Donald MacIntosh

Donald MacIntosh has lived a life far more interesting than most of us, travelling to far-flung places in his career as a forester, but it is as a storyteller that he makes his mark. Donald was born in 1927 on the Isle of Mull and moved to Galloway with his family in 1932, aged two. He is the eldest son of a Perthshire woodcutter and until the age of five, Donald could only speak Gaelic.

In the 1950s, after studying forestry in Argyll, he set off to work in the forests of West Africa. To most of the outside world, the interior of West and Central Africa was still known as 'The White Man's Grave', and there were still large parts where its forests were primaeval. It was to be the beginning of a thirty-year journey as a tree prospector and surveyor. Donald began to write after retiring from the forestry business. He found England dull and boring in comparison, and was inspired to write about his experiences as a young man in Africa.

Donald has written a number of books, including an academic work called The Mahogany Trail and his memories of Scotland in a book called Travels in Galloway. In 1999 his book Travels in a White Man's Grave was shortlisted for the 1999 Thomas Cook Travel Book of the Year award. He has also contributed widely to national magazines such as The Oldie and Waterlog.  His latest book, One for the Road, was launched to great acclaim at the Wigtown Book Festival in Scotland in September 2006. It is a collection of short stories with a fishing theme, some of which have appeared in Waterlog magazine.

Donald has the ability to convey events in a humorous, but never sentimental way. He uses his great skill as a storyteller to create unique characters that inhabit a marvellous patchwork of places and situations.

Titles by Donald MacIntosh include:
One for the Road 2006
Travels In a White Man's Grave
On the Mahogany Trail
Travels in Galloway
Forest of Memories