A Lewis Odyssey
Iain Smith, Sam Tullis & Robert Locke
[Background note : Lewis and Harris is an island of the Outer Hebrides in the Atlantic Ocean. It has been part of Scotland for much of the last 900 years.]
Saturday 25 April 2015
Drive Glasgow to Ullapool. Snow shower at Aviemore. We board the new Loch Seaforth ferry ; and battle across the Minch in a heavy swell for some two hours or more.
Sunday 26 April
The morning dawns - with snow falling outside as we tuck into a good hotel breakfast. Fortified, we set out for a walk.
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| Sunday walkers |
Our walk takes us through the town and across Glen river into the Castle Grounds
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| (look carefully) a very disconsolate heron |
Despite the snow showers, there is a good view from the Castle Grounds of Stornoway harbour.
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| Stornoway Harbour from Castle grounds |
The castle has a controversial past: built about 1847 or so by Sir James Matheson, then the biggest and most notorious drug-dealer in the world. A man who makes the drug dealers of modern Scotland or Mexico look small time.
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Muriel Mackenzie is a lady who has chosen to be a missionary teacher in the land of her forebears: previously she taught in Glasgow with my two pals. She takes my pals for lunch, while I visit my brother's house and collect a Merc to use for later travel.Then Muriel drives my pals and me to her ancestral heartland: Uig.
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| An Uig Beach; near Timsgarry |
She shows us the remains of her grandmother's house: what is left of a traditional 2-roomed straw-thatched dry-stone "black house”.
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| Muriel at Granny's House |
And we climb to the top of a hill to look both south-east into Harris and west towards Aird Uig. It is cold, and plenty snow lies on the hills. But the snow showers have died out.
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| Looking South- East: Harris hills |
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| Looking West : Aird Uig |
Monday 27 April
We drive 30 miles north of Stornoway to the very tip of the island. First we walk on the machair land and the spectacular beach at Europie. (Not far away, as a result of the sands, there are well-drained, high-lime, low-acid - and therefore high-yield- crofts.) The weather is kind; and we play around on the dunes and on the beach, just as one of us was wont to do in that very place some 60 years ago.
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| Two little boys at Europie |
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| Big boy on Europie beach |
Then we visit the Butt of Lewis lighthouse and view with awe the cliffs and seas. The lighthouse, inevitably, is a Stevenson construction; and it is thought that, as a child, RLS may have visited it.
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| Port of Ness Harbour |
Port of
Ness acquired a pier about 1835 : the number of boats fishing from there
quickly climbed from five to thirty. By about 1890-1914, life for some in Ness
was quite good: fishing (mostly cod and ling) was plentiful and lucrative. An
information board of Comunn Eachdraidh Nis at Port tells us that that a ling would sell for one shilling at a
time when an average daily wage was three shillings.
But
there was a cloud in the generally sunny skies. “high-tech” boats i.e.
steam-powered drifters, mostly not locally owned, came to dominate the fishing:
the Ness “sgoth” was in essence obsolete very early in 20th century. By 1922,
things had become very grim. The privations of 1923, notably in Ness, are well
recorded by Roger Hutchison and Jim Hunter. They were probably a major
contributor to emigration, notably on the Metagama (1923) and the Marloch
(1924).
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We drive down the west coast, taking in the
community centre (Comunn Eachdraidh Nis) at Cross : cake and coffee; an impressive World War I display;
and school archives from the 1940s and 1950s, where I quickly find photographs
of my father, of my middle brother, of me and of some well-remembered teachers.
On to Bragar, my father's ancestral village; and
where he and others of my family are buried.
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| Bragar: l to r - Grandfather; Grandmother; oldest Uncle; (then) Father, Mother |
In Bragar we also visit Jewel, the younger of my only two surviving aunts. We have a great time with her. Jewel has just invested in an I-Pad.
The weather has turned foul.
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At Garenin, there are well-preserved and restored traditional 2-roomed straw-thatched dry-stone "black house”. Only after
the 1886 Act gave security of tenure to crofters
did it make much sense to invest in home improvements; and it took over half a
century for the larger and healthier mortared-walled and slate-roofed “white houses”
to become common and to acquire electricity and running water. The “black
houses” at Garenin were inhabited into the 1970s.
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| Above and below: Wet afternoon at Garenin |
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| Inside Garenin Black house |
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| Harris Tweed weaving: Garenin
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We visit the ancient Callanish stones and the excellent modern visitors centre associated with them.
  
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Tuesday 28 April
We drive to Holm
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| Iolaire Memorial, Holm
Here died over 200 people on 1 January 1919, the majority of them Hebridean sailors returning from naval war service. One of them was my grand-uncle John.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------- We travel a few miles from Holm towards the Eye peninsula, the district also known as Point. Much of Point consists of relatively recent settlements, but Aignish the first village is different, largely because of its fertile machair lands. In particular it has an ancient graveyard and chapel, the latter now in the process of being restored: Eaglais Na H-Aoidhe  |
We visit a friend of mine mid-morning for tea/coffee and biscuits. Given that she is 96 years old, I feel obligated to help in this process. She says “Iain, you are much improved.”
As with Port of Ness the late 19th century was a time of considerable buoyancy in the fishing industry in Point. We visit the old Knock school, set between Aignish and Swordale and now an interesting and lively community centre. Here studied three of my grand uncles, who became fishermen, a grand uncle who became a missionary in Africa and my maternal grandmother.
John Munro (“Iain Beag”) son of a fisherman was born in 1889 in Swordale and raised in Aignish. He also was educated in Knock School; went to the Nicolson Institute where he was dux in 1911; and was killed in France in 1918. He wrote about the Lewisian gneiss:-
What wonder tho’ thy hills be weather worn,
And surface bare of blooming trees, until
Th’ unfeeling, thoughtless ever, call thee bleak?
Know they the sorrows that have o’er thee passed?
The scars thou bear’st to show how thou has felt
The grind of grating ice, ton upon ton
And oceans broad, that capped the long gone world?
We have lunch in Aignish with my cousin and co-author Murdo, who talks with enthusiasm about his sheep. He also has insights into the deep divide in the crofting community on the merits and demerits of wind turbines (of which we have seen many in the last three days).
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We go to Lews Castle College to be given a guided tour by my cousin Donnie
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| Cousin Donnie and colleague Copyright : Lews Castle College |
I once made a speech in this place:-
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| Old codger makes a speech: August 2013 Copyright : Lews Castle College |
"But let me turn for the moment to the foundation of Lews Castle College. Four people met in a room in Stornoway in 1950. They had a dilemma that most of us will never face.
They were part-owners of a castle; and they were unsure what
do with their castle.
These 4 people in 1950 eventually reached a conclusion: 'Let
us make this castle a place of learning.' And that is how Lews Castle College
UHI began. Wise people they were. And their decision was a significant one. Out
of a building created from infamy, they created an institution for good."
Wednesday 29th
It is wet and bleak. Ian Minty takes us for a tour. The Shoe Burn , he tells us, was called that because it was where rural visitors to Stornoway paused to wash their feet and put on shoes.
We repair to the hotel, have coffee and cake; and I monitor the harbour for the arrival of the ferry:-
At 1400 hrs we set sail for Ullapool.
A day later I write to the hotel on Facebook: "Three of us stayed with you for 4 nights 25-28 April. We enjoyed the experience!"
IS
13 May 2015
Wednesday 29th
It is wet and bleak. Ian Minty takes us for a tour. The Shoe Burn , he tells us, was called that because it was where rural visitors to Stornoway paused to wash their feet and put on shoes.
We repair to the hotel, have coffee and cake; and I monitor the harbour for the arrival of the ferry:-
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| Loch Seaforth and Stornoway harbour |
At 1400 hrs we set sail for Ullapool.
A day later I write to the hotel on Facebook: "Three of us stayed with you for 4 nights 25-28 April. We enjoyed the experience!"
- County Hotel "Thanks Iain Smith - delighted to hear you enjoyed your stay. Haste ye back!"
IS
13 May 2015
