Chiefs Message 2010

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The Chief’s Message 14th of January 2010

Dear Clansmen

Greetings and best wishes for 2010 to all of you wherever you may be.

Following all the excitement of the year of the “Homecoming” and “the Gathering 2009”, the year ended with the worst snow and ice conditions and some of the lowest recorded temperatures since I returned from Malaya in 1957 to live in Scotland.

Conditions in Fife have been difficult enough, but not nearly as bad as in central Scotland, the Borders and the Highlands.

Our daughter Katie Cox and her family live six miles from Taynuilt in Argyll up Glen Lonan on a single track road. This road has only been kept barely passable due to the efforts of their farmer neighbours. At times it has been impassable. The Local Authority snowploughs and gritters have only cleared the road once. That was only because the main road to Oban was blocked for several hours by a major accident.

To make matters worse their water, which is a private supply off the hill, has been frozen since the New Year. They are having to rely on their neighbours for baths, etc.

These conditions are like the extremes of winter weather I experienced in Ottawa and Montreal. The difference there is that they expect them to happen every year. The Authorities are therefore routinely equipped and geared up to deal with them. In the UK these sort of conditions only occur countrywide about once in thirty years.

Looking ahead; our son Jamie and I were encouraged by the turnout of clansmen and their families at the Gathering in Edinburgh last July, particularly the number who were Scottish residents, a number of whom also joined us in Killin. A number of them expressed willingness to help if it is decided to revive some form of Clan Association or Society. We will be considering various possibilities and will be enlisting their help.

Details of progress in these endeavours will be posted here on the Clan website

Good luck to all of you.

Gunegal.

James Macnab of Macnab.