Iain MacIntyre. 30 August 1924 — 18 September 2008

Abstract

's antecedents came from the island of Mull in the Hebrides. tobermory, the town of the island, had become congested with people seeking sustenance and shelter after the failure of the potato crop in the 1840s and the subsequent clearing of island estates by ruthless landlords. the 1871 census shows John MacIntyre, aged 48, a shoemaker, and his wife Mary, aged 40, living in cramped conditions in argyll terrace, tobermory, with five sons and three daughters, ranging in age from 17 to 2 years. In april 1882 Peter, the second son, aged 26 and like his father a shoemaker, married Christina McPhail, a 22-year-old dressmaker, in the Free Church of Scotland in tobermory. It is through related grandfathers in the Mull MacIntyres that Professor angus MacIntyre FrS, former Professor of Mathematical Logic at the University of Oxford, and currently at Queen Mary, London, whose family hails from taynuilt, argyll, has kinship with Iain MacIntyre. Peter and Christina's son John was born in tobermory in 1883. Many Gaels left the highlands and islands in search of employment and security. John MacIntyre went to Glasgow and prospered there, becoming principal of a produce-importing business, a large company with one of its major functions being to supply passenger liners. In June 1922, at the relatively late age of 39, he married Margaret Fraser Shaw, daughter of angus Shaw (deceased), a police clerk. Like his parents, John married in the Free Church of Scotland. John and Margaret had three children, Iain being the eldest. When Iain was born on 30 august 1924, the family lived in a flat at 121 york Drive (since renamed novar Drive), Hyndland, Glasgow. Within a few years, as the business prospered, John and Margaret established the family in Mitre road, Scotstoun, a solidly middle-class district of Glasgow. Iain's sister and brother were to die in tragic circumstances. Christina married J. Douglas easton, a research chemist. She passed away in april 1969, aged 41, of multiple sclerosis. In the following year, on the third day of January, Iain's brother, nichol, a produce broker like his father, lost his life at the age of 37 in a climbing accident on the Cuillins, the formidable mountain range on the Isle of Skye. Glasgow underwent great hardships in the years of Iain's schooling and university. John MacIntyre's business suffered greatly in World War II, depending largely as it did on the security of the shipping lanes for the passenger liners that the company supplied. the MacIntyre home in Glasgow was perilously close to the most heavily bombed areas of Clydeside. From 1936, Clydeside was involved with the whole of Britain in preparations for a war that was likely to involve aerial attacks on civilian and industrial targets. Plans were made for the evacuation of children to safe areas and for the protection of the population that remained in target areas. the population was educated about how to deal with air raids and their aftermath, and specialist air raid Precautions organizations were set up with both volunteer and professio...