THE strongest man who ever lived is finally being honoured on the

island where he was born 167 years ago.

A plaque will be unveiled on Thursday to Angus MacAskill, who was

known as the Giant, on Berneray, Prince Charles's occasional retreat

between North Uist and Harris.

It will be placed within the ruins of the house where he spent his

first six years.

Mr Norris McWhirter, editor of the Guinness Book of Records, will pull

the tape along with the Giant's closest Scottish relative, 83-year-old

John MacAskill, who said yesterday: ''If he was alive today big Angus

would win six gold medals at the Barcelona Olympics with no bother at

all.''

A retired Glasgow police sergeant, Mr Donald MacKillop, 66, a native

of Berneray, raised the money for a cairn and a commemorative plaque.

Mr MacKillop said: ''If he had been born a Londoner a marble statue to

him would have been built long ago.

''The unveiling of a plaque is the least we can do for a very great

Scotsman who has been ignored for far too long.''

Angus sailed from Scotland to Canada with his parents and his 12

brothers and sisters. He was 6ft 4in on his sixteenth birthday. A year

later he had sprouted to 6ft 7in. At 19 he was 7ft 9in tall and weighed

36 stones.

He measured 67in round the chest and his hands were six inches wide

and a foot long.

When he was 24 he was engaged for a five-year theatrical tour along

with Tom Thumb.

The highlight of their act came when he produced the midget from his

pocket and watched him tap dance on the palm of his hand.

One of the earliest displays of his strength took place while he was

helping his father on the family farm in Nova Scotia.

He took up the traces himself after one of two horses he was using to

plough a huge field went lame.

While still in his teens he helped out at sawmills by picking up logs

that would test the strength of 10 men and throwing them on to piles.

He could lift a hundredweight with two fingers and hold it at arms'

length for 10 minutes.

Angus MacAskill was a religious man but enjoyed a tipple. He once

walked into a tavern, picked up a 140 gallon whisky cask, and drank

through the bunghole.

Just before his stage contract was due to end his amazing feats of

strength came to a sudden, painful halt.

A sailor in New York asked him if he could ''put some daylight'' under

a 2200lb anchor.

The Giant raised it aloft and put it on his shoulder. But as he flung

it down one of the flukes hooked deep into his shoulder.

He recovered, but was never able to stand fully erect again. He was 38

when he suffered an attack of brain fever and died.