Letter: Home truths

CONTRARY to Roger Peart's ludicrous allegation (Letters, 30 May) I am neither anti-English nor anti-British.

However, if Mr Peart took even a cursory glance at books on the Clearances he would quickly realise that the Highlanders were evicted almost exclusively by Anglo-centric clan chiefs and landlords.

The most notorious was of course the English aristocrat, Marquis of Stafford (Leveson-Gower, later Duke of Sutherland). Unlike Mr Peart's progenitors, my relatives were brutally evicted in 1851. They survived a horrendous voyage on a foetid ship only for some of them to die from smallpox six months after wading ashore in Canada.

Thankfully, in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, South America and the USA, the descendants of those cleared are fully aware of their family history.

Donald J MacLeod

Woodcroft Avenue

Bridge of Don, Aberdeen