Norman Maclean

Norman MacLean is a man with so many gifts that he can be forgiven for not knowing which of them to employ in any given week. He is a talented piper and singer, a seriously good writer in two languages, a teacher, a traveller, an actor, a stand-up comic and the pre-eminent Gaelic television entertainer of his generation. Favourite of Sean Connery and Billy Connolly can also be added to this list. Born in Glasgow in 1936, Norman was educated at school and university there before going on to teach all over Scotland. He garnered much fame after winning two Gold Medals at the National Mod – for poetry and singing – in the same year, 1967, the only person ever to do so. Shortly afterwards he began a career, as he would say himself, as a clown, and it is in that role, and that of a musician, that he is still best-known today.