John MacMillan MBE, MC

John MacFarlane Bute MacMillan MBE, MC. Soldier and businessman. Born 12 August, 1917. Died 10 March 2020, aged 102
John MacMillanJohn MacMillan
John MacMillan

On the battlefield and in the boardroom, Jack MacMillan was a leader of exceptional courage, composure and skill.

Orphaned before he was three and out to work at 13, he had both fortitude and a thirst for learning that took him from boy volunteer to decorated war hero and respected businessman, growing an empire of 500 shops, 175 restaurants and a clutch of hotels, bakeries and factories.

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That he enjoyed such great success was all the more poignant given his inauspicious start in life and the tragedies that punctuated his childhood.

Born in Glasgow during the Great War, as the Battle of Passchendaele raged, his father was an Argyll and Sutherland Highlander, killed in action when his baby was barely a year old. His mother died less than two years later.

An only child, he was taken in by an aunt and educated at Auldhouse School near East Kilbride where he learned the alphabet by drawing letters in sand. There his future potential was spotted early by a teacher who exhorted the smart youngster to aim for university. But tragedy befell again when the death of his uncle plunged the family into poverty and he had to leave school to help provide for them.

Various temporary jobs followed and he enlisted in the Territorial Army, albeit under age, as Boy MacMillan. However he was obsessed with knowledge, buying a pocket dictionary and resolving to learn the definition and spelling of at least six words each day.

In 1939, as the threat of war loomed once more, he again joined the TA, this time as a 21-year-old, and was immediately promoted to lance bombardier and posted to a squad for officer selection. A sergeant when war was declared on Germany, he subsequently turned down the chance to become an officer so he could keep a promise to look after his younger cousin.

A posting to East Anglia as battery sergeant major in the Royal Artillery proved fateful when he met the love of his life there, Daphne Spencer. They married in June 1942 and two years later he found himself in the mayhem of D-Day, landing on the beaches in Normandy. Within three weeks he was granted an immediate commission on the battlefield.

The country had been at war for almost five years but his own finest hour was about to come that autumn as the fighting moved through Belgium. Now a 2nd lieutenant he was on duty at Regimental HQ 131 Field Regiment, near Tongerloo, just south of the Albert Canal, when a member of the Maquis resistance provided information about enemy troops on the other side of the waterway.

MacMillan volunteered to cross the canal with a reconnaissance party to scout out the Germans’ position. He found a boat, navigated the canal and advanced two miles inland capturing a number of Germans. When they divulged the next village was also held by the enemy he continued the daylight recce for another two miles. On reaching it he dispersed his party tactically with a show of small arms fire, tricking the enemy into thinking they were being attacked in force. As a result he captured another 20 prisoners.

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By this time he was three miles inside enemy lines and over a formidable water obstacle which no other troops were across – audacious actions that earned him the Military Cross.

“He showed initiative and an offensive spirit of a very high order upholding the highest tradition of the service,” stated his citation.

It was a measure of his stature among his men that all those who accompanied him were volunteers, prepared to follow a man they admired and trusted.

He remained in the army after the war ended, his wife and young daughter joining him in Oldenburg, Germany in a requisitioned house. Their son was born in 1948 and in 1953 he was posted to Singapore, returning to London and the War Office

He left the service with the rank of major, opting for a more settled life and taking a job with DS Crawford bakers, confectioners and restaurateurs in Edinburgh. He became general manager in 1960 and was made managing director and a member of the board when the company was acquired by United Biscuits.

During a hugely successful career he oversaw massive expansion of the business from just 15 shops and nine restaurants to a small empire that included meat companies, a jam factory, fish farms and more than 7000 employees – a staggering achievement for a soldier with no experience of commerce.

Respected as a hard-working, firm but fair leader, in retirement he utilised his acumen more widely as: chairman of the Prince’s Youth Business Trust in Lothian and Borders and of the Territorial Army’s Employers Liaison committee; a director of Old Town Trust and a member of Murrayfield Hospital board, Wester Hailes Community Action Group and Queen Margaret College’s advisory committee. He also started and ran the Taste of Scotland, authoring the annual guide to eating out across Scotland. In 1987 he was made an MBE as chairman of Edinburgh Venture Enterprise Trust.

He finally retired from public life at 77 and was still frequently visiting his daughter in 
Australia well into his 90s. Aged 99 and more than 70 years after the Normandy landings, he was finally recognised with the French Legion D’Honneur for his actions on D-Day, a day he said he could never forget.

Widowed in 2011, he is survived by his daughter Sandra, son Clive, five grandchildren and nine great grandchildren.

ALISON SHAW

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