Clyne Heritage Society

nickl · Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2008 1:15 pm Post subject: Jackie's Northern Times Obituary

IT WAS NO JOKE that when we ran a Page One picture of the Prince of Wales in Brora in 1980 with the caption: "Who's that talking to Jackie Maclennan?" For Jackie Maclennan, who died last week, has been without doubt the most kenspeckle and respected character in Brora for almost half a century.

His worth as the oldest working registrar in Scotland, 69 years in the post, along with his 76 years as Free Church session clerk, in addition to other community works, was recognised with his award of the MBE in the 1986 New Year's Honours. So it was fitting that the Prince of Wales should have carried out the investiture himself at Buckingham Palace, in the absence of the Queen.

Strangely, though, this douce "toon clerk," more reminiscent in his style to the 19th century than this, leapt into prominence for his protestations in the salacious case of the "Stripper on a Sunday" in 1978 - when a local hotel staged a go-go nude female dancer show during the hours of religious services.

Mr Maclennan was born at Coul Farm, Embo, on 14th March 1902, and educated at Clyne Higher Grade School in Brora. He gained a fair knowledge of French and German before leaving Secondary III at the age of 14. His headmaster, Mr Hugh Ross, pleaded with him to return to school as he had hopes of his entering university. Mr Ross told him: "You will be sorry, John."

He became a clerk in the Brora Colliery office on leaving school and was eventually put in charge of issuing the explosives for deep mining. This knowledge was to be put to good use in the early part of the last war when he became part of the "Secret Army" of specialist Home Guards, charged with the job of fending off and sabotaging any German invasion after the collapse of Norway in 1940.

Officially he was a member of the "auxiliary units" of the Home Forces, with headquarters at Coleshill in the Home Counties. His training was done at Littleferry, Golspie, and at Berriedale in Caithness. "We were trained to blow up bridges and carried a silent weapon similar to the Gurkhas' kukri," he said later in an uncharacteristic aside.

He was called up for full military service, but after only eight days in the Army was returned home and placed on the Reserve. After a year back at the Brora pit, he was once again called to the Colours and soldiered for more than four years in the Royal Army Service Corps.

He was a census enumerator from 1931, and an assistant census officer up until 1971. He was a polling clerk and presiding officer for a number of years at Parliamentary and local government elections.

Before his call-up, he had served 25 years in the coal pit offices and on his return in 1945 Mr Maclennan was moved by mine and brickwork owners Thomas M Hunter Ltd to their Sutherland Wool Mills in Brora as wages and salaries clerk, where he was to work for another quarter-century until official retirement.

A former secretary of Brora Rangers Football Club, he also acted as gatekeeper from their entry into the Highland League until 1992. He had been precentor and church treasurer in Clyne Free Church since 1956, clerk to the finance committee, afterwards the Deacon's Court, since 1917, and clerk to the Kirk Session since 1918. He had also been a lay preacher from 1961 and was superintendent of the Sunday School for 61 years.

In his youth, young Maclennan was something of an athlete; in 1922 he established a county record by completing the one-mile race in just over Sir Roger Bannister's four minutes' world record some 32 years later.

Jack Maclennan, a bachelor and non-smoker, was secretary and collector for the National Bible Society at Brora since 1948, and secretary of the former East Sutherland branch of the Lord's Day Observance Society for more than 20 years.

It was during this period that Brora was rocked by its biggest socio-religious upset this century. The proprietors of the Braes Hotel decided in 1978 to hire a striptease artist for a first public performance north of Inverness - with "Goldie's" show starting just ahead of morning Sunday service in both the Kirk of Scotland and Clyne Free Church. The Lord's Day observers became incandescent with rage, and Jackie Maclennan declared on BBC Radio that it was "the work of the devil."

His deputy registrar at the time was the late, respected seannachaid (storyteller) Hugh Ross of Ardgay, former commandant of the Scottish Police College, one-time organiser of the Highlands and Islands Film Guild and an avowed agnostic. The two of them engaged in verbal tennis in front of the microphone at either end of the registrar's desk.

Mr Ross, then secretary of Brora Community Council, said he considered that people should have the right to worship or be entertained, whichever they preferred. He had no objection to a striptease on a Sunday, though personally the show was not to his taste. Instead, he had watched a performance on the previous night of the musical Oklahoma, performed by the visiting Glasgow Apollo Players, who had been partly sponsored by his community council. The two men, who faced each other every working day across the same desk in the tiny registrars' office in Gower Lane, Brora, stuck to their views - and their friendship. It says much of the character of the pair, so different physically as well as philosophically, for Jackie was tiny in comparison to Hugh's tall military bearing, that they respected each other's right to differ. The striptease went on in a crowded Salmon Leap saloon at the hotel - but Brora never saw another public strip show, such was the strength of feeling generated against the idea.

As an archivist, Mr Maclennan had no peer in Sutherland. His registry office was the repository for all Sutherland records of births, deaths and marriages and thus was the busiest in the county for inquiries into genealogy by people trying to trace their ancestry. In addition to having a busy summer season with tourists, and thanks to the assistance of his deputy, Mr Stewart MacLean, he also provided an unofficial "citizens' advice bureau" before Voluntary Groups East Sutherland set up their advisory service to answer questions about rights, rents, rebates and benefits.

Jackie had a marvellous memory for past events and could give the date and year in answer to many a question put to him. He contrived to keep a huge number of back numbers of newspapers and when he shifted from his home in Stafford Terrace to smaller, sheltered accommodation in Gower Court, he had to dispose of this massive archive of newspapers.

He was Brora correspondent for The Northern Times for 40 years, and also sent news items to the Press and Journal and the John O'Groat Journal.

Jackie's longevity could be said to have been hereditary. The grandfather of Helmsdale-born Professor Andrew Rutherford, the Regius Professor of English Literature at Aberdeen University from 1968 until he became principal of Goldsmiths' College, London, in 1984, and Jackie's grandfather were brothers, originally from a borders family, like so many Sutherland people.

The founder of the Kildonan branch was Gideon Rutherford, a sheepman from the Jedburgh district. When the evictions in Sutherland took place at the beginning of the last century, with the hill grounds where the natives had lived for hundreds of years being turned over to sheep farms, there was a demand for men from the Borders who had skill in handling the Cheviot breed.

Gideon Rutherford was about 39 when in 1811 he came to East Sutherland with his wife Peggy Brown and their three children. Three more were born here. Gideon died at the age of 97 and his wife was 95 on her death.

JAMES HENDERSON

THE NORTHERN TIMES, JULY 2, 1999.
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Nick Lindsay
Chairman, Clyne Heritage Society, Brora