Willie ‘Buchach’: 100 years of a life well lived

Willie ‘Buchach’ Macleod recently celebrated his 100th birthday surrounded by family and friends, including many of his 13 grandchildren and ten great grandchildren, and a card from HRH King Charles as well.

As he celebrated his milestone birthday, the Stornoway centenarian had one demand for his big day – that it be a family celebration. And so it proved to be as 39 members of the family made a huge effort to attend with many travelling from the mainland and one nephew and his family not just crossing the Minch but the Atlantic, all the way from the USA.

The family marked his birthday in Stornoway’s Caladh Inn and, always the star, Willie himself recited, word perfectly, his famous 12 verse poem about growing old to rapturous applause from all in attendance.

The Comhairle convener, Kenny ‘Flip’ Macleod called in on the morning of his birthday with a card and a hamper of local produce before his card dropped through the door from Buckingham Palace.

“I still take a drop of rum every week,” said Willie heartily in a recent recorded interview. “I enjoy it but I never have any aches, pains or any loss of memory. It doesn't do me any harm in any way. I think it only does me good.

“I saw a programme by a professor giving a talk on alcohol and the amount of trouble a lot of people have had on various organs in the body. He went on about the impact of whisky, gin and brandy on the heart, and said the only drink that doesn't have any effect on any organ is rum.

“That was a medical professor giving that talk and remarkable to come away with the drink I was drinking all the time.”

Born and raised in Stornoway, Willie's adventurous spirit led him to become a renowned figure in the town and also far beyond. He was famously part of the salvage team on the SS Politician and escaped tragedy by mere minutes during the London Blitz in the Second World War.

His early years were spent in Church Street alongside two brothers and two sisters but while both his brothers were drafted into service, Willie was unable to serve after an incident involving one of the very first motor cars in Stornoway.

“I had an accident when I was eight years old when I was knocked down by a car and I suffered head injuries,” Willie recalled, during his recorded interview with MacTV which aired on BBC Alba.

“I was taken to hospital and kept there for a day or two. I ran out of the hospital during the night and the nurses caught me going back to the house and took me back to the hospital. The accident left me with deafness in both ears and I wasn’t able to join any of the Forces.”

He continued: “The first car I remember was the chauffeur at the Caley Hotel. That's the car that knocked me down. That was 1929 or thereabouts. There weren't many cars in the town. Mostly there were horse-drawn wagons but very rarely would you see a big lorry, only wee ones. But mostly it was horse drawn carts which delivered to the shops”.

Affectionately known as Willie ‘Buchach’, it was a moniker he embraced with pride but where did it come from? “I got my nickname because we used to go down to Lower Sandwick on our summer holidays and there was a fellow who used to make little rafts - Iain Skinny,” explained Willie.

“He made rafts on the Stoneyfield shore. I stepped on one and it floated away with me right up by the lighthouse. A Buckie boat picked me up off the raft and took me into Stornoway and they called me Willie ‘Buchach’ from that day onwards and to this very day.”

At just 14 years old he swapped his school books for a tool bag as he became an apprentice joiner, working throughout the islands before he was drafted into the salvage team for the SS Politician which famously ran aground on Eriskay in 1941 with its cargo of 264,000 bottles of whisky.

“We were taking it all out of the ship and loading little boats at the side of the ship for going to Glasgow and we took a bottle of two with us,” smiled Willie warmly. “I remember we got an invitation from Joe Beaton, who was an accordion player, to the schoolhouse for a ceilidh so we took a few bottles of whisky with us.

“There was no electricity then and we were all going about with candles. I wanted to go to the toilet and I was directed through the corridor to find it and I opened the door and found a room piled with boxes of whisky they had stolen and stored in the school house.

“There was us taking up two wee bottles and they had piles of cases of their own. But we had a good night there and we kept it all quiet.

“Later on, I had gathered about 12 or 14 bottles of whisky in my case and I was on board the Politician when the Customs came past. I thought that was my whisky gone but, no, it was one fellow who had 25 cases of whisky anchored to his boat and was drunk all the time. His wife then called the Customs who came in and went to the anchor and picked up all the whisky hidden on the anchor!”

Willie’s talents as a craftsman meant he was in high demand and he was called from Eriskay to London for bomb damage repair but en route home to Stornoway before going on to the capital, he set off with his suitcase weighed down with his liquid bounty.

“I had about 15 bottles in my case but the landlord said I didn’t have enough so put a few more bottles in,” laughed Willie. “Had the Politician gone aground anywhere else in Britain nothing would have been touched on it. But it went aground in South Uist where all the people there had worked on ships and they knew how to open the hatch and everything about them, so they were able to get in among it.

“The landlord put another four or five in and packed it in straw. I had to get the case to Stornoway and I got up as far as Harris when the case fell off my shoulder and split open. Luckily there was nothing broken but the hotel taxi was coming for a fare to the boat. I asked if he would run me to Stornoway. He said sorry but he had another fare so I pulled a bottle out and gave it to him. He took the bottle and turned around and took me home.”

Years later, while attending a house party in a neighbour’s house, he was stunned to discover the man he was sharing a dram with was a Police Sergeant who had been looking to arrest anyone who had taken whisky from the Politician. He revealed that he had been on the pier the very day that Willie was travelling home to Stornoway and had watched him from the bridge of the MV Lochmor.

“Wasn’t that remarkable?,” said Willie. “Fifteen years later, the other half of the story. He told me had heard that the people on the Politician were coming ashore with whisky. He was on the bridge along with Captain Robertson when he said he saw a fellow come over the gangway with a big case over his shoulder.

“He then said to Captain Robertson – ‘that looks like a fellow I’m after’ but the Captain told him to come have a dram and forget about it.

“I admitted then the person who went ashore with that case was myself. Well, he got out of the chair and grabbed me and I thought he was going to take the hands off me. Shook my hand and said ‘I often wondered who it was’.”

Having never left Lewis before heading south to Eriskay, the young Buchach was soon on his travels again but this time he was off to the bright lights of London where he had a lucky escape and to this day he credits surviving tragedy to a dear friend, Malcolm Montgomery from Garrabost.

“He was in the Royal Navy Reserve and he had been taken off the ships before the War and he was a hardman,” recalled Willie. “We were all having a good ceilidh and a few of us went to the pub in London for a pint. I went to the counter with him to get the pints.

“The place was packed and someone started interfering with Malcolm (Calum an Sow) and he wasn’t the type to be interfered with. He flattened him straight away and we left our pints and went to the pub just up the road where we were quite comfortable.

“The siren had gone for the Doodlebugs coming over. Anyway, we were sitting when next thing the place shook with a bomb landing close by. When we got up, we found out it had hit the pub we had come out of and a lot were killed and wounded.

“You weren't allowed to stand around and you had to run for shelter as another one could have come or hit you. I was very lucky there. We would have been in there if not for Calum an Sow. He was the cause that I was alive. I’m alive today because of him.”

Over the course of a century of a life well lived Willie has seen more changes come to the island than most with the establishment of the NHS, the changes in money and the arrival of electricity and piped water ranking among the most significant. His sharp memory recalls the arrival of these amenities and the challenges faced by those resistant to modern conveniences.

“Old people couldn't get over how fortunate they were to have water when it came,” he said. “Especially when the water went to the places they didn't have to go out of the house or go to a well any more”. There were however exceptions, as he explained.

“I had an old uncle in his 90s and his wife came from Uig and was 95. I inherited the house and I knocked the old thatched part of the house down and fitted a nice wee kitchen and bathroom. I took the water in for them but they wouldn't use the water that came out of the tap. It had to come out of the well!

“They had to go down to the shore or the barn to use the toilet. They wouldn't use the toilet and the bath was full of coal. They wouldn't use it or believe in it at all.”

Over the course of his life Willie was involved in a number of businesses and projects, including the establishment of his own company W.J Macleod - Joiner and Glazier, a spell as a retained fireman in the town with his career expanding enormously from his first job was as a bicycle delivery boy for Hugh Matheson’s in the town.

In celebrating Willie 'Buchach' Macleod's centenary, we honour not only a man who witnessed history unfold but a living testament to resilience, adaptability, and the enduring spirit of adventure. Cheers to a centenarian who continues to inspire with every sip of rum and every step forward into the next chapter of life.

The week after his milestone birthday Willie was invited to the Probus Club which he used to attend regularly and was made an honorary member and was given a presentation. He also received a presentation from The Rangers Club where he is the Honorary President.

Finally to round off a week of celebrations he attended the ‘Parliament’ group where he has been a long time member and was given a portrait of himself commissioned by his parliament friends painted by the gifted artist Margaret Ferguson.

“I’m very fortunate. I’ve seen a lot in my life. I’m very, very lucky to have been alive to have seen the changes and very lucky that my memory is as good as it was 90 years ago and for that I’m very thankful but the body is gone,” said Willie.

“My body won’t follow the mind at all. I’m struggling with that but I’m able to look after myself and I have no home help to look after me, dress me or cook for me and I’m able to do everything myself.

“If I want to keep mobile I have to do it. If people keep doing it for me they are as well as calling the undertaker. I wouldn't be able to move at all and that's fate. I have to be up to do what I do, drive the car, get the messages, I’m very fortunate I am still in that sort of vein. I can do these things and go meet the boys and have a dram.”

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