Chief of Clan MacLeod and owner of Dunvegan Castle;
Born August 10, 1935;
Died February 13, 2007.

The death of John MacLeod of MacLeod, chief of the clan MacLeod and the owner of Dunvegan Castle, may be seen by some cynics as the end of the life of the wicked absentee laird who once tried to sell the Cuillin ridge so that he could selfishly fix up his family castle at Dunvegan.

However, the truth is somewhat different.

While he was indeed an old Etonian with an accent that probably did more to sell life subscriptions to the West Highland Free Press than any heard in Skye in recent years, beneath his confident English manner there dwelt a shy, highly sensitive artist who devoted more than 30 years to trying to save a building that he loved with a passion.

He was also huge fun, great company and a good friend and father.

Perversely, the 29th chief of the clan MacLeod wasn't a MacLeod at all but a Wolrige Gordon, from the highly-respected family of wealthy farming politicians who hold considerable lands in Aberdeenshire and who had married into the family of Dame Flora MacLeod, the 28th chief.

In a legal process that mystifies many, Dame Flora was able to choose her successor as clan chief from her nephews, nominating young John when he was still a schoolboy, on condition that he changed his name to MacLeod of MacLeod.

And so it was that the young John Wolrige Gordon, who won the singing cup at Eton at 13, won it again when he was 17, though the second time his name went on the cup it was as John MacLeod of MacLeod. The shy young John didn't much like this.

Nor did the youngster particularly care for many of the public appearances as the future chief, theatre that culminated in him having ritually to drink a bottle of claret from a bull's horn in front of a large crowd of clansmen, a task he did well after weeks of practice.

After National Service with the Black Watch in Kenya and an education that saw him in America studying business with the future Duke of Argyll, and in Switzerland studying singing, he returned to London for his first marriage to Druscilla Shaw, daughter of the actor Robert. They divorced so amicably that she even went on to baby-sit for his second wife, Malita, a Bulgarian who had also been married before.

The glamorous and artistic Malita didn't fall too deeply in love with the climate in Skye, nor one imagines, was life particularly easy there. John now owned the castle for tax reasons and the charismatic Dame Flora was his far-from-reticent tenant.

There is still talk about the new pink paint in the dining room, seen as particularly unwelcome.

It was at this stage, in the early 1970s, that John started to address the nightmare of owning a building that could hardly be touched without detailed authority from planners and yet required something in the order of, at today's prices, £20m worth of restoration.

It could hardly be sold, as his family had lived there for nearly 800 years.

Back in the family home in London, the good-looking and talented tenor quickly became quite a hit in society, his initial career as a singer augmented by a more successful one as a singing coach based in Cheney Place. Soon the couple had two children and with winters in London and summers in Skye, life seemed sweet.

Except for the state of the castle.

Countless plans were mulled over, often in the freezing dining room, sometimes in the bedrooms with umbrellas erected to catch the drips.

In the interim, John could be seen at countless tourist fairs selling the castle as a destination. He would never turn down a request personally to welcome a MacLeod to Dunvegan and travelled widely, visiting clan societies.

But the castle's condition dogged him almost incessantly. There was the plan to turn it into a luxury hotel - though another storey would be needed and the flat roof replaced; the plan to sell the Cuillins and use the money for the castle and the plan to set up a joint initiative with government and charity agencies.

There was even an American who wanted to buy the Cuillins to save the sheep from the cruelties of farming.

In short, John MacLeod of MacLeod spent more than 30 years trying most earnestly to save Dunvegan - becoming, as one friend put it, almost an integral part of the building in the process.

Two years before his death he married for the third time, this time very happily to Ulrika and, in his latter years, he seemed more confident that a solution could be found for the building. He leaves a thriving tourist business at the castle, a happy family and more than 3000 members of his international clan societies, most of whom hold him very dear.

His son, Hugh Magnus, a film-maker, will be the 30th chief.

By Maxwell MacLeod