Mary C. Gladstone

“A Scottish Downton Abbey” - Maureen Hodge

by Firefallmedia:

Non-fiction: history, biography

After escaping from Singapore during WW2, Angus Macdonald drowned, when his transport was torpedoed by the Japanese. All the British witnesses but one also died, some cannibalized by the other few survivors. Reports of Angus’s death caused a generation of family silence. As his niece, I revisit his life, from his birth at Largie, the family home on Argyll’s Kintyre peninsula, to his death in the Indian Ocean and find that he died twice, once in fact, and again in the press, slandered by a jackal.

Trained as an effective agent of Empire through his classical, sporting education, which included Oxford University, where he rowed, flew and read Modern History, Angus looked forward to a bright future. He joined the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders and embarked on a military career that put him on the front line in Malaya, in WW2, as Chief of Staff to various Commanders, where he lived in tents, out-ran tanks in his baby Fiat, and escaped, only to die at sea in uncertain circumstances.

Following WW2 Largie, roofless through neglect, was reduced to rubble and with it, our family’s confidence and sense of itself. However, by confronting the controversy surrounding my uncle’s death, I piece together his life and regain his memory.

Order

Blackwells, Waterstones and firefallmedia.com

Largie Castle - a rifled nest
by Mary Gladstone

The Highland Sea Series 1

342 pages: £27 hard - £14.25 paper
hard cover: 978-1-939434-30-2
perfectbound: 978-1-939434-82-1

REVIEWS

“......a most poignant memorial biography, written by a niece about an uncle whom she never met......”  

The Thin Red Line, Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders

“....erudite, deftly crafted, impressively informative and an inherently engaging study......

Midwest Book Review, U.S.A