Allan Campbell McLean

McLean was born on Walney Island, Barrow-in-Furness,[1] then in Lancashire, but he lived in Scotland for many years. His father was a foreman at the Vickers Shipbuilding and Engineering shipyards in Barrow.[1]

He served in the Royal Air Force in the Mediterranean and North Africa in World War Two, later writing about his experiences of time spent in a military prison in his 1968 novel The Glass House.[1] After the war he turned to writing.[1] He was also involved in the Scottish Labour Party for several years, serving on the Scottish executive, and was the Labour candidate in Inverness at the 1964 and 1966 general elections. He wrote a column for the short-lived publication 7 Days in the late 1970s, where he was vocal in his opposition to devolution, and support for prison reform, particularly opposition to the notorious "cage" at HM Prison Inverness.

He is the writer of a number of the children's novels: The Hill of the Red Fox (1955) (a contemporary spy story set in Skye), Ribbon of Fire (also set in Skye around the time of the Highland Clearances), Master of Morgana, The Year of the Stranger, The Man of the House (known as Storm over Skye in the US), and A Sound of Trumpets. Some of his books have been translated into German.

• The Islander (1962) Niven Award
• The Glasshouse (1969) Arts Council Award[2]

• Obituary, by Brian Wilson, The Guardian, 1989

• goodreads entry