The Strathspey News February 25, 1939
The tragically sudden death on Saturday morning of Mr Alexander McLean, carpenter-contractor, came as another shock to Carr Bridge 'ere the village had recovered from the blow caused by the death under similar circumstances of Mr McIntyre, The Hotel.
Mr McLean, who was in his usual robust good health went to work as usual on Saturday morning. Shortly after he left the workshop to open a garage door and while doing so gave a cheery greeting to a neighbour. Suddenly he pitched forward and expired immediately. On the previous afternoon he had cycled to Tomatin but did not complain of any undue strain as a result. A tragic circumstance was that on the very afternoon on which he died a motor car was delivered to his order which would have lightened his work and saved him long cycle runs.
Mr McLean was one of those truly Christian souls against whom no scoffer dared shoot his shaft. Industrious in business he yet found time to take a leading part in everything for the benefit of the district. He was devoted to the church and as session clerk and superintendent of the Sunday School his place will be hard, if not impossible to fill. At the close of a memorial service on Sunday the congregation remained standing while the organist played part of the "Dead March against Saul."
The Rev. A Armstrong, after preaching an appropriate sermon said:- "Alexander Maclean was one who fulfilled in his life the psalmists description of the upright man. He took no part in any evil counsel but delighted in the law of the Lord. His faithfulness and conscientiousness were no mere pose, but were brought into every department of his life. If one wanted a task well and faithfully done, whether it was in connection with any activity for the welfare of the community, one turned almost instinctively to Mr Maclean.
For many years he had been an elder in Carr Bridge church and session clerk. On the union of the churches he was unanimously appointed session clerk of the united congregation, and no congregation ever had a more faithful and efficient session clerk.
For many years also he had been superintendent of the Sunday School here and gained the affection and respect of the Carr Bridge children. I was privileged to assist him in the work of the Sunday School and Sunday after Sunday I listened with pleasure and profit to the addresses he gave to the little ones. He had no tricks of oratory but his transparent honesty and keen interest in the children shone out in all that he said so that his addresses to them were more striking and effective than many a more pretentious utterance would have been.
The secret of his influence and of his ability to hold the children's interest was in his own true and unfeigned interest in and love for them. Mr Maclean had a gift of prayer. To hear him pray was literally to hear him communing with God. It was obvious that he felt himself at home in his Fathers House, for it was only as a result of much private prayer that a man could pour out his heart to God as he did. And he was no cloistered saint, but took his full share in all the public activities of the village where all that he said and did was informed by his clear honesty and uprightness.
A former minister of this parish is reported to have said that Mr Maclean was indispensable in everything that took place in the parish, and it is only now that he is gone that we realise how much he did in his quiet and unassuming way for the whole community. Though one might have thought that his time was very fully occupied in attending to his business, to his church work and to his numerous public duties, Mr Maclean found time to be a constant and welcome visitor to the sick and aged and sorrowing.
There is many a district where his cheerful presence, his kindly sympathy and his unaffected prayers will be sorely missed. Of what he meant to me personally it is hard to speak, but I cannot let this opportunity slip without paying heartfelt tribute to his unfailing kindness and his willing and self sacrificing help.
The session clerk is in a relation of special intimacy with the minister, and in our association I came to love and respect Mr Maclean and to depend upon him , and never did he fail me or say or do anything that did not increase that love and respect. Our deepest sympathy goes out to those whom he has left behind, those to whom his loss is a more grievous blow even than it is to us. But with them we can rejoice and thank God for the memory of him who's has been taken from us, a memory that will not readily fade; and we can have confidence that he who lived such a faithful Christian life while he was with us here, has entered into life more abundant, within the veil".