Charles Macleod

Born: May 29, 1948

Died: September 11, 2015

CHARLES Macleod, who has died aged 67, was a master butcher and island farmer who, with his brother Iain, helped protect the status of the award-winning Stornoway black pudding.

The siblings were among a group of local butchers who successfully campaigned to persuade the European Commission to grant protection to the famous delicacy, ensuring that only black pudding produced in the town or parish could bear the name “Stornoway.”

For most of his working life, Charlie ran the family’s 365-acre hill farm, Crobeag, in South Lochs on the Isle of Lewis, while Iain concentrated his efforts on their wholesale and retail butchers. For Charlie, it was a labour of love.

The brothers were barely out of their teens when in 1967 they inherited the business following the sudden death of their father, Charles Snr. He had established the butchering business which still bears his name at Ropework Park, Stornoway, in 1947. He went on to acquire Crobeag in 1958.

Macleod is the most common surname on Lewis and, as is the custom throughout Gaeldom, sobriquets are often used to assist in identification. Thus, Charlie Snr. was known as “Charlie Barley” and the nickname was passed on to the rest of the family.

Charlie “Barley” Macleod was born in Stornoway in 1948, the younger of two sons to Charles and Mabel, and raised in the village of Steinish. He first set eyes on Crobeag at the age of 10 when his father took him to take a look round the farm which he was about to purchase. Mr Macleod Snr. was a highly respected stockman and his son inherited both his love for the land and his skills in animal husbandry.

After school in Stornoway, Charlie went off to study at Balmacara Agricultural School in Kyle of Lochalsh before returning to Lewis to join the family business.

Crobeag became his life’s passion. He worked tirelessly to reclaim much of the farmland, bringing it up to a high standard and providing excellent grazing for stock. At one point, he had more than 120 cattle and the land provided grazing for 400 sheep. During the controversial Western Isles Integrated Development Programme in the 1980s further investment was made to improve and expand the land, Crobeag became a first class farming environment in complete harmony with the surrounding crofting community. More than that, it served to deliver a high quality product for sale across the company’s counter in Stornoway.

The farm became an obsession for Charlie Macleod. He was justly proud of what had been achieved and regularly exhibited his cheviot lambs at local shows, often emerging as championship winner.

However, in 1999 Mr Macleod was diagnosed with early onset Parkinson’s disease. He was still in his late 40s. Throughout his life he had possessed a keen sense of adventure, pursuing his love of outdoor activities such as water-skiing, scuba-diving and parachute jumps. But the illness changed his life dramatically. Eventually, it became increasingly difficult for him to invest the time and energy required to maintain the farm.

In 2012 Crobeag was put up for sale. Last year it was bought by the Queen’s private secretary Sir Christopher Geidt, whose grandfather established a Harris Tweed manufacturer's plant in Stornoway.

However, despite his increasingly degenerative condition, Charlie Macleod had one last battle left to win. Stornoway’s leading butchers, all of whom produce the area’s legendary black pudding, had become collectively concerned about the use of the term “Stornoway” or “Stornoway-style” on menus to describe inferior black puddings. It was giving their world-famous product, enjoyed by celebrities such as Alex Salmond and David Dimbleby, a bad name.

So the butchers joined forces and began a campaign to gain protected status for the pudding similar to that granted to Parma ham and Cornish pasties.

Their campaign was successful. In 2013 the European Commission awarded the product Protected Geographical Indication, ensuring that only black pudding made in the town or parish of Stornoway can be so named.

Charlie Macleod is survived by his wife Julia, daughters Lorna, Shona and Ria and three grandchildren, Charlie, Ronnie and Eva. Newborn Eva arrived several weeks early, meaning that she was able to meet her grandfather, Charlie Barley, a few days before he died.

Allan Laing