The family connection

I had the pleasure to speak to a relative of one of the victims of the Great War today. The victim was John Macaulay, 7 Islivig. What shone through was the impact that the death had on the man's wife - devastating in a word. She would never speak of him or their marriage after his death. They were to have wed in Canada, where he was working with the RCMP, but instead he joined the RNR during the war. They got married in Stornoway; only months later his ship was torpedoed in the Irish Sea. The majority of the crew were lost, partly as a result of poor weather at the time. John Macaulay was washed up on a beach just north of Dublin, and was buried at Balrothery, Co Dublin.