By Bernie Bell

I have just read of the  passing from this life of Dr. Euan MacKie.

I met Euan at the Orkney International Science Festival………..I think in 2008 – I’m not good with time!

We got talking, then we emailed each other, and had some terrific conversations, discussions, agreements, disagreements.

I valued Euan, not only for his knowledge, but for his acceptance of other ways of seeing that knowledge. Also, because he was, simply, a very good-natured man. A gentle-man. Polite, reasonable, even when faced with un-reasonable behaviour in others.

I will light a candle for Euan.  That isn’t a religious kind of candle – more, just – a thought about light – for Euan.

I could go on, but I think my best tribute to Euan, at this time, is to place here, copies of some of his papers which he sent me to read, for others to read……….

• Mackie article
• Mackie article footnotes
• Mackie article Fig 1
• Mackie article Fig 2
• Mackie article Fig 3
• T&M

They are only a fraction of his work – a long life, well lived, and a lot of observations made of things which others hadn’t noticed. We mostly discussed archeo-astronomy.

Writing that, reminded me of the fact that, recently, our neighbour discovered that there is a broch just down the road from us, which we hadn’t known about, but are very interested in. When I looked it up on Canmore, sure enough,  who had included the information about this site in his Broch Corpus 1?   Euan.  https://canmore.org.uk/site/2425/north-aittit