A commander’s painful toothache shaped wee Alec’s dental career

That was the dilemma I faced when thinking about my grandfather.

As a child, I only knew him as a solitary man who didn’t relate well to children. We gave each other space and never connected.

He died as he lived, quietly and without fuss, in his favourite chair while napping in the afternoon, taking an incredible story of resilience and survival to his grave with him.

And there his story would remain if not for the diligence of nameless souls who toil in the catacombs of the British war archives. A medal should be struck for their dedication to preserving the past.

During the blitz of World War II, the archives took a direct hit from German bombs, destroying thousands of service records from World War One.

Of the documents that survived, every charred and water-stained remnant was carefully preserved and photographed before being uploaded to the internet.

Just eight pages of my grandfather’s military records survived the blitz, but they tell an amazing tale.

My grandfather’s story is of a young man who ran naively into war and experienced intense life-threatening trauma leavened by incredible good luck. A man whose life trajectory was shaped partly by the ravages of war - and largely by a toothache that wasn’t even his!

Born in Laxdale, on the Isle of Lewis, Alec MacLeod signed up on March 29, 1915, joining the legendary Cameron Highlanders. He was 22-years-old, standing five-feet four-and-a half inches tall and weighing 109 pounds. What part of this man’s physique convinced him he was up for a fight? An absolute waif of a human; less Action Man and more Charlie Chaplin in the Little Tramp.

Alec probably didn’t give it much thought. Joining the army was probably a step up from his job as a waiter.

Like many of his generation, Alec likely got pulled into the war by the massive undertow of public sentiment. ‘Doing one’s duty’ was the order of the day. Having two brothers already in the fray likely gave him another good reason to join up.

Based on the few pages of my grandfather’s records, there was nothing ordinary about his military service.

Alec MacLeod would never see action in the muddy trenches of the western front. As part of the 27th division, my grandfather’s regiment (2/Camerons) was picked for an entirely different battleground.

Allied forces were concerned about Bulgaria beating up on Serbia. Something would have to be done to stem the tide. So Alec and his regiment were shipped by boat to the Macedonian front, a lesser known allied campaign.

Alec arrived in Macedonia in early December, 1915. Just weeks later he became a casualty- and not a shot was fired.

Alec was hit by one of the most common and deadly war injuries: influenza. The virus that took down my grandfather came two years earlier than the Spanish flu, which claimed millions of lives from 1918 to 1919. But it was serious enough to send him to hospital for months.

When he was finally fit for service, Alec was thrown into battle. In late September, 1916, allied forces squared off against the Bulgarians at the Battle of Karajakanois.

As bad luck would have it, his health took another direct hit, this time in the form of a gunshot wound to his shoulder. Shell shock would also be diagnosed. Canada came to my grandfather’s rescue in the form of the No 1 Canadian Stationary Hospital, a Quebec-based army medical group that opened shop in Salonica.

Once again, it would be months before he was considered fit for service. But my grandfather would never see action again.

Which brings us to the toothache that wasn’t his - and how Alec MacLeod’s life would be changed forever.

During the Battle of Aisne in 1914, the story goes that Sir Douglas Haig was sidelined by a severe toothache. Sadly, there were no dental surgeons on staff.

You have to wonder if it was anyone else suffering from a sore tooth, nothing would have happened. But Douglas Haig was Commander of the First Army.

One month later, 12 dentists reported for duty at casualty clearing stations across France. By 1918, there were 800 dentists serving in the Army.

Some of those dentists made it out to Macedonia. And on December 17, 1917, Alec MacLeod was assigned to a casualty clearing station as a ‘dental mechanic’; someone who assisted the dentist in the making and adjusting of dentures - much like today’s dental technicians. And it was there Alec stayed for the duration of the Macedonian campaign.

The war to end all wars would come to an end on November 11, 1918. By October of that year, with the end in sight, Alec was hit yet again, this time by the biggest killer of all: the Spanish Flu.

It’s estimated that three to five per cent of the global population succumbed to it. But why did Alec pull through?

It’s very hard to say why his life was spared when millions of people died. But it may have had something to do with the antibodies Alec acquired from the influenza contracted two years earlier.

When Alec finally made it home to Scotland in 1919, he returned to a country in crisis.

With nearly 20 million civilian and military deaths, professional ranks across the UK and Europe were decimated.

Based on his war experience, the newly minted dental mechanic was sent to Edinburgh, where he was trained to be a fully-fledged dentist. A year later, Alec was on his way, a former soldier and waiter vaulted into the professional ranks of post-war Britain.

My grandfather would go on to open a dental practice in Glasgow, which he maintained for over 40 years. But Alec MacLeod’s heart remained in the Hebrides. He kept a strong connection with family throughout the island, especially in Keose. Hiking was a great passion. So was fishing on Loch Erisort.

This article is my tribute to a small and quiet man I never really knew; a man who kept to himself and maintained a polite distance even when standing next to him.

Now I see him differently though; as a resilient and tough survivor who made the best for himself - and for his family - out of a terrible situation.

Iain MacLeod is a marketing writer based in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.

“They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.”