Obituary: Lt Col Donald Maclean OBE, soldier and voluntary charity worker Born: 25 June, 1936, in Bishopbriggs. Died: 25 September 2012, in Kilmarnock, aged 76 IT IS surely an indication of the regard with which the late Lt Col Donald Maclean was held in Scotland that his memorial service in West Kilbride was attended by more than 400 mourners, many of whom had travelled long distances to be there. But the large turn-out was also completely understandable, for as well as being a first class army officer for more than 24 years, in his retirement Donald had almost uniquely combined a warm and welcoming persona with an ability to deliver complex community projects across the nation without any sense of drama or grating self-aggrandisement. He was truly unique, with one friend remembering him as a "living Paddington Bear in my childhood," and another as "an organiser of truly heroic abilities," and he did somehow manage to combine the ability to be hugely informal and relaxing company with that of being a fastidious and punctilious organiser. He believed passionately that there was only one right way to do a thing, and he always made completely sure that that would be the way anything he undertook would be done. From a career perspective he achieved a good deal, rising in the army to the position of Commander Royal Engineers in Scotland, and then, as a Grade 1 retired officer, being awarded an OBE, largely for his role as the highly successful senior recruiting officer for the army in Glasgow. He was also the president of the Rotary in Glasgow and was awarded its most prestigious honour - the Paul Harris fellowship - and was seen as the mainspring in one of Scotland's leading clan societies, the Macleans. Donald Maclean was born in Bishopbriggs in 1936 to a family steeped in engineering. His great-grandfather had started an engineering business producing cables in Bishopbriggs and latterly his father was to follow in his footsteps, being made a director of the company. However, when Donald was only four, his father, already a Territorial Army officer, was sent off to war, and he and his mother and sister, Lizzy, were evacuated to Troon. Initially he was educated at Glasgow Academy, where he shone, but his subsequent education at a Glasgow tech, where he was studying for a degree in engineering, was less successful, though he did show merit on the rugby field and in the Naval Reserve and could quite easily have been awarded a PhD for his socialising, bridge playing and general joie de vivre. Later he was to make up for this small hole in his education by obtaining a BA at the Open University and an MLit at Glasgow. In 1959 he was called up to the army on national service and was sent to Mons cadet training school where he gained a commission in the Royal Engineers. He loved it and by 1963 had become a regular officer serving for a total of 24 years in locations as diverse as Anguilla in the West Indies and Northern Ireland at the peak of the troubles, where he commanded 6 Squadron Royal Engineers. Other appointments included five tours in Germany, Cyprus, Gibraltar and Canada, where he was an instructor at a Military School of Engineering in Chilliwack. In 1960 he was to marry his first wife, Sally, and in the first three years of their happy marriage they were to have three children, Hamish, Sara, and Sandy. Tragically, Sally had an early death in 1993. After retirement from the army in 1983 he started to make some serious voluntary contributions to Scottish charity life. Still only 47, he became a mainstay of the Clan Maclean Association and his last major contribution was master-minding last summer's Clan Maclean gathering on Mull, which was attended by more than 1,000 people, many being locals who were there for Donald. That event marked the centenary of the similar event that had been organised by his great grandfather and was the 25th such occasion that he himself had organised. This was no small achievement and was recognised as such by Sir Lachlan Maclean of Duart who said at his funeral: "He booked the marquees, he persuaded the rugby club to erect the Mull community tent, he booked meeting rooms, boats, even the portable loos...He ordered and paid for food... arranged for the publication of books on piping." Back in Glasgow, Donald organised the Glasgow Charathon for four years and the 1992 international conference for the Rotarians. His hobby was sailing and at one point he set off to skipper a round-the-world voyage that was due to last for three years, though he was to return early after crossing the Atlantic both ways, much to the relief of his family and friends and indeed the countless charitable causes that had come to rely on him. Politically he was fiercely anti-nationalist and, in a tribute at his funeral, his friend of 46 years, Lt General Sir Peter Graham, was to observe (possibly at Donald's specific instruction!): "He clearly saw the real dangers that the current rising tensions over the move to independence will cause between Scots - let alone between England and Scotland!" Donald Maclean's second, equally successful marriage was to Vera, who survives him, as do all his children and a greatly saddened bundle of grandchildren, friends and admirers. A stone to his cairn. Maxwell MacLeod