Iain Macleod
Iain Macleod was born at Clifford House, Skipton, Yorkshire, on 11 November 1913. His father, Dr. Norman Alexander Macleod, was a well-respected general practitioner in Skipton, with a substantial poor-law practice (providing medical services for those who could not afford to pay); the young Macleod would often accompany his father on his rounds. His parents were from the Isle of Lewis in the Western Isles of Scotland, belonging to the branch of the Macleods of Pabbay and Uig. They moved to Skipton in 1907. Macleod grew up with strong personal and cultural ties to Scotland, as his parents bought in 1917 part of the Leverhulme estate on the Isle of Lewis, where they often used to stay for family holidays.
Iain Macleod
There seems little doubt that Macleod's wartime injury had combined with his smoking and overwork to shorten his life. Newspaper boss Cecil King (writing in "The Cecil King Diary 1970–1974") insisted that Macleod had been stricken during the 1960s by terminal cancer which had begun to affect his spine. However, Macleod's own doctor, a Dr Forster, said there was no evidence that Macleod was suffering from cancer at the time of his death. At the subsequent by-election, Macleod was succeeded by Cecil Parkinson.