Neil R. MacCallum (15 May 1954 – 9 November 2002) was a Scottish nationalist political activist and poet. Born in

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

, MacCallum studied at Firrhill High School and Napier College before working for the Lothian Health Board. In this role, he joined the

NALGO The National and Local Government Officers' Association was a British trade union representing mostly local government "white collar" workers. It was formed in 1905 as the National Association of Local Government Officers, and changed its full ...

trade union and served for a while as a

shop steward A union representative, union steward, or shop steward is an employee of an organization or company who represents and defends the interests of their fellow employees as a trades/labour union member and official. Rank-and-file members of the un ...

. He joined the

Scottish National Party The Scottish National Party (SNP; ) is a Scottish nationalist and social democratic party. The party holds 61 of the 129 seats in the Scottish Parliament, and holds 9 out of the 57 Scottish seats in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, ...

(SNP) while young, and attended the 1972

Plaid Cymru Plaid Cymru ( ; , ; officially Plaid Cymru – the Party of Wales, and often referred to simply as Plaid) is a centre-left, Welsh nationalist list of political parties in Wales, political party in Wales, committed to Welsh independence from th ...

conference with a group of friends from the SNP, drawing attention by playing the

bagpipes Bagpipes are a woodwind instrument using enclosed reeds fed from a constant reservoir of air in the form of a bag. The Great Highland bagpipes are well known, but people have played bagpipes for centuries throughout large parts of Europe, N ...

at the event.Peter D. Wright,
Neil R MacCallum
, '' Scots Independent'' MacCallum was elected to

Edinburgh City Council The City of Edinburgh Council (Scottish Gaelic: ''Comhairle Baile Dhùn Èideann'') is the local government authority covering the City of Edinburgh council area. Almost half of the council area is the built-up area of Edinburgh, capital of Sco ...

in 1977, representing Wester Hailes. He lost his seat in 1980, but was elected as Assistant National Secretary of the SNP, then National Secretary the following year.Neil MacCallum
, ''

The Scotsman ''The Scotsman'' is a Scottish compact (newspaper), compact newspaper and daily news website headquartered in Edinburgh. First established as a radical political paper in 1817, it began daily publication in 1855 and remained a broadsheet until ...

'', 21 November 2002 While Secretary, he chaired the SNP Commission of Inquiry into the party's structures, and it was he who convinced party leader Gordon Wilson to include

Alex Salmond Alexander Elliot Anderson Salmond ( ; 31 December 1954 – 12 October 2024) was a Scottish politician who served as First Minister of Scotland from 2007 to 2014. A prominent figure in the Scottish nationalist movement, he was Leader of the Sc ...

as a member. He also stood as a candidate in the 1983 general election in Edinburgh South, taking fourth place with 5.0% of the vote. He stood down in 1986, following ill health, and was succeeded by his assistant,

John Swinney John Ramsay Swinney (born 13 April 1964) is a Scottish politician who has served as First Minister of Scotland, first minister of Scotland since 2024. Swinney has served as Leader of the Scottish National Party, leader of the Scottish National ...

. MacCallum also wrote poetry in Lowland Scots, his work first appearing in "Out of Charity" in 1973, and from the late 1980s, he published compilations of other poetry in the language. In the 1990s, he became active in the Scots Language Society and served on the board of the Scottish Poetry Library, and acted as arts correspondent for the '' Scots Independent'' newspaper. He succeeded David Purves as editor of ''Lallans'' in 1995 and co-edited an anthology of writing from the magazine with him in the same year.MacCallum, Neil R. & Purves, David (eds.), ''Mak it New: An Anthology of Twenty-One Years of Writing in Lallans'', The Mercat Press, Edinburgh, In later life, MacCallum suffered with depression and problematic drinking, and went missing on several occasions. In November 2002, he fell into the Union Canal and died later the same day from

hypothermia Hypothermia is defined as a body core temperature below in humans. Symptoms depend on the temperature. In mild hypothermia, there is shivering and mental confusion. In moderate hypothermia, shivering stops and confusion increases. In severe ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Maccallum, Neil 1954 births 2002 deaths Alumni of Edinburgh Napier University Councillors in Edinburgh Deaths from hypothermia Politicians from Edinburgh Scots language activists Scots-language poets Scottish National Party politicians 20th-century poets People educated at Firrhill High School