Malcolm Macleod, Carloway

Stornoway Gazette, 25 December 1942
It was with bated breath that word was passed round the district of Carloway on Saturday 21st November "Mharbhadh Calum an t-Saighdeir", as if the person passing on the news wished to minimise the shock he knew his words would carry. And well he should, foro a charming acquaintance, a kindly friend and a delightful companion has been lost to us in the death of Calum.
L/Cpl Piper Malcolm Macleod was a regular army soldier before the war, serving in the Seaforth Highlanders, in which his father served before him during the South African war, and in which an uncle served shortly afterwards as a piper. Malcolm could be nothing but a soldier. He joined the local Territorial unit at 16 years of age, and the Royal Naval Resreve at 18 years, but was back in the Seaforths at 23. All his life devoted to music, he soon found himself in the pipe band, no doubt realising his childhood dreams;and it is very probable that it was thus he fell in November last, a piper of the Seaforths leadings the regiment in battle. So much has been said and written of the gallant bearing of the Highland regiments in that epoch-making assault on the enemy's defences near El-Alamein, where Calum fell, an action upon which so much is now known tohave depended, that it is assured that the glory o fbattle shall be theirs for ever.
At 11 Garenin, the widowed mother and his two sisters are now mourning his loss in searing sorrow, while a brother, Kenneth, is in the Merchant Navy, and another brother, Murdo, an officer in the Merchant Navy of the USA, may also bynow have received news of the bitter blow. We remember that a leading trait in Malcolm's own personality was the gift of dispelling grief and sadness by his lovable presence, and so may they now be sustained by Him who knows what grief and sorrow is.

O'er danger cliffs we climbed
To the beckoning finger of Youth;
Eager, expectant, and sometimes blind
To safety-signals from Truth
As she stood so close on the rock nearby
We heard the voice from her mouth

But fancy would fill our new-swept mind
With riot of gladness and song;
And we thrilled to the pulse of those of our kind
Who are young and free and strong;
But we slept one night and woke to find
The struggle of Right and Wrong

Now another signal pierces the gloom
Of the smoke-pall over the skies
A call to free the world from doom
If it's ready to pay the price
You answered, my comrade, in other's room -
God bless the sacrifice