Maclennan received his early schooling in Grahamstown, South Africa, where his parents were associated with Rhodes University.

[1] Maclennan was launched on a career in journalism by a 1975 position on the East London Daily Dispatch which was then under the editorship of Donald Woods.

At that time, he returned to Grahamstown, Eastern Cape, South Africa with his then wife, Kate Skinner, a librarian, artist and minor poet and their son Seamus.

In the mid-eighties he moved to Cape Town and has worked for SAPA as a journalist, for a number of years.

Besides his firstborn, Seamus, he has two further sons, David and Simon from a second marriage to journalist and author Martine Barker.