Harkness – MacGillivray Stories

I will refer to other members of the extended family who were part of the military service in the world wars. 

Alexander Whitecross Harkness

As mentioned here, my father, Morag’s son-in-law, Alexander Whitecross Harkness, was a lieutenant in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR). He served in World War II at various stations in England and Scotland, as well as Burma, now known as Myanmar.  

As mentioned in another post, my mother received many telegrams from Eigg in 1940, congratulating her on her wedding. My father only received one telegram; this was from the ship he was working on in the Holy Loch, called “Girl Ethel”. 

Roddy and Catriona Campbell

Donald Campbell’s children, Roddy and Catriona Campbell, also served in the forces in the Second World War. Roddy was conscripted in the Royal Navy and Catriona in the ATS. Catriona had volunteered, “I went to a training camp near Edinburgh to learn how to prepare food in a field kitchen. It was really cold there. We had to get up early in the morning and take our mess kit to the canteen for our breakfast before exercise and training. It was quite difficult to cook something nice for the officers with all the rationing, I can tell you!’

Morag MacKinnon (Sarah Victory MacKinnon)

Morag was born in 1919 to John MacKinnon and Flora Campbell, and is the younger sister of Katie MacKinnon. Captain Morag MacKinnon of Queen Alexandra’s Royal Army Nursing Corps (the QA) served in Africa and Italy. She earned a medal for bravery (Dressler, 2007: 131-132). Morag gained her training as a nurse in Edinburgh (Ibid.). She later became a matron in the Ophthalmic Institute in Glasgow (Isle of Eigg Photo Archive, K & D. MacKinnon 73).      

Alick MacGillivary

My mother has four siblings, Alick was the eldest, born in 1919. He was a lance corporal and served in the “Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders”. According to my younger brother Gavin, he was injured in the last week of World War II, and the injury plagued him for the rest of his life.

He wrote a few letters to my mother during the war, one of which is a letter written from the British General Hospital, but he says nothing about his injury in the letter. This is mentioned, and other letters, in the book about my mother’s life between 1940 and 1948. The book is called, “No Woman No Cry, Volume I,” and is posted here. But apart from this, I know very little about Alick’s military career. 

People from the Isle of Eigg that served during the two world wars

Despite the fact that Eigg is a small island with a small population, many participated in the two world wars and many died. In fact, the website in the footnote reports that there were 11 in World War 1 and 29 in World War 2. The website refers to the Eigg Primary School – War Memorial Project. 

The pupils researched the men and women who participated in the two world wars, and have put together a brilliant PowerPoint presentation of their findings, including family trees, photos and stories!

This is quite an impressive PowerPoint of 27 pages! As a teacher, I will give the pupils a grade A+!, and also award their ‘unnamed’ teacher an A+ grade! You can find this powerpoint below.

I have quickly browsed through the PowerPoint but couldn’t see that any of the family trees were related directly to my extended family, although it mentions both McKinnons and Campbells, but I haven’t done any further research here. 

But the PowerPoint mentions  the relations I have mentioned elsewhere here, such as Catriona Campbell, Roddy Campbell and Morag MacKinnon.