Army veteran who trained as a tram driver. An appreciation
LT-COL LENNOX MacEwan, who has died aged 79, was a Lanarkshire boy who enlisted as a private soldier as a teenager, rose to a senior commission, and then in retirement, took up a new career as a tramwayman at the national tram museum at Crich in Derbyshire.
Born in Wishaw not far from the workshops of one-time tram builders Hurst Nelson and Company, trams pleasantly filled the life of Lennox Norman Angus MacEwan – though by this time, Wishaw had lost its tram service several years before.
The Glasgow system however – the largest single tramway in the UK – enthralled him, thanks to being taken by his mother on frequent visits to see his grandmother. The magnificence of Glasgow and its trams made the young MacEwan an enthusiast for life.
He attended Wishaw High School, but the loss of his father while still a youngster unsettled him. He left school at 17 for the printing trade, but could not find his feet until a sudden attraction for the military came his way. His signing on at age 19 for the Royal Army Ordnance Corps proved the making of the young man.
Tall and with a natural military bearing, Lennox and his talent for leadership was recognised early, and he saw service in several theatres including Germany, Singapore, Cyprus and Northern Ireland, and was commissioned. His time in action in the Falklands in 1982 saw him involved in organising the logistics for transporting men and materials to remote places on the islands.
Appointed OBE in 1991, he stepped down to take charge in the Territorial Army based in Nottingham. He and his wife Beryl had settled in nearby Newark, so when final retirement beckoned at 60 in 1998, Col MacEwan went straight to the National Tram Museum at Crich in Derbyshire to fulfil his lifelong ambition of becoming a tramwayman.
He trained as a volunteer conductor, helping to work the fleet of operational vintage trams. Three years later, he fulfilled a lifetime ambition in passing out as a motorman (as tramway drivers are termed) and became a familiar figure at the controls of some of the 60 trams that ply the mile-and-a-half of tram line at Crich.
No need to ask him was his favourite “caur” was: this was the Glasgow “Coronation” tram, number 1282, and on which he felt sure he had travelled as a boy.
Impeccably attired in vintage tramway uniform on which he proudly wore his military ribbons, Col MacEwan brought to tramway life the soldierly virtues of a positive attitude to life, a willingness to help others, integrity, reliability and an engaging sense of humour.
Nor was he afraid to don overalls and get his hands dirty. Away from driving, he helped out in the workshops. As recently as March 2014, he was part of the engineering team getting a century-old Blackpool tram restored for further service.
Trams apart, Lennox MacEwan’s life revolved round his family – his wife Beryl, daughter Fiona and grandchildren Eleanor and Joseph, along with travel and gardening.
He drove his last tram in September 2014, appropriately 1282. His final wish was that his ashes be scattered at Crich, and this was done to the distant sound of a piper playing a lament.
GORDON CASELY
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