Product Description

This book is a parable: a moving story of stubbornly heroic resistance and of extraordinary personal achievement. It is the story of a statement made from the depths of one man's heart in the most practical and indisputable of ways against the unnecessary destruction of his homeland. Calum MacLeod had lived on the northern point of Raasay since his birth in 1911. He tended the Rona lighthouse at the very tip of his little archipelago, until semi-automation in 1967 reduced his responsibilities. 'So what he decided to do,' says his last neighbour, Donald MacLeod, 'was to build a road out of Arnish in his months off. With a road he hoped new generations of people would return to Arnish and all the north end of Raasay...' And so, at the age of 56, Calum MacLeod, the last man left in northern Raasay, set about single-handedly constructing the 'impossible' road. It would become a romantic, quixotic venture, a kind of sculpture; an obsessive work of art so perfect in every gradient, culvert and supporting wall that its creation occupied almost twenty years of his life. In "Calum's Road", Roger Hutchinson recounts the extraordinary story of this remarkable man's devotion to his visionary project.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #61535 in Books
• Published on: 2007-11-19
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 196 pages

Sunday Herald, 27 August 2006
"An incredible testament to one man’s determination not to fold against a
far-off bureaucracy."

Sunday Times, 3 September 2006
"Compelling."

West Highland Free Press, 15 September 2006
"An extraordinarily fine book ... The story this one tells is as good as
stories get."

Customer Reviews

Calum's Road - a fascinating true story . . .
This is one of my very favourite books and one of my most treasured possessions. It is one of those books that you pick up and cannot put down. . . . . I return to it time and time again. On the face of it, it is, simply, the story of a man who, single handedly, built a two mile stretch of road, over difficult terrain, in a wild and remote place. . but it is much more than that. . . and the many layers of it reveal themselves to the reader in much the way that a really good poem reveals itself. . . Calum MacLeod was a passionate man who, believed that Arnish, where he lived, at the depopulated north end of the island, could provide everything that was needed to sustain life . . . and that if he built a road linking the north to the rest of the island the people would return . . . He was a fascinating man . . the story is a fascinating story (far more fascinating than my wee description) . . the book is written beautifully, it is not sentimental and the story and the island are not romanticised . . . a truly, inspirational, magical book.

Calum's Road
This is an absorbing read. You can almost feel the passion of the people of Raasay in standing up for what they believe in, and one man eventually getting a result, against all the odds. Calum Mcleod never gave up until he realised his dream..This is an inspiration in every sense of the word to follow one's heart and if you fight hard enough, it will happen..I am now chomping at the bit to read more of Roger Hutchinson's works.

Brilliant!
This is a fantastic story about a fantastic man. It is funny and informative and really, really moving. I cried at the end, although it's actually a very positive story about hope and accomplishment.