this entertaining blog (who hides behind blissful anonymity – at least, I can’t find any contact details) to drop me a private word. My email address is jm.macleod@btinternet.com – no secret there; it’s printed below my newspaper column every Thursday – and my very minor beef is that some of the things said, both in your blog post and in approved comments, are factually untrue.
You don’t have to get in touch, of course; but if you choose to stay in your bunker I think we can all draw our own conclusions about your ethics, don’t you?
Morning John, you can drop me a line at the_croft@yahoo.co.uk There should have been a link to it somewhere round these parts but I’ll be damned if I can find it either.
It’s not really blissful anonymity, I probably have about two regular readers one of which is my Mum. Besides, the internet isn’t like Lewis (or Cheers) where everyone knows your name. Or feels the need to. And if I was a big famous writer / journo like yourself I’d happily have my email in public view for all the screwballs to bother me on. Gives one a chance to flex the old literary muscles on a regular basis right?
Anyway get in touch and we’ll see about those corrections.