Calum MacLeod (of Raasay)

Malcolm Macleod (Scottish Gaelic: Calum Macleòid), BEM (15 November 1911 – 26 January 1988) was a crofter who famously built Calum's Road on the Island of Raasay, Scotland. He was Local Assistant Keeper of Rona Lighthouse and the part-time postman for the north end of Raasay.

Calum was the son of Donald Macleod of Arnish Raasay and Julia Gilles of Fladda. He was born in Glasgow as his father was working in the merchant navy. With the outbreak of World War I, Calum and his mother moved to the croft and house adjacent to that of his grandfather, in northern Raasay. Calum had 2 brothers, Ronald and Charles, and 3 sisters, Bella Dolly (died in the 1919 Spanish flu pandemic), Katie and Bella.

Calum attended Torran school, with its single teacher, James Mackinnon (Seumas Ruadh). He married Alexandrina (Lexie) Macdonald (1911–2001).

Calum and his brother, Charles, constructed the track from Torran to Fladda (Eilean Fladday), over three winters from 1949–1952. For this, they were each paid £35 a year by the local council.

After decades of unsuccessful campaigning by the inhabitants of the north end of Raasay for a road, and several failed grant applications, Calum decided to build the road himself. Purchasing Thomas Aitken's manual Road Making & Maintenance: A Practical Treatise for Engineers, Surveyors and Others (London, 1900), for half a crown, he started work, replacing the old narrow footpath. Over a period of about ten years (1964–1974), he constructed one and three quarter miles of road between Brochel Castle and Arnish, using little more than a shovel, a pick and a wheelbarrow. Initial blasting work was carried out and funded, to the sum of £1,900, by the Department of Agriculture's Engineering Department, who supplied a compressor, explosives, driller, blaster, and men.

Several years after its completion, the road was finally adopted and surfaced by the local council. By then, Calum and his wife, Lexie, were the last inhabitants of Arnish.

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