View from North Lochs, A

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Writing under the pseudonym ‘Aimsir Eachann’, the late Hector Macdonald scribed a brilliant weekly column that gave a voice to the Scottish Gael at the end of the 20th century.

Inspired by the great Irish writer Brian O’Nolan, who published novels under the pseudonym Flann O’Brien but wrote for the Irish Times as ‘Cruiskeen Lawn’, Aimsir Eachainn commented for more than fifteen years from the North Lochs, creating an array of unforgettable characters, eccentric scenarios, magnificent satire and enraged comment, all of which were entwined with an effortless humour and grace.

Born in Ranish on the Isle of Lewis in 1945, Hector Macdonald worked for the Met Office for several years before beginning a career at the Stornoway Gazette in 1979. This was the first outlet for his weekly columns before he was poached by the West Highland Free Press. Under the tutelage of Brian Wilson he found a true home for a style of writing that could be described as thought provoking, sometimes irreverent, but nearly always funny. Over a period of more than fifteen years he wrote in the region of eight hundred columns for the West Highland Free Press under the guise of Aimsir Eachainn before his death in 1995.