Duncan MacLeod’s first job was delivering groceries on his bicycle, when he was twelve years old. When he was fifteen his uncle, Claude Powell, got him a job as a bricklayer at the steel plant. He disliked bricklaying work, though, and quit in 1945. He went to work as a milkman, but in 1947, less [...]
Categories: Heritage
Tagged: Canada, Cape Breton, conversations, Duncan MacLeod, family, genealogy, history, Nova Scotia
By 1946 Duncan MacLeod, still in his teens, was already a seasoned drinker. He also hadn’t forgotten his experience brewing moonshine with his uncles: one day he and a couple of friends decided they would brew their own beer. His friend Ralphy MacDonald’s father had a little place out on Hornes Road that was empty [...]
Categories: Heritage
Tagged: Canada, Cape Breton, Duncan MacLeod, family, genealogy, history, names, Nova Scotia, Sydney
In 1943, when the Second World War was in full swing, Duncan MacLeod decided he was going to go and fight the Germans. He went to the local recruiting office with visions of charging into battle, but the recruiters had a different vision: before them was a short, scrawny young man who didn’t even look [...]
Categories: Heritage
Tagged: Canada, Cape Breton, Duncan MacLeod, family, genealogy, history, names, Sydney, war
For Duncan and Hughie MacLeod, summers in Glencoe weren’t all about play. One day they were sent to help old Mr. MacDonald down the road. The old man was part of a large family known locally as the Bornish MacDonalds, to distinguish them from all the other MacDonalds, who were (and still are) legion in [...]
Categories: Heritage
Tagged: Canada, Cape Breton, Duncan MacLeod, family, Gaelic, genealogy, history, language, names, Nova Scotia, Scotland
My great-granduncle Dan MacLeod (whose real name was Donald Ignecious MacLeod) was born around 1892 in Upper Southwest Mabou, in the part of Cape Breton generally referred to as Glencoe. In the summer of 1937, my grandfather Duncan MacLeod and his younger brother Hughie were staying with Dan and his wife Maggie in their small [...]
Categories: Heritage
Tagged: Canada, Cape Breton, Duncan MacLeod, family, history, Nova Scotia
Not long after their walk up over River Denys Mountain, nine-year-old Duncan MacLeod and his eight-year-old brother Hughie went to church with their uncle Dan and the other MacLeods. Saint Margaret of Scotland Church in Glencoe had been completed in 1841 and had literally grown with the community: it had actually been split in half [...]
Categories: Heritage
Tagged: Canada, Cape Breton, Duncan MacLeod, family, Gaelic, genealogy, history, language, MacLeod, Nova Scotia
On July 2nd, 1937, after school had finished for the summer, Susan MacLeod put her two eldest sons, nine-year-old Duncan and eight-year-old Hughie, on a train bound for Boisdale. The arrangement went something like this: they would spend a night with the Boisdale stationmaster, who lived above the station; the next day they would get [...]
Categories: Heritage
Tagged: Canada, Cape Breton, Duncan MacLeod, English, family, Gaelic, genealogy, history, language, names, Nova Scotia, travel
The death of her husband at noon on the 2nd of June 1937 was a harsh blow to my great-grandmother, Susan MacLeod. But if she thought that day couldn’t possibly get any worse, she was wrong. After the funeral, Father MacGillivray showed up at the door of her small apartment on Intercolonial Street with two [...]
Categories: Heritage
Tagged: Canada, Cape Breton, Duncan MacLeod, English, family, Gaelic, genealogy, history, language, migration, names, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, photos
My great-grandfather, John Rory MacLeod, was born in July 1889 in the area of Cape Breton island which contains the small communities of Glencoe and Upper Southwest Mabou. (There are several distinct places up there associated with my family, such as Glencoe Mills, MacLeod Settlement and Upper Southwest Mabou, but my grandfather always refers to [...]
Categories: Heritage
Tagged: Canada, Cape Breton, Duncan MacLeod, English, family, Gaelic, genealogy, history, language, migration, names, Nova Scotia, photos, Scotland
A few pages into Alistair MacLeod’s 1976 short story The Closing Down of Summer there’s a brief description of moonshine the main characters were drinking on a beach on the west coast of Cape Breton:
It is the purest of moonshine made by our relatives back in the hills and is impossible to buy. It comes [...]
Categories: Heritage
Tagged: books, Canada, Cape Breton, Duncan MacLeod, family, Gaelic, genealogy, history, names, Nova Scotia
As I’ve been interested in history and genealogy for many years now, I’ve often found myself wishing I had a time machine, to see places as they once were and meet the people who contributed to my eventual existence. Wouldn’t that be amazing? Well, what if I told you I could do it?
I was [...]
Categories: Heritage
Tagged: Acadians, Canada, Cape Breton, Duncan MacLeod, English, family, French, Gaelic, genealogy, history, language, names, Nova Scotia, Religion
As a Canadian living in Malaysia, I find it interesting whenever I find some connection between the my country of my birth and the place I now call home. That is, I find it interesting when two seemingly separate aspects of my life intersect beyond the boundaries of my little family, like one time when [...]
Categories: Miscellaneous
What is this, a treasure hunt? How could those things possibly go together? Well, they could in MACVAYSIA. I’d like to tell you about an interesting (or perhaps just plain stupid) habit I’ve developed. Have you ever taken great care to iron a shirt, but then after you’ve put it on and tucked it in [...]
Categories: General
Tagged: Canada, Cape Breton, family, Gaelic, genealogy, history, language, MacVay, Malaysia
OK, I guess one of the first things I should do here is explain the meanings of the strange-looking foreign words at the top of this page [Update: As you can see, the phrases I'm about to mention are no longer at the top of the page]. Malays or any other Muslims will immediately recognize [...]
Categories: General
Tagged: Canada, Cape Breton, English, family, Gaelic, genealogy, history, immigration, Ireland, language, MacLeod, MacVay, Malaysia, Nova Scotia, Scotland, Sydney, Ulster
Malaysian Cops Deserve a Raise 0
I’m not a big fan of the Royal Malaysian Police. As far as I know, none of the police reports I’ve made since coming to Malaysia have resulted in anything resembling a thorough investigation; no one I’ve ever made a report against has ever been held accountable for whatever it was they had done. I’ve [...]
Categories: Commentary
Tagged: Canada, Cape Breton, family, MacVay, Malaysia, Nova Scotia, photos, police, Sydney