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SCOTTISH<br />
ISLANDS<br />
THE UK’S ONLY MAGAZINE DEVOTED TO EXPLORING THE ISLANDS OF SCOTLAND<br />
EXPLORER<br />
Colonsay<br />
Ruined Village<br />
Hideaways<br />
Outer Hebrides<br />
MAY/JUNE <strong>2017</strong> £3.95<br />
Orkney<br />
SPECIAL PLACE<br />
DVD<br />
SKYE HIGH<br />
Monachs<br />
PAST TIMES<br />
Plus: Flying Duchess - Atlas Arts - Machair - and much more ...
Inverness<br />
9-11 Bank Lane, Inverness, IV1 1WA<br />
01463 719171 | inverness@struttandparker.com<br />
Machair<br />
Page 28<br />
Colonsay Hideaways in the Outer Hebrides<br />
Page 16<br />
Page 20<br />
SCOTTISH ISLANDS EXPLORER MARCH/APRIL <strong>2017</strong> Volume 18 / Issue 3<br />
Ross-shire | Gairloch | Melvaig Offers Over £450,000<br />
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Shower room.<br />
Keepers House: Ground Floor: Entrance hallway | utility room | Cloakroom | Kitchen | sitting room | conservatory | double<br />
bedroom with en suite | home office/study.<br />
Upper Level: Galleried landing | bathroom | 2 en suite bedrooms | Further 2 bedrooms.<br />
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facebook.com/struttandparker<br />
twitter.com/struttandparker<br />
60 offices across England and Scotland, including prime central London<br />
struttandparker.com<br />
Editor<br />
John Humphries<br />
editor@scottishislandsexplorer.com<br />
01379 89<strong>02</strong>70<br />
Publisher<br />
Tom Humphries<br />
publisher@scottishislandsexplorer.com<br />
Production Design<br />
Deborah Bryce<br />
production@scottishislandsexplorer.com<br />
Proof Reader<br />
Melanie Palmer<br />
Circulation and Enquiries<br />
Steve Tiernan<br />
www.magazineworkshop.co.uk<br />
01422 410615<br />
Regular Contributors<br />
Tom Aston<br />
Roger Butler<br />
Marc Calhoun<br />
Richard Clubley<br />
James Hendrie<br />
Mavis Gulliver<br />
Jack Palfrey<br />
James Petre<br />
Stephen Roberts<br />
Andrew Wiseman<br />
Administration<br />
Ravenspoint Press Ltd<br />
Kershader Isle of Lewis HS2 9QA<br />
01851 830316<br />
info@scottishislandsexplorer.com<br />
www.scottishislandsexplorer.com<br />
Published bi-monthly<br />
Printed by Buxton Press Ltd<br />
Palace Road Buxton SK17 5AE<br />
01298 212000<br />
Next issue on sale: 18 <strong>June</strong> <strong>2017</strong><br />
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All rights reserved.<br />
ISSN: 1476-6469<br />
Distribution<br />
Warners Group Publications Plc<br />
The Maltings West Street<br />
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01778 391000<br />
Front Cover<br />
A ruin at Riasg Buidhe, Colonsay,<br />
by Roger Butler<br />
CONTENTS<br />
4 Editor John Humphries and Guest Columnist Shona Grant<br />
5 Vision for 2<strong>02</strong>0 with Walks and Rides and the Quiz on Ferries<br />
6 Insights One covers Cycling, Walking, Bothying and Lighting Up<br />
7 Insights Two recommends Richard Clubley’s new book on Orkney<br />
8 Five Weeks on the Monachs<br />
Rosa Baker recalled them vividly<br />
13 Bute has Four A-rated Attributes<br />
Jack Palfrey particularly enjoyed the Bute Backpackers Hotel in Rothesay<br />
15 Islands Beyond<br />
Tom Aston looks to the left of Australia, to Heard and McDonald Islands<br />
16 Colonsay’s Ruined Village<br />
Roger Butler explores the ruins of Riasg Buidhe<br />
20 Hideaways in the Outer Hebrides<br />
Kenneth Steven plotted a journey to include them<br />
24 Readers’ Opportunities One<br />
Socks, Covers, Backpack and ... Skye-high<br />
25 Readers’ Opportunities Two<br />
Souvenirs of Skye<br />
26 Centrepiece<br />
Tanera Ar Dùthaich - Kevin Percival’s Exhibition at the Rhue Art Gallery<br />
28 Machair<br />
Mavis Gulliver has witnessed a decline in abundance<br />
32 A Quiet, Natural History<br />
Stephen Roberts discovers several aspects of Orkney<br />
36 The Flying Duchess<br />
David Saunders traces the life of an avian- and aviation-enthusiast<br />
40 Skye Excites the Emotions<br />
Ron Hill shows how past events can add to our experience<br />
43 Fibre Optic Broadband<br />
Gordon Eaglesham assesses its transformative progress<br />
46 Island Castles<br />
Tom Aston considers aspects of extensive conference proceedings<br />
48 Responses<br />
Jennifer Flynn reflects on a day and night on Arran<br />
49 Crossword Sponsored by the Islands Book Trust<br />
Tom Johnson provides crossword enthusiasts with his 28th challenge<br />
50 Island Incidents<br />
Roger Butler recalls winning a cruise on the Hebridean Princess<br />
MAY / JUNE <strong>2017</strong> SCOTTISH ISLANDS EXPLORER 3
Editor’s Welcome / Guest Columnist<br />
VISION FOR 2<strong>02</strong>0<br />
Editor<br />
John Humphries<br />
on vital elements<br />
of choice<br />
There is an awful lot happening around us and we are in a<br />
position, thanks to modern communicating, to be aware<br />
of it. Much of the stimulus to which we are exposed is awesome<br />
and has never been available to so many people before.<br />
Products that were not imagined, let alone devised, are now<br />
available at the click of a button or the swipe of a credit card.<br />
The process of shopping has been radically changed with the<br />
customer in a crucially powerful position of being able to<br />
locate goods remotely, compare prices, select within seconds,<br />
request them to be delivered the door and, if necessary,<br />
returned without that much additional effort. In some ways, it<br />
has become too easy, with shopping by indiscriminate whim<br />
rather than by considered judgement.<br />
Time has taken on a different perspective, with fifty as the<br />
new thirty and families growing up with children knowing all<br />
four grandparents. Three of mine were long dead before I was<br />
born. Getting older will always have its problems, but expectations<br />
do have a higher anticipation of excitement than in<br />
previous generations. There is also a tendency for old precepts<br />
to take on new aspects.<br />
I learnt the other day that the first purpose-built lido - from<br />
the Italian for beach - was not constructed in Britain until 1935.<br />
Then a fad was underway and 169 were built. Their heyday is,<br />
of course, over, but there has been a recent revival of interest<br />
and some re-construction undertaken to satisfy a new<br />
demand. If you feel compelled to encourage this open-air<br />
activity and learn more, consider the Lidos History Society!<br />
So whether we are, in cultural terms, a ‘leaver’ and want to<br />
move on to new activities or a ‘remainer’ and stay to cherish<br />
existing pursuits, the choice is ours. There are islands, like<br />
Colonsay, which has a remarkably high rate of returners and<br />
those, like St Kilda, where so many visitors are first-timers. What<br />
matters is that we can travel to recapture memories or<br />
adventure to conceive concepts.<br />
John Humphries<br />
For the Editor’s daily item on Scottish islands, go to<br />
john-humphries.blogspot.com<br />
Guest Columnist<br />
Shona Grant recalls<br />
a photographic<br />
upbringing<br />
Growing up on the island of South Uist has greatly<br />
influenced my work both as a photographer and<br />
as an artist. I was surrounded by the sight and sound of<br />
the sea every day as a child and I find that as an adult I<br />
am now naturally drawn to it and return each year to<br />
Uist, particularly in the winter months to capture its<br />
many moods.<br />
The colours in winter can be so striking with slate grey<br />
tones in both the sea and the huge skies that are so typical<br />
of the Outer Hebrides, together with the ever constant<br />
wind. The beaches run the length of the west coast of the<br />
islands and stretch on and on, broken only by the<br />
occasional rocky promontory such as at Bornish Point<br />
or Stoneybridge.<br />
These places are fantastic if there is a big sea running in<br />
a winter storm. Making photographs in these conditions<br />
can be really challenging with sea spray everywhere and<br />
simply trying to stand is difficult. There are calm days too<br />
when I tend to focus on the movement of the waves as<br />
the tide washes in over the shore. It leaves the most<br />
wonderful wave trails when I put a dark filter in front of<br />
the camera lens to slow the motion down slightly.<br />
Another favourite place to go is Howmore with the<br />
river full of peaty water flowing down the beach to the<br />
sea. The rocks there have some wonderful shapes and<br />
patterns which are accentuated when soaked by the<br />
waves breaking over them. I have always had an interest<br />
in photography which, I think, came from watching my<br />
father taking photographs of the landscape and of the<br />
people of Uist and Eriskay.<br />
I remember standing on a chair holding the cameraflash<br />
as he took photographs of a local wedding, and I<br />
often watched him work in the darkroom processing and<br />
making prints. It’s lovely to return to Uist now to make<br />
my own photographs and with all the memories the<br />
island holds for me.<br />
Shona Grant<br />
www.shonagrantphotos.com<br />
The title of this regular item is a reminder that the year in question will, all being well, mark<br />
ten years under the same editor, when he aims to have mastered running the publication.<br />
Time has a way of catching us unawares. At least the year 2<strong>02</strong>0 is flagged when new and<br />
renewing three-year subscribers are entered on the database.<br />
Walks and Rides<br />
The name of Cumbrae derives from<br />
the Old Norse, Kumry. Viking settlers<br />
were probably more absorbed in<br />
matters of domination to consider<br />
walking around the eleven-mile long<br />
coast for pleasure. They would have<br />
had to wait around a thousand<br />
years for the bicycle to evolve.<br />
Coincidentally, Great Cumbrae is now<br />
known as ‘The Island of a Thousand<br />
Bicycles’ - for it is a paradise of cyclists<br />
and encourages them.<br />
The range of machines from the<br />
renters in the only settlement of<br />
Millport is wide - from standards to<br />
mountain models, adult and children’s<br />
tricycles, electric bikes and even a<br />
seven-seater conference variety. Their<br />
availability helps to boost the all-round<br />
year population of 1,376 on the 4.5<br />
square-mile island. It’s a place that<br />
attracts, with an additional 23,000<br />
vehicles to the average arriving on the<br />
ferry during 2016.<br />
Cumbrae has interesting rock<br />
formations, with the fault lines<br />
creating some highly-visual<br />
‘sculptures’, and the raised beaches<br />
and Horse Falls plunging from the<br />
old sea cliffs providing geological<br />
interest. Near the highest point, the<br />
417’ Gladstone Hill, is a natural pond<br />
used for curling and the venue for<br />
the Dumfries Cup back in 2010. It is<br />
also in the area for walkers to<br />
acquire some astonishing views on<br />
clear days.<br />
Quiz: Ferry Connections<br />
The major ferry routes which connect<br />
the larger islands of Scotland with<br />
towns such as Oban and Aberdeen<br />
are very well-known. However, many<br />
ferries come and go between less<br />
populated places. Identify the settlements<br />
with which the following places<br />
are linked by ferry.<br />
The Cathedral of the Isles, the UK’s smallest cathedral, is on Great<br />
Cumbrae, situated behind the Millport esplanade where the cycle<br />
shops are to be found. Photograph from Andrew Wright.<br />
To the north are the Upper Clyde<br />
Estuary, Ben Lomond and the<br />
Arrochar Alps. Turn right around and<br />
the views extend to Bute, Arran, out to<br />
Ailsa Craig and occasionally to<br />
Northern Ireland. Come back a little<br />
and there are the Paps of Jura.<br />
Walking is a special way to see<br />
Cumbrae, with the golf course<br />
extending close to the summit.<br />
However, maybe wait to fly over<br />
from Edinburgh or Glasgow on an<br />
Atlantic crossing!<br />
1. Feolin (Jura)<br />
2. Fishnish Mull)<br />
3. Ulsta (Yell)<br />
4. Clachan (Raasay)<br />
5. Ardminish (Gigha)<br />
6. Rhubodach (Bute)<br />
7. Ellenabeich (Seil)<br />
8. Port Ellen (Islay)<br />
9. Maryfield (Bressay)<br />
10. Fionnphort (Mull)<br />
Answers on Page 50<br />
4 SCOTTISH ISLANDS EXPLORER MAY / JUNE <strong>2017</strong><br />
MAY / JUNE <strong>2017</strong> SCOTTISH ISLANDS EXPLORER 5
Page<br />
INSIGHTS<br />
Index Header<br />
Cycling, Walking, Bothying and Lighting Up<br />
walking,<br />
show all 81 of<br />
INSIGHTS<br />
Page Index Header<br />
Orkney - A Special Place: A New Book by Richard Clubley<br />
Tom Aston suggests you buy into the author’s astute observations<br />
Cycling The Hebridean Way<br />
by The Offcomers - Janet Moss<br />
and Pete Martin<br />
£14.00 Published by the Authors<br />
978-0-9956770-0-5<br />
The Hebridean Way has caught on, all 180<br />
miles of it, from Vatersay to The Butt of<br />
Lewis. The authors have researched with<br />
both diligence and imagination to<br />
minimalise the challenges of long-distance<br />
cycling and maximise the interests and<br />
pleasures en route. Here, in a brilliantlypackaged<br />
book, are directions; background<br />
information; advice on supplies, services<br />
and<br />
If you<br />
accommodation;<br />
regard cycling<br />
detours<br />
The Hebridean<br />
to excite.<br />
The End to End Trail<br />
by Andy Robinson<br />
£16.95 Cicerone<br />
978-1-85284-512-4<br />
Way as an ultimate, then consider this<br />
guide on walking from Land’s End to<br />
John O’Groats on footpaths. The 1206<br />
miles are broken down into 61 sections<br />
of 20 miles each. So put aside two<br />
months, train, prepare and, above all,<br />
consult this reference book and pack it.<br />
Here is a blend of 40% established<br />
long-distance paths and 60% thoughtfully-described<br />
routes.<br />
When on the topic of long-distance<br />
6 SCOTTISH ISLANDS EXPLORER MAY / JUNE <strong>2017</strong><br />
Another Shore - Six Longdistance<br />
Walks<br />
by Roger Legg<br />
£13.99 Xlibris 978-1-4797-6964-3<br />
enthusiasts should consider following in<br />
the footsteps of the author and his treks<br />
across Wales from Rhoose Point to Great<br />
Orme Head; Scotland from<br />
Ardnamurchan to Peterhead; England<br />
from the Isle of Wight to Allendale;<br />
Scotland from Allendale to John<br />
O’Groats; Orkney and Shetland; Norfolk<br />
to the Fens.<br />
Peter Edwards knows his way around<br />
Walking on Rum and the<br />
Small Isles<br />
by Peter Edwards<br />
£14.95 Cicerone 978-1-85284-662-6<br />
and how to communicate local history,<br />
geology and wildlife. Here are 16<br />
routes across and around Rum, Eigg,<br />
Muck, Canna, Coll and Tiree. The<br />
range of walks are from days out for the<br />
family to endurance events for the<br />
initiated. The juxtaposition of OS<br />
maps and eye-catching photographs<br />
gives a sense of sound direction and a<br />
compulsion to explore.<br />
Here is the first guide that endeavours to<br />
The Scottish Bothy Bible<br />
by Geoff Allan<br />
£16.99 Wild Things Publishing<br />
978-1-910636-107<br />
the Mountain Bothy Association<br />
buildings and many other bothy cabins<br />
and mountain huts in Scotland. Two are<br />
on Rum and 12 are on other islands. This<br />
reference book is sturdy, with pagemarkers<br />
in the extended covers;<br />
informative about facilities and routes;<br />
illustrated in a way that takes you to the<br />
accommodation in spirit.<br />
Scottish Lighthouse<br />
Pioneers<br />
by Paul A Lynn<br />
£16.99 Whittles Publishing<br />
978-1-184995-265-1<br />
The author successfully places the<br />
lives and work of the world-famous<br />
Stevenson lighthouse engineers in their<br />
social and historical context. It draws on<br />
accounts by literary figures, Walter Scott<br />
and, inevitably, Robert Louis Stevenson.<br />
The focus is on Orkney and Shetland<br />
with the climax being the rock on which<br />
the ‘impossible lighthouse’ was built,<br />
Muckle Flugga.<br />
Richard Clubley is no stranger to these pages and it has<br />
been obvious here, for at least the past ten years, that he is<br />
in a love affair with islands, in general, and Orkney, in particular.<br />
In fact, he fell for Orkney some 30 years ago. <strong>2017</strong> will<br />
see his new book, Orkney - A Special Place, published and<br />
he and his wife moving there to the house that they are<br />
having built.<br />
What is the appeal of the 400 square miles of land within<br />
the 3,500 square miles of sea? Many of the 21,000<br />
residents are enthusiasts for the area which is often rated<br />
highly in surveys asking about ‘the best place to live in the<br />
UK’. Perhaps the reasons include - the variety of different<br />
aspects of life, the fresh and invigorating air, a sense of<br />
history and a feeling that technological changes are<br />
supporting its future.<br />
The author takes his readers on a series of journeys in<br />
which the focus switches between time, place, people and<br />
events. It all started there in Mesolithic times, some 10,000<br />
years ago, with the first settlers. By the Neolithic era,<br />
Orkney was something of a cultural and<br />
enterprising hub, with present-day<br />
archaeologists revealing more about its<br />
thriving culture, treasures and<br />
complexity of buildings.<br />
This is where a theme appears in the<br />
book, with an emphasis on innovation.<br />
Such diverse topics as the techniques<br />
employed at The Ring of Brodgar, the<br />
exploits in the Arctic of Dr John Rae, the<br />
expertise shown by furniture-makers,<br />
food manufacturers and musicians, the<br />
building of fine churches for peaceful<br />
worship and robust causeways for wardefences.<br />
The ways in which the young reveal their<br />
attitudes to island-life is unexpected. They<br />
may not have travelled far ... yet, but one<br />
senses that they will go places. Richard<br />
himself ventured further than Orkney<br />
Mainland and looks at causeway construction<br />
on Hunda, how an enterprising pair of<br />
ladies walked from Clevedon to Cava,<br />
school-pupils’ responses on Westray and<br />
how Papa Westray has the oldest of<br />
houses.<br />
Lighthouse-keeping has its chapter and<br />
this is timely for the human skills in this<br />
profession have only recently been<br />
supplanted by the ‘robotic staff’ of mechanisation.<br />
Cruise-liners arrive safely and their<br />
passengers will have a brief introduction to<br />
the ancient landscape and cultures.<br />
However, their duration ashore will be ephemeral, at best!<br />
Richard and Beverly Clubley will soon be permanent<br />
residents. They will not, however, be ‘Know Nothings’ - for<br />
the knowledge conveyed in his book will make them<br />
‘special people’, brilliantly-informed and interesting. They<br />
have a head start in having experienced the attractions of<br />
the place for years. Purchasing the book will set you on a<br />
comparable path in which pleasures have been distilled.<br />
Send a 50-word account to editor@scottishislandsexplorer.com<br />
describing how you have been / or think you will<br />
be inspired by Orkney. You may win one of the three copies<br />
of Orkney - a Special Place being given away.<br />
Further Information<br />
Luath Press Ltd www.luath.co.uk £9.99 978-1-910745-95-3<br />
MAY / JUNE <strong>2017</strong> SCOTTISH ISLANDS EXPLORER 7
Five Weeks on the Monachs<br />
Five Weeks on the Monachs<br />
‘One could spend a whole week sharing the<br />
island with 5000 seals and their pups ...’<br />
Five Weeks on<br />
the Monachs<br />
Rosa Baker recalled them vividly<br />
In the Autumn of 1981, my husband and I spent almost five weeks on the Monachs<br />
studying seal-pup mortality. Although it was neither the first nor the last of many island<br />
visits, it was probably the most magical. Heisker is an island like no other and depending<br />
on one’s criteria, scarcely an island at all. It has two names, Heisker and the Monachs.<br />
Actually it is one island at low tide; three at high tide; five if one includes Shillay and<br />
Stockay; and six if one includes the unfortunately-named high rocky islet of Scrot Mor.<br />
Those normally included are Ceann Iar to the west and Ceann Ear to the east, with Shivinish<br />
suspended between them. Some would reckon Heisker to be less an island, more a very large<br />
mobile sand-dune.<br />
In fact, until the 16th Century when a tsunami struck the Hebrides, it was joined to<br />
North Uist by several miles of sand. It is to me, however, an island without peer, my<br />
favourite. Apart from seeing the occasional fisherman, we had it almost to ourselves for<br />
those five weeks in ’81. By the end of our visit, I felt it was ours and definitely did not want<br />
to go home.<br />
Swelled by Some Thousands<br />
We were kept on the island by storms (this was late October) and the seals we had come<br />
to study had all gone to sea, their numbers swelled by some thousands of pups. So vivid are<br />
the memories that it is hard to recall that many seal-breeding seasons have passed since that<br />
year when I felt that the Monachs were mine and the memories just that, memories with<br />
no physical reality.<br />
Here is a National Nature Reserve owing to its machair, seals, wintering ducks and geese.<br />
The wildfowl were arriving during our occupancy and roosted on the little lochan, our only<br />
source of drinking water, filling it with down and droppings. Since then the lighthouse has<br />
been brought back into use and the school-house has been restored.<br />
It certainly needed repairs. One of the first things we learned was that if living in a building<br />
with window glass missing or replaced by cardboard, the best way to keep warm is to pitch<br />
a tent inside the building. People had lived here from pre-history, with a nunnery in the<br />
Middle Ages, to crofters and fishermen until their evacuation in 1942 since when only two<br />
buildings had a roof, the school-house and its privy.<br />
8 SCOTTISH ISLANDS EXPLORER MAY / JUNE <strong>2017</strong><br />
MAY / JUNE <strong>2017</strong> SCOTTISH ISLANDS EXPLORER 9
Five Weeks on the Monachs<br />
Five Weeks on the Monachs<br />
Like Watered Silk<br />
In spite of being almost featureless, the highest point is only<br />
62’ above sea level, great beauty features, both on a large-scale<br />
and in its details. For example, in high winds the sand-dunes<br />
re-arrange themselves in stripes like watered silk. In storms<br />
the sand has it unwanted side when a gently sloping beach<br />
could become a 30’ high cliff, impassable for new-born seals<br />
that were swept out to sea.<br />
One could spend a whole week sharing the island with 5000<br />
seals and their pups and, occasionally, with a feral cat which<br />
a visiting zoologist had left behind. No one but us went to<br />
the north and west, though the south-east and school-house<br />
would fill with lobster fishermen if the weather turned. We<br />
would then move out of the school-room, with its graffiti of<br />
ships, to the larder, with its powerful odours.<br />
They were lovable fisherman, bringing us fresh supplies and<br />
the occasional crab or lobster. In exchange we unravelled old<br />
nylon rope to make lobster-pots and brought firewood from<br />
the beach. Oakum or tarred fibre was picked out on the<br />
Sabbath because it was an indoor activity and therefore not<br />
visible to the Free Church minister, allegedly on North Uist<br />
... with binoculars!<br />
Working-lives<br />
The fishermen had varied life-stories. One was a native<br />
of the Monachs and had attended the school until evacuation.<br />
We had not appreciated that most of them had spent<br />
their working-lives in the Merchant Navy until one usually<br />
silent individual startled us by joining the discussion<br />
with “The last time I went through the Panama Canal<br />
...”<br />
Most were crofters from Grimsay and Benbecula, but<br />
one was Glaswegian, formerly a bouncer in a Paisley<br />
dance-hall before taking up a new life as a fisherman on<br />
retirement and entering public life as a community<br />
councillor. The army personnel connected to the<br />
Benbecula rocket range widened his social contacts and<br />
he was known to almost everyone by his conversational<br />
line, “So I said to the Brigadier ...”<br />
It was he who took us out for a day’s lobster fishing,<br />
thwarted by the few, undersized catches. As a bonus he<br />
took us to the then derelict lighthouse on Shillay where<br />
we saw Scotland’s only black white-coat seal pup - not<br />
melanistic, but born in the former keepers’ coal-house<br />
and thick with coal-dust. The ascent and descent of the<br />
lighthouse was made in total darkness for a torch had<br />
not been taken for fishing.<br />
Our Memories<br />
Here was quite a terrifying experience, with the steps<br />
treacherous from bird-droppings and the twigs of their<br />
nests as well as our memories from literary sources<br />
concerning the wicked uncle trying to kill Alan Balfour in<br />
Kidnapped. The writer was, of course, the really<br />
appropriate author, Robert Louis Stevenson, a member of<br />
the lighthouse-building dynasty.<br />
We recalled our personal space being<br />
invaded when at one sunrise a Sea King<br />
helicopter landed a few yards from our<br />
door landing a doctor wearing a wet-suit<br />
and carrying his medical bag. The reasons<br />
are too complicated to explain, although<br />
connected to Ceann Ear being the only<br />
uninhabited island to have a solarpowered<br />
telephone.<br />
On another occasion a Zodiac inflatable<br />
was run onto the beach, disgorged two<br />
telephone engineers and half-a-dozen<br />
squaddies who spent the afternoon<br />
building a large and ambitious sandcastle.<br />
This was quite a contrast to the time spent<br />
afterwards at home with our reference<br />
books, which provided such information<br />
that the Monachs were an official reserve<br />
because of the quality of the machair<br />
flowers.<br />
Exists in the Minds<br />
As autumnal visitors we could have been<br />
forgiven for asking, “What flowers?” Would<br />
someone who visited in <strong>June</strong> say, “What<br />
seals?” Would we have known about<br />
migrating geese if we had not stayed extra<br />
days because of bad weather? Every<br />
visitor to an island has a different picture<br />
to take home and arguably the island<br />
only exists in the minds of those experiencing<br />
it.<br />
Equally the memories in the minds of<br />
visitors and the images depicted in their<br />
photographs bestow immortality on the<br />
seals, the geese and on such as the infinite<br />
re-arrangement of sand grains to make<br />
ever-differing patterns.<br />
Rosa Baker (1940 - 2016) was born in<br />
Hereford, brought up in the Welsh<br />
Marches and lived for most of her life in<br />
North Wales. Her first Scottish island<br />
was Tiree (excavating with the<br />
Hunterian Museum, Glasgow) and then<br />
Orkney. With her family she continued<br />
excavating and holidaying in Scotland.<br />
She joined her husband on seal-research<br />
field-trips to such as the Monachs and<br />
North Rona. She visited 83 Scottish<br />
islands, as well as 91 others worldwide,<br />
and was in Orkney just two months<br />
before her death despite infirmity caused<br />
by Parkinson’s Disease.<br />
Page 8 Top: The school-house,<br />
Caenn Ear.<br />
Below: The author being rowed<br />
ashore, Ceann Ear.<br />
Left: Cutting up driftwood to burn.<br />
Below: A sleeping week-old seal<br />
pup on Ceann Ear.<br />
The photographs were taken by<br />
John Baker.<br />
10 SCOTTISH ISLANDS EXPLORER MAY / JUNE <strong>2017</strong><br />
MAY / JUNE <strong>2017</strong> SCOTTISH ISLANDS EXPLORER 11
Bute has Four A-rated Attributes<br />
MILLPORT<br />
GREAT CUMBRAE<br />
Cathedral of the Isles<br />
Britain’s Smallest Working Cathedral<br />
Accommodation for Groups & Individuals<br />
Programme of Retreats and Creative Workshops<br />
cathedraloftheisles.org<br />
office@cathedraloftheisles.org • 01475 530353<br />
Garrison House Café<br />
Food … for Thought<br />
Open 10.00 - 17.00<br />
School-holidays 9.00 - late<br />
Hearty Breakfasts<br />
Lunches and Dinners<br />
Healthy Options<br />
garrisonhousecafe.com<br />
lynne.fitnut@gmail.com<br />
Bute has Four A-rated Attributes<br />
Jack Palfrey particularly enjoyed the Bute Backpackers Hotel in Rothesay<br />
Bute is the place to be - with access, activities and accommodation,<br />
all attracting an A-rating. Access from Glasgow is<br />
fast, with direct rail and road routes, taking in a scenic journey<br />
along the Clyde and an hourly, 35-minute ferry-ride from Wemyss<br />
Bay. Alternatively there is a similarly-frequent service from<br />
Colintraive to Rhubodach in the north of the island, involving a<br />
500-yard crossing in only five minutes.<br />
Activities are multiple with daily events in the season and<br />
various festivals focused on such attractions as music, cycling,<br />
motor-cycling, flight, sailing, gin and beer. Accommodation is<br />
plentiful with a range of accredited hotels, guest-houses and<br />
bed-and-breakfast establishments, together with individual<br />
properties connected with Mount Stuart. My attention,<br />
however, was drawn to the Bute Backpackers Hotel.<br />
Here is a capacious hostel-style residence, with space for 50<br />
guests housed in private rooms rather than dormitories. Located<br />
on the esplanade, with sea-views, it offers kitchens, common<br />
room and even conference facilities. Bathrooms and showers<br />
are to be found on all floors, adjacent to the bedrooms. This is<br />
generous accommodation that is available at the equally<br />
generous bargain-price of £20 per night.<br />
A warm welcome is assured by the proprietor of over ten years,<br />
Sandy Johnston, who understands the needs of guests and<br />
strives to provide them. His interests are wide - in property<br />
development, classic cars, writing poetry and music as well as<br />
performing in bands - and his local knowledge means that<br />
sound advice is available for island-explorers.<br />
Bute is certainly an island that invites explorers of all sorts -<br />
from riding the buses operated by West Coast Motors, cycling<br />
both on- and off-road, walking a variety of footpaths, playing<br />
golf on a course with dramatic views, fishing waters from<br />
chartered boats, discovering its six beaches and the fabled<br />
architecture of the Victorian Gothic mansion, Mount Stuart,<br />
with its gardens and woodland.<br />
This was an island famed for providing pleasures. Many took<br />
advantage of the fleets of steamers available in their heyday to<br />
sail down the Clyde to Rothesay. In 1938, the Rothesay<br />
Pavilion was opened on the Promenade and attracted visitors<br />
and residents alike with its grand ballroom, concert hall, wedding<br />
venue and civic centre. It is now a £12 million restoration project<br />
that is due to be completed in 2019.<br />
The map shows that there is much open country between,<br />
ironically, Buttock Point at the top end and Garroch Head at the<br />
bottom. Lochs Fad and Ascog are centrally situated, landlocked<br />
from an extensive coastline. There is even its own off-shore island,<br />
Inchmarnock. So consider Bute as a ‘must’ to visit and experience,<br />
with a fourth ‘A’ word to be included - ‘Adventure’.<br />
Bute Backpackers Hotel, Rothesay.<br />
Further Information<br />
Bute Backpackers Hotel www.butebackpackers.co.uk<br />
Sandy: 01700 501876 / 07746 794935<br />
butebackpackers@hotmail.com<br />
MAY / JUNE <strong>2017</strong> SCOTTISH ISLANDS EXPLORER 13
ISLANDS BEYOND<br />
Small-group expeditions to Arctic Norway, the<br />
Solovetski Islands of Arctic Russia, Greenland and Kamchatka<br />
• Arctic and Antarctic voyages by ship<br />
• Dog sledding, cross country skiing, boating, kayaking, hiking and wildlife trips<br />
• Tailor-made Iceland and the Faroes - flights from Scotland<br />
• Greenland - East and West coast: Wildlife and natural history<br />
• Wildlife of Russian Far East - by ship<br />
• Wild Scotland: Oban - Aberdeen 13 - 23 <strong>June</strong> <strong>2017</strong><br />
• Aberdeen, Fair Isle, Jan <strong>May</strong>en and Spitsbergen 22 - 31 <strong>May</strong> <strong>2017</strong><br />
• Across the Artic Circle: Aberdeen to Longyearbyen 23 <strong>June</strong> - 6 July <strong>2017</strong><br />
ARCTURUS<br />
The polar arm of Far Frontiers Travel Ltd<br />
14 SCOTTISH ISLANDS EXPLORER MAY / JUNE <strong>2017</strong><br />
Please call for a full colour brochure<br />
Ninestone, South Zeal<br />
Devon EX20 2PZ<br />
Tel/Fax (44) 01837840640<br />
arcturusexpeditions.co.uk<br />
01381<br />
In the previous edition my eyes were drawn to the right of<br />
Australasia, beyond New Zealand towards the<br />
International Date Line and the Antipodes Islands. Going<br />
there would have involved a voyage of well over 500 miles from<br />
populated settlements. Look at the image of part of the globe<br />
and cast your eyes to the south-west, beyond Perth in Australia’s<br />
lower left corner, by some 2500 miles.<br />
Here are Heard and McDonald Islands, some 2600 miles to<br />
the south-east of South Africa and about 1000 miles north of<br />
Antarctica. They are part of the Australian External Territories<br />
and contain that country’s only two active volcanoes. In fact,<br />
Mawson Peak, Heard Island, is higher at 9006’ than any other<br />
part of the Mainland. This is just a small exposed part of the vast<br />
Kerguelen Plateau in the Indian Ocean.<br />
Heard Island group measures 142 square miles and is 80%<br />
ice-covered, with 41 glaciers. McDonald Island is 27 miles to<br />
the west and even with Flat Island and Meyers Rock is only<br />
one square mile in extent. The former group has volcanic<br />
activity with the last eruption on 2 February 2016. The latter<br />
was dormant for some 75,000 years and then, in 1992,<br />
showed its active tendencies.<br />
An Open Window<br />
They are distinct and rare places for here are pristine island<br />
eco-systems with an absence of alien plants and animals as<br />
well as virtually a complete lack of human interference. The<br />
conditions that prevail have been described has providing ‘an<br />
open window into the earth enabling observations of<br />
geomorphic processes and glacial dynamics.’<br />
Visitors were not recorded before the second-half of the<br />
Well to the south-west of Australia - Fotosearch.<br />
Tom Aston looks to the left of Australia, to Heard and McDonald Islands<br />
19th Century, although the first sighting of Heard was<br />
apparently on Wednesday 27 November 1833 by a British<br />
sailor, Peter Kemp, while journeying from Kerguelen to the<br />
Antarctic. On Friday 25 November 1853, however, the<br />
American, Captain John Heard, sighted the island, reported<br />
it and had his name linked.<br />
A short time later, on Wednesday, 4 January 1854, Captain<br />
William McDonald, of Scots descent, was the first to see the<br />
islet subsequently to be named after him. The first landings<br />
were some years apart. Captain Erasmus Darwin Rogers led a<br />
party to Heard in March 1855. Then in February 1971 came<br />
the first individuals to record being on McDonald when two<br />
Australian scientists were helicoptered there.<br />
World Heritage Site<br />
There were parties of sealers who temporarily resided on<br />
Heard, under appalling conditions, from the 1850s with a<br />
peaking of their numbers at 200. Since then it has been<br />
occasionally ‘home’ for small groups of scientists whose work<br />
has involved observation, not massacre. The British passed<br />
ownership to the Australian Government in 1947 and the<br />
islands became a World Heritage Site in 1997.<br />
Amateur radio enthusiasts have been to Heard occasionally<br />
and Cordell Expeditions were there last year. The abbreviation<br />
for the two island groups is ‘HIMI’ and the authorities<br />
have conferred internet domain status with the suffix ‘.hm’<br />
This unused facility matches the ‘.bv’ of Bouvet or Bouvetøya<br />
Island, another peri-Antarctic island, the most remote place<br />
on Earth that makes HIMI sound ‘homely’!<br />
MAY / JUNE <strong>2017</strong> SCOTTISH ISLANDS EXPLORER 15
Colonsay’s Ruined Village<br />
Colonsay’s<br />
Ruined Village<br />
Roger Butler explores the ruins at Riasg Buidhe<br />
The ferry is nosing along the east coast of Colonsay and excited travellers peer through<br />
binoculars at the rugged coastline and a knobbly horizon of hills. The pier at Scalasaig<br />
sneaks into view and the pontoons around the new fish farm wobble in the waves. A heron rises<br />
lazily from the shore as a seasoned visitor grabs someone by the shoulder and points to a wedge of<br />
rising moorland.<br />
It takes a moment or two to spot the row of small roofless houses which effortlessly merge into<br />
the heath and the heather. This is the ruined village of Riasg Buidhe and the view from the ferry<br />
shows how its former inhabitants were quite isolated from other parts of the island. Their walls<br />
and gables, now empty for almost a hundred years, are slowly merging back into the bracken.<br />
Passengers have already started to make their way towards the car deck as the line of houses at<br />
Glassard, on the north side of the harbour, comes into view. There have been some recent additions<br />
here, but the original pebble-dashed properties were built to re-house the people of Riasg Buidhe<br />
(pronounced ‘risk-booee’) after the First World War. The ferry groans as it manoeuvres towards<br />
the pier, but the ruined village has now completely disappeared behind a long low headland.<br />
‘Riasg Buidhe includes the remains of a chapel,<br />
which may indicate that an earlier settlement<br />
pre-dates the row of houses.’<br />
270 Million Years<br />
The walk from Scalasaig to Riasg Buidhe passes the houses at Glassard, wriggles across half a mile<br />
of moor and drops towards patches of salty marshland with views to the Paps of Jura. A black dyke,<br />
interspersed with sparkly crystals and dating back 270 million years to the Permian period, runs<br />
along the north side of Port a’ Bhàta, which was the landing place for the old village.<br />
The people of Riasg Buidhe were fisherfolk and, during the week, the men would hole-up in one<br />
of the big caves on the west coast of Jura, possibly near Ruantallain by the northern entrance to<br />
Loch Tarbert. They would return with their catch, under sail or using oars if necessary, though<br />
these trips came to end with the outbreak of war and by the 1920s the inshore fishing had all but<br />
ceased. Yet until the 1970s, the remains of old fishing equipment could be found in a crevice above<br />
the tideline.<br />
Several decades ago, an islander was able to recall: ‘On Sunday you would have thought these men<br />
came out of a mansion. Every one of them had a blue suit, with the trousers beautifully creased, and<br />
even though they had walked across the rough ground to get to the church there was never a mark<br />
on their clothes. Then, when the service was over, they would walk home and away would go the<br />
blue suit, back into the chest until next Sunday. They would then put on their navy blue jerseys<br />
once again, which were almost a uniform amongst them’.<br />
16 SCOTTISH ISLANDS EXPLORER MAY / JUNE <strong>2017</strong>
Colonsay’s Ruined Village<br />
Colonsay’s Ruined Village<br />
declined throughout that century and mirrored the change<br />
in numbers on Colonsay as a whole. In 1841, 68 people<br />
were recorded living in 14 households. The residents even<br />
included incomers from Mull and Jura, but 30 years later<br />
there were only 49 inhabitants in nine houses.<br />
Ten years on, it appears only five houses were still<br />
occupied and numbers had fallen to just 19. They rose in<br />
the next census but, by then, the island population had<br />
dramatically fallen from its peak of 979 in 1841 to less than<br />
400 and only 25 residents remained on the eve of the First<br />
World War.<br />
face peers out from the top of the monument and the two<br />
arms of the cross contain carefully shaped spirals.<br />
The base terminates in the shape of a fish-tail and the age<br />
of the cross implies that the vicinity may have had special<br />
significance before settlement. King Edward VII and<br />
Queen Alexandra visited Colonsay House in 19<strong>02</strong> and<br />
planted commemorative rhododendrons in the subtropical<br />
woodland around St Oran’s Well. The King<br />
apparently caused some amusement by noting that the face<br />
on the cross “Was a very good likeness of the chief engineer<br />
on the royal yacht.”<br />
Page 17 l-r: The ruins of Riasg<br />
Buidhe seen from the hill to the<br />
south of the village. Colonsay’s<br />
new fish farm can be seen offshore,<br />
with Scarba beyond.<br />
This house stood at the western<br />
end of the village row and, in its<br />
later days, was fitted a roof of<br />
tarred felt.<br />
An old rusty bedstead is slowly<br />
engulfed by grass.<br />
This man-made basin, used to<br />
grind barley, can be seen on the<br />
top of a rock in the graveyard.<br />
Above: Stone walls once formed<br />
small enclosures in the area<br />
between the houses and the<br />
church.<br />
Right: Half a mile of moorland<br />
lies between Riasg Buidhe and<br />
the scattering of houses at<br />
Scalasaig. Glassard, where the<br />
villagers relocated in the early<br />
1920s, lies at the foot of the hill.<br />
Photographs taken by the<br />
author, Roger Butler.<br />
Tragic Visitation<br />
Today, the row of empty houses is<br />
reminiscent of the village street on St Kilda<br />
and the writer, Alasdair Alpin MacGregor,<br />
thought the ruins looked like the result of<br />
some tragic visitation. Eight single-storey<br />
dwellings survive and one or two still<br />
retain traces of high-level slots which<br />
supported wooden crucks.<br />
Early photographs show thatched roofs<br />
on the row of the houses which formed the<br />
main ‘street’. This sloped gently eastwards<br />
in the direction of the sea and other<br />
pictures, taken in front of some of the<br />
properties, reveal whitewashed walls, small<br />
windows and well-used panniers. Barefoot<br />
children stand outside a doorway and<br />
washing hangs near two detached buildings<br />
at the west end of the village.<br />
The pictures show that the thatch had<br />
deteriorated and a later photo (taken after<br />
the move to Glassard) reveals that the two<br />
cottages furthest from the sea had been<br />
refurbished with roofs of tarred felt, while<br />
the rest of the terrace now stood empty and<br />
roofless. The houses are known to have had<br />
earthen floors and one of the two basic<br />
rooms would have contained simple beds,<br />
while loft spaces were often spread with<br />
bracken or twigs to make sleeping quarters<br />
for children.<br />
Pioneered Improvements<br />
The two cottages with felt roofs now<br />
stand proud from the rest of the row and<br />
retain chimney-breasts that appear to<br />
have been added after they were built.<br />
However, not everyone seems to have<br />
taken to the new-fangled chimneys. In<br />
1829, Baron Teignmouth reported that<br />
the laird of Colonsay had pioneered<br />
improvements to the island’s housing<br />
stock, but found it was easier to build<br />
chimneys than to get tenants to use them<br />
- even with the incentive of rent<br />
allowances.<br />
The ruins seem to date from around the<br />
start of the 19th Century, though it is<br />
known a small farm was already established<br />
in the vicinity. The population of the village<br />
Uninscribed Gravestones<br />
Riasg Buidhe includes the remains of a chapel, which may<br />
indicate that an earlier settlement pre-dates the row of<br />
houses. A number of uninscribed gravestones lie within or<br />
near the boundary of a crumbling enclosure. A distinct<br />
round basin, cut into a rock in the graveyard, would have<br />
been used to grind barley and the remains of a well can also<br />
be seen to the south of the old chapel. The windswept larch<br />
tree next to the chapel is now showing its age.<br />
The most remarkable remnant from Riasg Buidhe is the<br />
distinctive 7th or 8th century carved cross which was<br />
relocated from the old burial ground to St Oran’s Well,<br />
within the policies of Colonsay House, sometime in the<br />
1870s. This stood almost four feet high, though ten inches<br />
were broken off when it was moved. A mystical sloth-like<br />
Safe-keeping<br />
In 1974, a small cross was discovered in the wall of an<br />
old out-house. This appeared to be part of an old<br />
flagstone and its slightly irregular shape, which was<br />
pecked rather than carved, led some historians to<br />
consider it may have been of relatively recent origin.<br />
Nevertheless, it was taken to the National Museum in<br />
Edinburgh for safe-keeping.<br />
Today, the ruined village would be the perfect setting<br />
for a children’s adventure story. But what happened to the<br />
islanders who moved over the moor towards Scalasaig?<br />
The first of their four semi-detached houses was ready by<br />
1922 and, nearly a century later, descendants from those<br />
families at Riasg Buidhe still live at Glassard.<br />
18 SCOTTISH ISLANDS EXPLORER MAY / JUNE <strong>2017</strong><br />
MAY / JUNE <strong>2017</strong> SCOTTISH ISLANDS EXPLORER 19
Hideaways in the Outer Hebrides<br />
Hideaways in the Outer Hebrides<br />
‘An adventure it was indeed and a privilege<br />
to get a sense of the sheer distinctiveness<br />
of all the islands ...’<br />
Hideaways in the<br />
Outer Hebrides<br />
Kenneth Steven plotted a journey to include them<br />
It was Kristina who gave me the idea, because she had<br />
never been to any of the Outer Hebridean islands<br />
before. We live on Seil, which is best described as a semidetached<br />
island with its Bridge over the Atlantic. The<br />
best of both worlds: the romantic notion of an island<br />
with the practicality of easy access to the mainland.<br />
We have pottered about the other islands close to us,<br />
and been on holidays to Coll, Colonsay and Iona. But it<br />
was Kristina who reminded me last year that we had never<br />
yet been to the Outer Isles, and the beginnings of a plot<br />
began to form in my mind. She is the photographer: I am<br />
the writer. And what I realised was that we could travel<br />
the length of the Outer Hebridean chain - that curling<br />
tail of islands - telling the story of the journey in words<br />
and pictures.<br />
We would begin at the bottom and work our way north:<br />
that made sense because our home-island is only half an<br />
hour from Oban and we could get one of the Hopscotch<br />
ferry tickets that greatly reduces the price of the combined<br />
ferry journeys. All we would have to do was pray for good<br />
weather, for I had plumped for March to stay at our special<br />
hideaway locations.<br />
Early Childhood<br />
I visited corners of the Outer Isles with my parents in early<br />
childhood and had memories of huge gusting skies, black and<br />
white flurries of sheepdogs, Gaelic phrases taught by crofters<br />
and endless beaches. But we had gone in the summer, when<br />
the promise of blue sky was almost always there.<br />
The crossing to Barra was gentle enough, and many are the<br />
stories of appalling experiences getting over the infamous<br />
Minch. We had fine views of Rum and Eigg and the legendary<br />
Ardnamurchan beaches, as we left the mainland and Mull<br />
further and further behind. It’s somehow wonderful to think<br />
you have to plough a whole five hours west to these outer<br />
isles, for the CalMac ferries fairly storm their way across<br />
once out into open water.<br />
We arrived in Barra much later than scheduled to be<br />
welcomed warmly at the Castlebay Hotel. There was<br />
Kismul Castle, little more than itself and its rock, right out<br />
in the bay before us when we opened our curtains the next<br />
morning. There were tempting hints of scimitars of<br />
beaches too on Vatersay, but we knew the forecast was<br />
warning of gales and we did not want to risk missing the<br />
Eriskay ferry.<br />
Still, Calm Channel<br />
Kristina had sufficient time to capture a few quick images<br />
of the vast strand that serves as the island’s airfield, boasting<br />
the only scheduled flights landing on a tidal beach in the<br />
world, before speeding the last mile of bumps and bends to<br />
begin the crossing of the still, calm channel between the<br />
islands.<br />
As soon as we had begun navigating the steep Eriskay<br />
road there were ponies, at one point half a dozen<br />
wandering without a care in the world from one side to the<br />
other. Barra, Eriskay and South Uist are all strongly<br />
Catholic islands (in stark contrast to the strictly<br />
Presbyterian Harris and Lewis). There were sudden<br />
glimpses of little shrines, and once we had crossed the short<br />
causeway to South Uist we visited a much larger Catholic<br />
church only yards from the main road.<br />
This was Bonnie Prince Charlie’s first stop in Scotland -<br />
deliberate indeed his landing in what was and remains such<br />
staunchly Catholic country. Appropriate too that South<br />
Uist should have been the birthplace of Flora MacDonald,<br />
who disguised the Prince as a maid and rescued him from<br />
the clutches of the Hanoverians after Culloden.<br />
20 SCOTTISH ISLANDS EXPLORER MAY / JUNE <strong>2017</strong><br />
MAY / JUNE <strong>2017</strong> SCOTTISH ISLANDS EXPLORER 21
Hideaways in the Outer Hebrides<br />
Hideaways in the Outer Hebrides<br />
Page 20-21: Blue Reef Cottage,<br />
Harris.<br />
Above: Corrodale Cottage,<br />
South Uist.<br />
Opposite: Abhainn Cottage,<br />
Breasclete, Lewis.<br />
Photographs taken by Kristina<br />
Hayward.<br />
Worthy of Any Prince<br />
By mid-afternoon we had reached the north<br />
end of the island and the community of<br />
Iochdar, where our first hideaway awaited us,<br />
an old thatched cottage transformed into a<br />
little jewellery box of cosiness. Corrodale<br />
Cottage comprises a room that is kitchen and<br />
living room in one with a little dragon of a<br />
peat-burning stove, a bathroom with a spa<br />
bath and a single bedroom with a four-poster<br />
worthy of any prince.<br />
The west side of South Uist is almost one<br />
unbroken beach and there are places where<br />
you can drive down almost to its edge. There<br />
is all the difference in the world between this<br />
and the little sheltered coves to be found on<br />
Inner Hebridean islands like Colonsay and<br />
Coll and Iona. This is land and waterscape<br />
teeming with birdlife for as soon as we<br />
opened the cottage door we heard peewits<br />
and greylag geese and curlews.<br />
When we drove inland too beside one of the<br />
wandering lochs and close to its incredible<br />
blueness, we were under the ramparts of the<br />
Uist hills with their many ravens and eagles.<br />
On another day we went east to find the<br />
settlement of Lochmaddy and the gem<br />
of its arts centre and museum, Taigh<br />
Chearsabhagh. Beside us grandparents sat<br />
with their grandson chatting in Gaelic,<br />
though what often is spoken today is a real<br />
mixture - a sentence of English followed by<br />
one of Gaelic.<br />
Blue Reef Cottages<br />
When Kristina and I crossed the Sound of<br />
Harris to the township of Leverburgh we<br />
could not have wished for a better day. I have<br />
seen it miraculously clear with the water often<br />
shallow and the most beautiful liquid blue,<br />
the sea simply alive with birds. Just ten<br />
minutes beyond Leverburgh are the Blue Reef<br />
Cottages where we were to stay.<br />
Here they are almost sculpted into the<br />
hillside, little rock fortresses covered by soft<br />
green grass affording priceless views out over<br />
the bays for which Harris is so famous. Only<br />
minutes beyond the cottages are Scarista and<br />
Luskentyre. They meld into one as the road<br />
twists and turns around the coast.<br />
The sands are almost pure white at times with vast shores<br />
pounded by great thunderheads of sea that spill coral-white<br />
vastnesses of water over their miles. I had been foolish enough<br />
to suggest to Kristina that we might swim. There was not the<br />
slightest hope of such a thing. Perhaps on a truly gentle <strong>June</strong><br />
day there would be the chance of it, but this is water to be<br />
taken seriously indeed.<br />
The Beaches<br />
Around our cottage skylarks twirled and sang. We sat by the<br />
astoundingly fine windows of our cottage like children simply<br />
gazing at the blue-green back of the Atlantic as it breathed<br />
and swelled hour after hour. One day we negotiated the single<br />
track road to Rodel, but almost always it was the beaches that<br />
drew us back and back once more.<br />
Then we drove north through the glens and hills that<br />
separate Harris from Lewis. They are a real surprise for they<br />
are truly high and wild. Then down at last into the long<br />
moorlands and loch country that is Lewis with scattered<br />
townships and peatstacks, and the wind scurrying over all of<br />
it as surely it has done from time’s beginning.<br />
Our final cottage was in the village of Callanish, a<br />
hideaway with an open fire and a little sauna in the<br />
bathroom. What I had sought in all the places we were to<br />
stay was cosiness, for there’s nothing more important when<br />
coming back from a windy, rain-swept day, tired and hungry<br />
and truly cold. And that was what we found in each of the<br />
exceptionally lovely hideaways.<br />
Eerily Powerful<br />
Abhainn Cottage could not have been better placed for<br />
proximity to all the major sites on the Isle of Lewis. We were<br />
five minutes from the eerily powerful Standing Stones of<br />
Callanish, the Carloway Broch was close by as was the<br />
Blackhouse of Arnol. It was near enough to Stornoway too,<br />
and the ferry back to Ullapool.<br />
An adventure it was indeed and a privilege to get a sense of<br />
the sheer distinctiveness of all the islands that make on the<br />
map a spine of landfalls which might appear similar enough.<br />
Will we be back? Of course, just for longer.<br />
Further Information<br />
Corrodale Cottage, Iochdar, South Uist 01870 610361<br />
stay@uistholidaycottage.co.uk<br />
Blue Reef Cottages, Scarista, Harris 01859 550370<br />
info@stay-hebrides.com<br />
Abhainn Cottage, 2 Breasclete, Isle of Lewis 01851 621397<br />
stay@luxuryhebrideancottage.co.uk<br />
Island Hopping with CalMac:<br />
www.calmac.co.uk/hopscotch<br />
22 SCOTTISH ISLANDS EXPLORER MAY / JUNE <strong>2017</strong><br />
MAY / JUNE <strong>2017</strong> SCOTTISH ISLANDS EXPLORER 23
Page<br />
READERS’<br />
Index Header<br />
OPPORTUNITIES<br />
Socks, Covers, Backpacks and … Skye-high<br />
Christchurch Airfield, Dorset, was, until<br />
1964, renowned for aviation design and<br />
manufacture. Now Foxwood -<br />
www.foxwood.co.uk - uses the site for the<br />
innovative craftsmanship and production of<br />
cases for the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus. The<br />
construction, which includes leather and soft<br />
micro-fibre, gives protection, durability, grip<br />
and the attribute which complements Apple<br />
products - elegance. Pictured here is the<br />
black hardshell model. Go to the website to<br />
see the range on offer.<br />
24 SCOTTISH ISLANDS EXPLORER MAY / JUNE <strong>2017</strong><br />
Corrymoor Socks - www.corrymoor.com - is a company founded in<br />
1992 that produces truly durable socks made from the mohair fleece<br />
of angora goats. This fibre does not trap bacteria, cause foot odour<br />
nor create discomfort. They are ideal for those who are travellers or<br />
individuals with sensitive skin. So they are for ‘every walk of life’ or,<br />
alternatively, make great bedsocks. Socks do remain an item of<br />
clothing that goes missing in the wash. These have minimal washing<br />
requirements.<br />
The Samonsite Zalia<br />
backpack is stylish and<br />
practical for the working lady<br />
on the go. Its elegant design<br />
meets business requirements<br />
and its capaciousness suits<br />
individual needs. The front<br />
pocket in saffiano leather is<br />
perfect for storing personal<br />
belongings; the main compartment<br />
fits laptops up to 14.1”<br />
and has room for a tablet.<br />
Its high-tenacity polyester<br />
provides strength, the feminine<br />
beige and trendy black<br />
offer alternative colours and<br />
www.samsonite.co.uk gives<br />
details.<br />
Join the internationally-renowned<br />
artist, Scottish Colourist, Cara McKinnon<br />
Crawford on a spectacular flight, Skye<br />
High. Her pilot, Hamish Mitchell, took a<br />
Cessna seaplane on the clearest of days<br />
to shoot film footage for a dramatic<br />
eagle-eye view of mountains, lochs and<br />
settlements. The sights are accompanied<br />
by a unique sound track from Mick<br />
MacNeil (formerly of ‘Simple Minds’).<br />
Contact<br />
www.caramckinnoncrawford.com for<br />
details of the 17-minute DVD for £10.00.<br />
READERS’ OPPORTUNITIES<br />
Page Index Header<br />
Here is something to celebrate the spectacular Inner<br />
Hebridean Isle of Skye. With thousands of tourists<br />
visiting each year, ATLAS seeks to develop this market as<br />
a means to become a more sustainable charitable organisation<br />
and offer alternative, unique souvenirs. Since 2012,<br />
ATLAS has invited a range of artists to visit and explore the<br />
landscape with fresh eyes.<br />
J Maizlish Mole created editions of his maps as part of the<br />
project, Mapping Skye and Portree. The maps are both<br />
objects of art and playful, navigational tools for Skye in<br />
general, and Portree, in particular. By incorporating<br />
elements of local oral knowledge and culture, the prints<br />
show how stunning locations can be brought to life for<br />
residents and visitors.<br />
In 2015, Frances Priest explored the nearby island of<br />
Raasay with expert local botanist, Stephen Bungard. She<br />
created a series of ceramic artworks for permanent installation<br />
within the historic clan-house. She also turned her<br />
original botanical drawings into a limited-edition, colouringbook,<br />
Patterns of Flora, so that tourists can take something<br />
of the local botany away with them.<br />
Last year, David Lemm climbed Sgurr Alasdair, the highest<br />
island-summit in the UK. This experience provided the inspiration<br />
for Landshapes, a limited-edition series of seven<br />
postcards depicting his journey, alongside a poster and sticker<br />
set, packaged together in a signed, screen-printed box. Each<br />
postcard draws attention to the different aspects of the climb.<br />
Photographer, René Jansen explored some lesserknown<br />
viewpoints - and in the vein of traditional<br />
Dutch-engraving - created a series of three digital archival<br />
prints which draw attention to the intricate beauty and<br />
textures of the ancient island.<br />
Souvenirs of Skye<br />
From the Portree-based organisation, ATLAS Arts, with its affordable art works<br />
Every Road on the Isle of Skye by J Maizlish Mole.<br />
We are also excited to be launching two new additions<br />
in <strong>2017</strong>, another limited-edition object, a silver fish-slice<br />
by eminent Scottish artist, Will Maclean, and a silk scarf<br />
from Skye-based artist, Caroline Dear, who is inspired by<br />
the distinctive botanical landscape.<br />
Members of Own Art, a scheme which makes buying art<br />
easy and affordable, can spread the cost of a purchase<br />
over ten months with an interest free loan. ATLAS hopes<br />
that next time you visit Skye you consider supporting the<br />
arts and purchasing an alternative-style souvenir.<br />
Please feel free to contact or visit our office (01478<br />
611143) to find out more about our artworks and<br />
projects. We are in the basement of the Skye Gathering<br />
Hall, Bank Street, Portree, Skye IV51 9BZ and are open<br />
from 10.00 - 17.00 from Monday - Friday. Alternatively,<br />
you can visit our website and shop online through<br />
atlasarts.org.uk<br />
Within View | 57°34’58” N 6°19’32” W by René Jansen.<br />
Below: Landshapes by David Lemm.<br />
MAY / JUNE <strong>2017</strong> SCOTTISH ISLANDS EXPLORER 25
Tanera Ar Dùthaich<br />
Kevin Percival<br />
His Exhibition at the<br />
Rhue Art Gallery<br />
My project depicts the intricacies of living<br />
and working in a rural community as well as<br />
exploring the continually-evolving relationship<br />
between people and the landscape in<br />
such areas. Tanera refers to the Summer<br />
Isles archipelago, familiar to regular readers<br />
of this magazine. Ar Dùthaich is a Gaelic<br />
term concerning territory that is homeland<br />
to a clan or kinship group.<br />
I started this work while living and<br />
working on the island. Now five years later,<br />
I have gathered sufficient images to tell the<br />
story. My intention was to elaborate on the<br />
difficulties associated with living in remote<br />
communities typical of the Highlands &<br />
Islands, exploring widely-held romantic<br />
notions about the Scottish landscape,<br />
while also trying to get under the surface<br />
of everyday experiences.<br />
The images attempt to show a ‘portrait of<br />
place’ through views, details and portraits of<br />
the people who contribute to the location.<br />
I have long been fascinated by the ways in<br />
which humans leave marks evident within<br />
the landscape; a calling card of their<br />
existence. Over time these traces build-up,<br />
layered on top of one another forming a kind<br />
of catalogue of existence, like a palimpsest.<br />
This becomes particularly evident in<br />
smaller, self-contained or continually<br />
re-populated areas, such as Tanera Mhòr.<br />
With this work I am exploring its rich past<br />
as a Viking sanctuary, as a fishing and<br />
crofting community and with the people<br />
who are currently leaving their traces, as<br />
miniature landmarks.<br />
The project goes on display at the Rhue<br />
Art Gallery, Ullapool IV26 2TJ from<br />
Saturday 17 <strong>June</strong> until Friday 25 August<br />
<strong>2017</strong>. There is also a Kickstarter campaign<br />
to fund a special edition art-book<br />
www.rhueart.co.uk<br />
Ard na Goine Pier<br />
Workshop at Roslyn Pier<br />
Wildfire on Tanera Mòr<br />
Dead Razorbill at Ard na Goine<br />
Mol Mor Beach<br />
Eleanor - Artist & Course Tutor<br />
26 SCOTTISH ISLANDS EXPLORER MAY / JUNE <strong>2017</strong><br />
MAY / JUNE <strong>2017</strong> SCOTTISH ISLANDS EXPLORER 27
Machair<br />
Machair<br />
Unfortunately, the words of Bob Dylan -<br />
‘Times they are a-changing’ - applies to the<br />
machair as well as to many other areas of life.<br />
Machair<br />
Mavis Gulliver has witnessed a decline in abundance<br />
At its summer best the machair is a miracle. All<br />
winter long it endures the worst of Hebridean<br />
weather. It lies dormant through gales when salt-laden<br />
winds tear across the Atlantic Ocean. Every loose<br />
blade of grass is stripped and yet more sand is added<br />
to a substrate that has its origins in the sea.<br />
In wet winters, burns that run through the machair<br />
fill to overflowing. They gouge their way down to the<br />
bedrock and return sand to the sea in a headlong rush.<br />
At the landward end of the machair plain, the land<br />
becomes marshy or dotted with pools. It is then that<br />
birds flock in, winter visitors boosting the numbers of<br />
resident birds that feed on invertebrates.<br />
In addition to soil invertebrates, seaweed, thrown up<br />
by the sea, shelters small creatures that provide huge<br />
flocks with the sustenance they need. Ringed plover,<br />
oystercatcher, lapwing, redshank, turnstone, sanderling,<br />
purple sandpiper, whimbrel, golden plover, grey<br />
plover and bar-tailed godwit make the winter machair<br />
a paradise for birdwatching.<br />
Good Times<br />
Not limited to winter months, the machair is also<br />
renowned for the number of wading birds which visit<br />
each summer. They breed among dune slacks, on drier<br />
areas and on tussocks in wetter parts. In addition to<br />
waders, corn buntings, twite, skylark and corncrake<br />
make their nests. So spring and summer are equally<br />
good times for birdwatchers to visit.<br />
But what is machair? It is a Gaelic word for the flat<br />
land that lies above the shore. First adopted in the<br />
1940s by naturalists, it is now a recognised scientific<br />
term. The beaches and dunes of the Hebrides are<br />
partly composed of mollusc shells broken down by<br />
wave action. Wind deposits this shell-rich sand<br />
beyond the dunes. It is one of the rarest habitats in<br />
Europe and occurs mainly in the Outer Hebrides.<br />
There are entire books on the subject and it is only<br />
possible to skim the surface in this short article.<br />
‘Machair grassland’ is used for the flat sandy plain<br />
while ‘machair system’ refers to areas that include<br />
dunes and lochans. With a relatively low mineral<br />
content of silica sand, machair supports plants that<br />
are able to exist in alkaline conditions.<br />
Vital Resource<br />
Not only of importance to wildlife, machair is useful<br />
for the cultivation of crops such as oats and potatoes.<br />
In the past it was a vital resource for people who eked<br />
a living from land and sea. With shops now supplying<br />
all their needs, there is less incentive to keep up the old<br />
ways, although a few people still tend their plots by<br />
hand and feast on potatoes that taste much better than<br />
those from retail sources.<br />
28 SCOTTISH ISLANDS EXPLORER MAY / JUNE <strong>2017</strong><br />
MAY / JUNE <strong>2017</strong> SCOTTISH ISLANDS EXPLORER 29
Machair<br />
Machair<br />
Page 28 top: The brown sign points<br />
to The Machair Way which starts<br />
near The Polochar Inn at the southwest<br />
corner of South Uist. Forming<br />
part of The Hebridean Way, this<br />
rural pathway runs for 22 miles<br />
along the machair.<br />
Below: Above Traigh Varlish on<br />
Vatersay, the ungrazed machair is<br />
carpeted with Sea Pinks. The<br />
effects of sheep grazing beyond<br />
the fence are plain to see.<br />
Below: A small potato patch on<br />
Barra, managed in the traditional<br />
way, shows the sandy nature of the<br />
soil.<br />
Opposite: Near the scattered<br />
settlement of Peninerine on South<br />
Uist the author admires Longheaded<br />
poppies in fallow machair.<br />
Beyond the fence, sheep are grazing.<br />
Photograph by Richard Gulliver.<br />
Photographs by the author<br />
Mavis Gulliver.<br />
Traditionally machair was grazed in<br />
winter. Dung enriched the soil and<br />
harboured invertebrates, another food<br />
source for birds. The stock, formerly mainly<br />
cattle, was taken to hill pastures in summer.<br />
Left ungrazed the permanent grassland<br />
machair flowered profusely with perennials<br />
such as daisies and buttercups. Annual<br />
plants, by contrast, germinated among<br />
cereals and potatoes as well as on recent<br />
fallow land.<br />
In order to improve fertility, washed-up<br />
seaweed is added to the land. In addition to<br />
providing nutrients, the decaying matter<br />
helps to bind the soil together. During the<br />
kelp boom, when seaweed was burnt to<br />
produce soda ash, the machair system<br />
looked very different with many people<br />
tending rows of kelp kilns.<br />
Coarser Vegetation<br />
The machair has changed again. Together<br />
with modern management the number of<br />
active crofters has reduced. Now, in areas<br />
where cultivation has been abandoned,<br />
coarser vegetation is taking over with the<br />
subsequent loss of much of the floral interest.<br />
There is a growing tendency to fence areas<br />
of machair so that they become fields for<br />
growing grain, or for confining stock. Where<br />
much of the work used to be undertaken by<br />
hand or with horses, tractors and other<br />
modern machinery make short work of<br />
former back-breaking tasks. But modern<br />
machinery digs deeper and increases the risk<br />
of wind erosion.<br />
Unfortunately, the words of Bob Dylan -<br />
‘Times they are a-changing’ - applies to the<br />
machair as well as to many other areas of life.<br />
On a trip through the Outer Hebrides in the<br />
1980s my husband and I travelled from<br />
Vatersay to the Butt of Lewis and were<br />
bowled over by the sheer numbers of<br />
wildflowers. We had only previously seen<br />
such abundance in Alpine meadows.<br />
The Sights<br />
In <strong>June</strong> 2016 we visited many sections of<br />
coast in South Uist. We drove down every<br />
side-road and walked sections of The Machair<br />
Way which forms part of the 185-mile long<br />
Hebridean Way. Unfortunately we did not see<br />
anything as spectacular as the sights we had<br />
seen 40 years earlier. We hoped that we were<br />
too early for the full flush of flowers, but<br />
feared that this was not the case.<br />
Here are a few examples of what we found. At Stillgarry,<br />
only one potato patch lay between strips dominated by<br />
creeping buttercups, daisies and silverweed. At Smeircleit,<br />
there were six potato patches and only one fallow strip was<br />
home to the only corn marigolds we saw on our entire trip.<br />
This is a far cry from the 13th Century when it was such a<br />
serious weed that any farmer allowing a plant to set seed was<br />
fined a sheep.<br />
At Snesebkal, only one fallow strip was rich with poppies,<br />
charlock and lesser bugloss, stork’s bill, field and wild pansy,<br />
scarlet pimpernel, black bindweed, groundsel, sun spurge,<br />
tufted vetch, field forget-me-not, silverweed and yellow<br />
rattle. Most of the Lochdar machair was fenced and lying<br />
fallow. And on our walk from South Boisdale to Baghasdale<br />
cattle and sheep were grazing in fenced areas while unfenced<br />
areas were either lying fallow or growing grain.<br />
The Best Show<br />
At Garrynamone, sheep were grazing rough grassland on<br />
enclosed strips, and ungrazed areas in wetter ground had been<br />
taken over by reeds, iris and cotton grass. The best show of<br />
wildflowers seemed to occur where seaweed was still being used<br />
to fertilise small potato patches in enclosed gardens.<br />
Our journey also took in the islands of Vatersay, Barra,<br />
Eriskay, Benbecula, North Uist and Berneray. In addition,<br />
and just for the fun of it, we crossed every causeway and<br />
walked on every tiny island that is attached to South Uist.<br />
We cannot claim to have visited every area of machair. Nor<br />
can we criticise the change in agricultural practice which, in<br />
many areas, appears to be to the detriment of nature.<br />
However, it is not all doom and gloom. There are still fine<br />
areas of machair systems where there is as much natural<br />
history interest as ever. Traigh Varlish on Vatersay, one of my<br />
favourite places in the Hebrides, has a wonderful system<br />
where a burn runs through to the sea. Here, in <strong>June</strong> it was<br />
impossible to walk without treading on the wonderful pink<br />
carpet of thrift.<br />
Two Ruff<br />
The cultivated machair on Berneray was rich with the small<br />
yellow blooms of wild pansy, and on Barra, near Allasdale was<br />
brighter yellow with the flowers of common bird’s-foottrefoil.<br />
Balranald RSPB Reserve on North Uist was scattered<br />
with orchids and a bonus was my first ever sighting of not<br />
one, but two ruff.<br />
Whenever you visit the machair there will always be<br />
something of interest. If there are no flowers in bloom, there<br />
will be birds. There will always be spectacular scenery. Vast<br />
skies, immense seas, wonderfully clear air and sand between<br />
your toes have the makings of a holiday which I can<br />
recommend most highly.<br />
30 SCOTTISH ISLANDS EXPLORER MAY / JUNE <strong>2017</strong><br />
MAY / JUNE <strong>2017</strong> SCOTTISH ISLANDS EXPLORER 31
A Quiet, Natural History<br />
A Quiet, Natural History<br />
‘Owing to its position, it attracts a<br />
startling variety of wildlife to a<br />
setting that is peaceful and harmonious.’<br />
A Quiet,<br />
Natural History<br />
Stephen Roberts discovers several aspects of Orkney<br />
Peace and quiet is what I associate with Orkney.<br />
I have rarely found that ambience in the<br />
modern world, somewhere I was so far removed<br />
from that I could hear wind and birdsong and little<br />
else. On the island of Hoy I drove for several miles<br />
without seeing another soul; it was the native flora<br />
and fauna that accompanied me. I have to say that<br />
I missed the human race not one jot.<br />
Orkney’s 70 islands lie only eight miles north of<br />
Caithness. Some islands, such as the two I visited,<br />
Mainland and Hoy, ring the famous Scapa Flow,<br />
the UK’s principal naval base during the two<br />
World Wars. 6,000 years’ worth of human<br />
endeavour, from stone circles and chambered<br />
tombs, to gun batteries and the latest renewable<br />
energy technology, are part of this landscape.<br />
The natural landscape is predominantly<br />
moorland, bog and heath, with an almost<br />
complete absence of woodland, one notable<br />
exception being Happy Valley, consciously<br />
created in the second half of the 20th Century to<br />
give the islands something they lacked, a clump<br />
of some 700 trees. Colour is provided by<br />
wildflowers, which take root almost anywhere.<br />
Only Found<br />
Once or twice I stopped to admire sweeping<br />
collections of poppies growing on verges. The<br />
rare Scottish primrose, with purple flowers<br />
(yellow centre), is only found on Orkney and<br />
northerly parts of mainland Scotland. The<br />
equally rare great yellow bumblebee inhabits<br />
the same kind of area.<br />
Off the north-western tip of Mainland is<br />
Birsay, a tiny island, once Orkney’s most holyplace,<br />
where patron-saint, Magnus, was<br />
buried before being exhumed and carted off<br />
to Kirkwall. Reached at low tide via a<br />
causeway, the islet’s turf is sometimes covered<br />
with pink Armeria (thrift or ‘sea pink’ due to<br />
colour and location).<br />
Sea-birds nest on cliffs, including a colony of<br />
Arctic tern and the Atlantic puffin, one of<br />
Orkney’s trademark birds. The best place to see<br />
this colourful but often elusive creature is on<br />
Westray, one of the outliers. Orkney is a fine<br />
UK’s haunt for seabirds, with 21 breeding<br />
species. There are 13 RSPB reserves where<br />
resident and migrant birds can be observed.<br />
32 SCOTTISH ISLANDS EXPLORER MAY / JUNE <strong>2017</strong><br />
MAY / JUNE <strong>2017</strong> SCOTTISH ISLANDS EXPLORER 33
A Quiet, Natural History<br />
A Quiet, Natural History<br />
An Island Apart<br />
Hoy means simply High Island, so named by Vikings who<br />
provide much of its ancestry. It does indeed contain Orkney’s<br />
highest peak, Ward Hill, measuring 1,578'. Here is an island<br />
apart, with huge red-sandstone hills and impressive cliffs. At<br />
Rora Head, in the north-west, is the Old Man of Hoy, where<br />
you experience a wilderness dominated by black-backed gulls<br />
and great skuas.<br />
The whole land is wild and desolate, better suited to those<br />
hardier than man: birds, sheep and mountain hares. There are<br />
hen harriers, flying low over fields, merlins, peregrine falcons<br />
and short-eared owls, all hunting for prey. It is unspoilt,<br />
somewhere to tarry and breathe deeply, but not somewhere for<br />
your car to break down. You might have a long wait.<br />
I reached Hoy using a car ferry from Mainland (Houton to<br />
Lyness) which took 30 minutes. The fact that Orkney’s main<br />
island is called ‘Mainland’ tells you something about the<br />
independent spirit which pervades here; departing Hoy I was<br />
aware that I was leaving somewhere untamed and heading<br />
back to relative civilisation.<br />
Aspect of a Mirage<br />
As if the waters surrounding the islands are not enough,<br />
Mainland is also blessed with considerable lochs, the two<br />
biggest, Harray and Stenness, a slingshot from one another<br />
in West Mainland. It is strange to see all this water and not<br />
see the sea. Mute swans glide across, giving the whole scene<br />
the aspect of a mirage.<br />
Between the lochs are standing stones, still prominent after<br />
all this time, yet denying us their hidden purpose. Close by<br />
at Brig o’ Waithe you might see otters. Stones may stand silent<br />
sentinel, but there is plenty of noise from seals, grey and<br />
common, and their pups, which ‘haul out’ on Hoy, plus a<br />
myriad of seabirds, noisy waders and geese making their<br />
presence felt.<br />
Spring is a good time to see wintering birds prior to their<br />
return to the high Arctic, whereas in summer, Westray,<br />
Copinsay and Marwick Head become home to teeming<br />
colonies of seabirds. Nature rides with the seasons here.<br />
Autumn is a good time to see storm petrels, the smallest of<br />
seabirds, which come close to shore for shelter as the seas lose<br />
their summer calm.<br />
Rare in Winter<br />
Of course winter could be memorable for one thing<br />
alone, a sight of the Aurora Borealis, very much on the<br />
agenda this far north. The island climate makes frost and<br />
snow rare in winter, so wintering birds like it here. Whales<br />
(minke and orca), basking sharks and dolphins can be seen<br />
around the coasts.<br />
Inland there is the larger Orkney Vole, unique to these<br />
islands, a subspecies of the smaller Common Vole. What with<br />
‘great’ bumblebees and ‘larger’ voles there is something of the<br />
‘elephantine’ about some of the wildlife on these islands. As<br />
I wandered around the two islands I frequently came across<br />
sheep and cattle.<br />
There is much grazing land and farming has<br />
been a way of life for 5,000 years. Today<br />
Orkney beef is famous and its islands have the<br />
highest density of beef cattle in Europe. The<br />
Orkney County Show, held in August,<br />
showcases quality livestock and attracts over<br />
10,000 visitors.<br />
In Mind of Human Beings<br />
Walking the Wartime Trail at the former<br />
Lyness Naval Base on Hoy, it was pleasing to<br />
see bovine and ovine creatures in numbers,<br />
but doing little, as is their wont. They<br />
wandered about, looking a bit preoccupied<br />
and gormless, putting me in mind of human<br />
beings with Smartphones, well, just for a<br />
second or two maybe.<br />
The North Ronaldsay Sheep, is an unusual<br />
domesticate, confined to the foreshore of<br />
that island, existing largely on a diet of<br />
seaweed, thereby conserving limited grazing<br />
inland, also ensuring a virtually fat-free<br />
meat. North Ronaldsay I did not reach, it<br />
being one of the outermost islands, so I<br />
failed to see any of the 3,700 odd sheep<br />
roaming here.<br />
Where Second World War defences lie<br />
dormant, wildlife has taken over. At Hoxa<br />
Head, where remains of massive gun<br />
batteries look out across the water, it is<br />
flowers and fungi that now call it home.<br />
Black guillemots and porpoises can be seen<br />
with the same keen eye that observers of 70<br />
or so years ago needed.<br />
Abundant Nature<br />
For me Orkney was a welcome reminder of<br />
what our countryside was like before man<br />
overpowered it with noise and development.<br />
It is a throwback to childhood when less (of<br />
humankind) was more (of nature). Here<br />
quiet conditions among abundant nature can<br />
be found surprisingly easily.<br />
I was as close as I have ever been to a<br />
cormorant. It seemed totally unfazed by my<br />
presence and is the variety that readily grips<br />
the imagination. Even in towns there was<br />
wildlife. The largest settlement, Kirkwall, has<br />
its ‘Peerie Sea’ - small expanse of water - and<br />
here are terns, waders and in the spring, up to<br />
a hundred long-tailed ducks.<br />
Orkney has a unique natural history it seems<br />
to me. Owing to its position, it attracts a<br />
startling variety of wildlife to a setting that is<br />
peaceful and harmonious. Returning again to<br />
the southern lands of discordant mobile ringtones,<br />
booming car-stereos and citizens who<br />
don’t appear to be able to do a single thing<br />
quietly, I just wanted to go back.<br />
Further Information<br />
The Most Amazing<br />
Places in Britain’s<br />
Countryside edited by<br />
Caroline Boucher<br />
Reader’s Digest 2009<br />
Orkney Visitors’ Guide<br />
2014<br />
Page 33: Roadside poppies.<br />
Opposite: View of Scapa Flow from<br />
Scapa Bay.<br />
Above: Stromness with the massive<br />
Hoy Hill in the background by Rae<br />
Slater.<br />
Photographs taken by the author,<br />
Stephen Roberts.<br />
34 SCOTTISH ISLANDS EXPLORER MAY / JUNE <strong>2017</strong><br />
MAY / JUNE <strong>2017</strong> SCOTTISH ISLANDS EXPLORER 35
The Flying Duchess<br />
The Flying Duchess<br />
The Flying Duchess<br />
David Saunders traces the life of an avian- and aviation-enthusiast<br />
My story starts far from the Scottish islands, when, some 25 years ago I was being<br />
driven at breakneck speed across the massive Castlemartin tank range, south<br />
Pembrokeshire. The driver, the Assistant Range Officer - affectionately named the<br />
‘Monocled Major’ - appreciating my ornithological interest suddenly said, taking his eye<br />
off the track in front, “Do you know Saunders? Do you know! My great aunt once shot a<br />
warbler that had not been seen in Great Britain before!”<br />
I was disappointed that he could not tell me more, other than to say his great aunt was<br />
the Duchess of Bedford, and the event took place on Fair Isle. The warbler, so I subsequently<br />
discovered, was first observed skulking among turnips on 29 September 1910 and the<br />
following day collected, following ‘a great hunt.’ Even then its identity remained a mystery<br />
and so the skin was sent to the eminent ornithologist, William Eagle Clarke, at the Royal<br />
Scottish Museum.<br />
Suspecting it to be a Blyth’s Warbler he passed the specimen on to Ernst Hartert, Director<br />
of the museum at Tring, Hertfordshire who confirmed identification. Named after Edward<br />
Blyth, the breeding bird is to be found from southern Sweden and eastern Poland to<br />
Afghanistan and the Pamirs. Its winter months are spent from the foothills of the Himalayas<br />
to Sri Lanka.<br />
‘Among the most enigmatic of birds on the British list’ the next Blyth’s warbler was not<br />
reported until 1928, also from Fair Isle, then a gap of 51 years until one was caught and<br />
ringed on Holm, Orkney in October 1979. Since then there have been recordings in most<br />
years, the majority from Scottish islands.<br />
Brought up by an Aunt<br />
Born in 1865, the great aunt in question was the second daughter of the Reverend Walter<br />
Tribe, vicar of Stockbridge, Hampshire and christened Mary du Caurroy. She was just two<br />
years old when her father was appointed to a position in India. Mary and her older sister<br />
would not accompany them, instead were brought up by an aunt in England.<br />
Her education included Cheltenham Ladies College and a year in Switzerland before,<br />
aged 16, she sailed to join her parents. Shortly after arriving in Lahore she caught typhoid<br />
and although making a full recovery, attributed the illness to the deafness which in later<br />
years increasingly troubled her.<br />
In 1885, at the Rawalpindi Durbar, Mary met Lord Herbrand Russell, second son of the<br />
Duke of Bedford. Their engagement was announced two years later at a Viceregal Ball in<br />
Simla. They were married in January 1888 and their only child, a son, was born the<br />
following December.<br />
36 SCOTTISH ISLANDS EXPLORER MAY / JUNE <strong>2017</strong><br />
MAY / JUNE <strong>2017</strong> SCOTTISH ISLANDS EXPLORER 37
The Flying Duchess<br />
The Flying Duchess<br />
a question in her diary: ‘Having left the trees to fight against<br />
the winds of Heaven and the rabbits of Earth, I wonder how<br />
much will be left of them in ten years time.’<br />
Tip of Barra<br />
Her fears were justified as the following <strong>June</strong> she found that<br />
practically all the conifers had died, of the survivors most<br />
thriving was blackthorn. Subsequently she had a cottage built,<br />
Sanderling Cottage, just four rooms and a pantry,<br />
overlooking the shore near the northern tip of Barra which<br />
she first occupied in November 1911.<br />
Of equal attention was Fair Isle which she first visited in April<br />
1909 and where the Duchess rented Pund for £2 per annum,<br />
renaming it Ortolan Cottage, three rooms and an outhouse in<br />
which her dog Marquis spent the night. She was accompanied<br />
by her maid Billingham, though took her full share of domestic<br />
duties, before spending the day bird-watching.<br />
As John, Duke of Bedford describes in the biography of his<br />
grandmother: ‘Whether at Sanderling Cottage, Barra, or<br />
Ortolan Cottage, Fair Isle, the life was the same, rough and<br />
primitive in the extreme and eternally satisfying. Everything<br />
there was subordinated to the main purpose of watching and<br />
recording the movements and appearances of migrants and<br />
the collection of specimens.’<br />
Page 37: The Duchess of Bedford in<br />
flying kit in 1934.<br />
Above: Barra, where the Duchess<br />
had Sanderling Cottage built.<br />
Photograph by Roger Butler.<br />
Page 39: The Duchess of Bedford<br />
pictured in formal poses.<br />
Photographs supplied by the<br />
author, David Saunders, unless<br />
stated.<br />
Vast Estate<br />
Following the deaths in quick succession<br />
of his father and brother, Lord Herbrand<br />
became in 1893 the eleventh Duke of<br />
Bedford, responsible for the vast estate at<br />
Woburn. Here he was able to expand his<br />
passionate interest in wildlife by the<br />
creation of a collection of world-wide<br />
renown, the Duke being chiefly<br />
remembered for saving Pere David’s deer<br />
from extinction.<br />
The Duchess had her first experience of<br />
yachting in 1896, yachting in the grand sense.<br />
She chartered the yachts Catania and Roxana<br />
to be followed by the Sapphire which was<br />
subsequently purchased. There were voyages to<br />
Holland, Germany, the Baltic and Norway and<br />
becoming more adventurous further afield to<br />
Iceland and Spitzbergen.<br />
She even reached Jan <strong>May</strong>en, much regretting<br />
failing to land because of the heavy surf,<br />
though she did row to within a few yards of<br />
the shore. Shortly afterwards an easterly<br />
gale blew up, with even the Duchess<br />
describing the sea as dangerous ‘though I<br />
had seen Jan <strong>May</strong>en and did not greatly care<br />
what happened’ she later wrote.<br />
Took her Attention<br />
Increasingly the Scottish islands, in particular<br />
Orkney, Shetland and the Outer<br />
Hebrides took her attention and from<br />
November 1906 she began a most comprehensive<br />
bird-diary while staying at Loch Bee,<br />
South Uist. On 8 <strong>June</strong> 1908 during a visit to<br />
Shetland she noted:<br />
I had an invitation to an evening party at<br />
Buckingham Palace for today, but walked over<br />
instead to visit the King of Birds, viz. the<br />
White-tailed Eagle at Waterfalls, North Roe.<br />
His Majesty was at home, and gave me a<br />
splendid view. Unfortunately he is a single bird,<br />
as the mate was found dead a few weeks ago,<br />
supposed to have been shot by one of the men in<br />
the whaling boats.<br />
This the last pair of White-tailed Eagles in<br />
Shetland, the last known breeding attempt in<br />
Great Britain taking place a few years later, in<br />
1916 on Skye. Then came a return to the Outer<br />
Hebrides which included a visit to the Flannan<br />
Isles. Barra was increasingly visited.<br />
During these visits she planted some 2,100<br />
trees of a variety of species at Eoligarry House<br />
with a view that with maturity they would<br />
provide shelter for migrant birds. She posed<br />
Diligently Recorded<br />
This was the age when ‘What’s hit is history, what’s missed is<br />
mystery.’ Her observations and collections were diligently<br />
recorded in her diaries, in letters to friends and reported in<br />
journals like The Annals of Scottish Natural History, British Birds<br />
and Ibis. A final cruise in 1914 took in North Rona, describing<br />
it in a letter to a friend ‘as pink all over with thrift.’<br />
She rowed around Sule Skerry - ‘one of the great gannet<br />
breeding-places’ - and having sailed past the great west cliffs<br />
of Hoy said, ‘I do not think even Sir Walter Scott could do<br />
them justice.’ She saw her yacht for the last time in early<br />
August 1914 for it was subsequently requisitioned by the<br />
Royal Navy. The Duchess never recommenced cruising<br />
among the Scottish islands, although she continued her bird<br />
diaries until the end of her life.<br />
In 1926, aged 61, flying now became her passion. After her first<br />
flight ending at Woburn, she told the pilot, ‘You must be more<br />
careful or you will frighten all the animals’. Soon she was taking<br />
lessons and participating in record-making long-distance flights<br />
to South Africa and India. By 1937, she was just 55 minutes short<br />
of two hundred hours of flying solo.<br />
Taking off from Woburn on the afternoon of 22 March to<br />
complete a flight of some 88 miles the Duchess, now aged<br />
71, failed to return. The only clue to her fate being when<br />
several struts from her de Haviland Gypsy were washed up<br />
on the East Anglia coast. So died a remarkable woman of<br />
extraordinary versatility, who, as one obituary concluded,<br />
‘loved the sea and uncharted sky, and in the end they claimed<br />
their own.’<br />
38 SCOTTISH ISLANDS EXPLORER MAY / JUNE <strong>2017</strong><br />
MAY / JUNE <strong>2017</strong> SCOTTISH ISLANDS EXPLORER 39
Skye Excites the Emotions<br />
Skye Excites the Emotions<br />
Skye Excites the Emotions<br />
Ron Hill shows how past events can add to our experience<br />
Psycho-geography is a fuzzy concept, but I like<br />
using the term to connect places to emotions<br />
and behaviours. In the Braes area on Skye I have<br />
discovered a range of emotions associated with the<br />
physical landscape, the remains of shielings on Ben<br />
Lee, 19th Century croft houses and, importantly, the<br />
monument on the roadside on the approach to<br />
Gedintailor which records an event on Tuesday, 18<br />
April 1882.<br />
On moving to Camustianavaig, in The Braes area<br />
near Portree, Skye, I discovered that as well as the<br />
house and the grounds, there was a book which<br />
came with the new ownership. The book is The<br />
Former Days by Norman Maclean, published in<br />
1945. It is based on personal reminiscences from<br />
living in the vicinity and includes the events which<br />
became known as ‘The Battle of the Braes.’<br />
Maclean describes the scene on that day when a<br />
force of 50 policemen (including 40 drafted from<br />
Glasgow) marched the seven miles from Portree to<br />
Balmeanach in Braes to arrest the lawbreakers - that<br />
is those men who broke the law on 7 April 1882<br />
when an attempt to evict seven men and three<br />
women from the Braes for grazing on Ben Lee<br />
without permission was de-forced.<br />
Public Embarrassment<br />
This was when a local crowd burnt the summonses,<br />
with public embarrassment for the Sherriff Officer,<br />
his assistant and the Estate Ground Officer. Maclean<br />
tells us it was a ‘grey dawn’ with poor weather<br />
conditions. He wrote, ‘Nobody could have wished a<br />
more forbidding reception on the part of the<br />
elements. The rain swept down Glen Varagil in sheets<br />
driven by a south-wester that blew with ice in its<br />
teeth. No greatcoats could stand up to rain driven by<br />
such a wind’<br />
We must also picture a wagonette rumbling<br />
behind the marching policemen including Sherriff<br />
Ivory (Sherriff of the County of Inverness-shire),<br />
Sherriff-Substitute Spiers (who administered the<br />
law on the Isle of Skye), and other local officials.<br />
Roger Hutchinson adds in his Martyrs: Glendale<br />
and the Revolution on Skye ‘…and several journalists<br />
set forth from Portree.’<br />
The 1880s was an age of mass communications and<br />
by 1881, 18 daily newspapers were appearing in<br />
London, 96 in the English provinces, 21 in Scotland<br />
and 17 in Ireland, (but only four in Wales) according<br />
to Kevin Williams in his Read All About It: A History<br />
of the British Newspaper. The actual ‘battle’ took place<br />
when the police arrested the five law-breakers which<br />
sparked a reaction from the Braes communities.<br />
Sharp Flints<br />
Maclean, in his romantic style, imagined the 15<br />
minute ‘battle’ as ‘When the invaders reached the<br />
south end of the pass, they were met with a fusillade<br />
of stones and clods. Sam (Nicolson) had some 20<br />
boys and girls under his command. They filled their<br />
pockets with sharp flints. ‘They have no guns’, cried<br />
Sam, ‘Let us charge them; throw stones and then<br />
run back up the brae’.<br />
This they did, hurling down the slope like a<br />
mountain torrent. Stopping where Sam stopped, a<br />
rain of stones descended on the police. Sherriff<br />
Ivory, the sacred representative of Queen Victoria,<br />
the embodiment of law and order, was hit with a<br />
clod on the jaw. For Sam never missed his target’.<br />
The Glasgow Evening Times of 21 April 1882<br />
reported, under the banner heading of ‘Return of<br />
the Glasgow Police’ - ‘The policemen arrived in<br />
Glasgow this forenoon and with a few exceptions<br />
have reported themselves for duty in the various<br />
districts from which they were drawn. They all bear<br />
traces of fatigue and exposure.’<br />
The Unhappy Crofters<br />
‘Telegraphing last night from Portree the special<br />
correspondent of The Herald says, the sudden and<br />
effective, if somewhat harsh, blows inflicted<br />
yesterday by the constabulary of Glasgow and<br />
Inverness on the unhappy crofters at the Braes have<br />
had a wonderful influence on restoring order.’<br />
Further in the same report, from the journalist<br />
who was in the Braes area on the day after the<br />
40 SCOTTISH ISLANDS EXPLORER MAY / JUNE <strong>2017</strong><br />
MAY / JUNE <strong>2017</strong> SCOTTISH ISLANDS EXPLORER 41
Skye Excites the Emotions<br />
‘battle’ ‘At Balmeanach, the results of the fray are more<br />
apparent today than yesterday. There is in the district an<br />
almost entire suspension of work. The female relatives of<br />
the prisoners, clad in the veriest of rags, wander about from<br />
group to group, seeking sympathy from those who are not<br />
in a position to give much.’<br />
The journalist listed nine of the injured and their injuries in<br />
some detail. For example, ‘Ann Nicolson - today it was found<br />
necessary to feed her with a spoon and her life is despaired of.<br />
According to information given, she is badly wounded on the<br />
head by blows with a baton’. ‘Mary Nicolson, aged about 70,<br />
was thrown to the ground and rendered insensible’<br />
Power of Journalism<br />
The story then moves from the Braes, via Portree and<br />
Stromeferry to Inverness where the five Braes men were<br />
found guilty of assault. The power of journalism and mass<br />
communications came to the aid of the ‘Braes Five’. As<br />
Hutchinson informs, ‘A cheque for the full amount of<br />
their fines was promptly handed over by their supporters’.<br />
As a result of the Battle of the Braes and other evidence<br />
of unrest amongst crofters on Skye, as in Glendale, and<br />
elsewhere in the Highlands and Islands, a Royal<br />
Commission was set up by the Liberal Government ‘to<br />
inquire into the condition of the crofters and cottars in<br />
the Highlands and Islands of Scotland’. Chaired by Lord<br />
Napier, it began by taking evidence from crofters at<br />
Ollach Schoolhouse, Braes. There would be 69 more<br />
evidence- taking events at various locations.<br />
The connecting of place and emotion is intriguing, as we<br />
know from ‘emotional history’. As I travel some or all of<br />
the route of the police march to and from the Braes on a<br />
regular basis by car or bike, I often try to connect to the<br />
local events of the past, only a few generations ago, where<br />
there was a conflict that had regional and national<br />
repercussions.<br />
Fibre Optic<br />
Broadband<br />
Gordon Eaglesham assesses its transformative progress<br />
Page 40: Cover of book by Margaret MacPherson with the jacket designed in<br />
1972 by Gavin Rowe.<br />
Above: View of Braes, Skye; Commemorative stone of the event; Snow on Skye.<br />
Photographs supplied by the author, Ron Hill.<br />
Further Information<br />
Dr Ron Hill offers guided walks taking in key events in Skye’s<br />
history, including the Battle of the Braes.<br />
Visit www.skyehistory.scot for details.<br />
Unfortunate<br />
But it is reasonable to reflect on the anger, survival, fear<br />
communality, distress, oppression of some/many of the<br />
residents of the Braes; the duty, determination, discipline,<br />
bewilderment, agitation by the police; the duty, drive,<br />
responsibility, status, control of the officials; the excitement,<br />
enquiry, concern, trauma, humanity of the<br />
reporters. These events in the Braes area were very<br />
unfortunate.<br />
Conflict, particularly violent conflict, is a deep and lasting<br />
memory for those concerned. Thankfully, the struggle for<br />
expression and a voice about underlying hardship and living<br />
conditions by local people in the early 1880s contributed<br />
to improvements for others in the years and decades that<br />
followed. That is a good feeling to have about this beautiful<br />
and now peaceful part of the Isle of Skye.<br />
Fibre optic broadband across the Scottish islands is<br />
now ready to transform the region’s economy, with<br />
far-reaching implications for future generations. It has the<br />
potential to make a somewhat quixotic notion of island<br />
development, a reality. By the end of 2014, 250 miles of<br />
subsea cable had been laid across 20 seabed crossings,<br />
stretching from Orkney to Kintyre.<br />
This milestone of a backbone to a vast network was<br />
set by Digital Scotland which aims to bring highspeed<br />
broadband to 86% of Highlands and Islands<br />
premises by the end of <strong>2017</strong>. The £410 million project<br />
soon became the most complex subsea engineering<br />
feat by BT in the UK, boosting speed and reliability<br />
across the regions.<br />
Another objective was to provide the infrastructure<br />
required to enable better phone coverage. Prior to<br />
the roll-out of Digital Scotland’s superfast project,<br />
there were no plans to bring high speed fibre<br />
broadband to the Highlands and Islands through the<br />
mainstream commercial market. So it’s had a<br />
dramatic, albeit sporadic, effect on connectivity<br />
throughout rural communities.<br />
Efficiency of Delivery<br />
The core aim of the Digital Highlands and Islands<br />
project is to provide everyone in these areas with access<br />
to download speeds of at least 30Mbps by 2<strong>02</strong>1. Three<br />
years ago no island premises had access to the service.<br />
Owing to the strong take-up figures and efficiency of<br />
delivery, a further £2.3 million is to be reinvested into<br />
the scheme by the Scottish Government.<br />
The Western and Northern Isles will benefit directly<br />
from this - through having their cabling route<br />
42 SCOTTISH ISLANDS EXPLORER MAY / JUNE <strong>2017</strong><br />
MAY / JUNE <strong>2017</strong> SCOTTISH ISLANDS EXPLORER 43
Fibre Optic Broadband<br />
Fibre Optic Broadband<br />
extended. The additional funding will also be used to provide<br />
some locations with fibre infrastructure that were not initially<br />
included - Duntulm and Sligachan in Skye, Scarista in the<br />
Western Isles and Sandness in Shetland.<br />
In all, 6000 additional sites will receive the means to attain<br />
superfast speed. In 2013, just 4% of premises had access to<br />
fibre broadband. Four years later the remarkable 86% - from<br />
Campbeltown in Kintyre, to Brae in Shetland - could be<br />
attained. Prior to the project commencing, commercial<br />
operators had identified only eight towns that could be<br />
reached by the market.<br />
The World’s Largest<br />
The infrastructure with massive subsea cabling and wide<br />
geographical spread, with larger island communities set to<br />
benefit most. In Shetland, Orkney and the Outer Hebrides<br />
there will be increases of 80%, 75% and 76% respectively.<br />
The crossing constructions, with surveys of landing points<br />
all along the west coast, have been the world’s largest of this<br />
type.<br />
The longest cable runs for nearly 50 miles under the<br />
Minch, from Ullapool to Stornoway. A second link<br />
stretches over 35 miles between Carnan on South Uist and<br />
Dunvegan on Skye, improving Western Isles connectivity.<br />
This was all made possible using a cable ship and its<br />
submersible plough and ROV which buried double<br />
armoured cable in the seabed.<br />
Highlands & Islands Enterprise is also involved indirectly<br />
with a community-led project supported by Community<br />
Broadband Scotland, called GigaPlus Argyll. This aims to bring<br />
a superfast wireless network to areas including Lismore, Iona,<br />
Colonsay, parts of Mull, Jura, Islay and the Craignish peninsula.<br />
Considerable Enhancements<br />
Despite the current patchy availability of superfast speeds,<br />
businesses that have already benefitted from the roll-out,<br />
such as the Uig Hotel on Skye, report considerable enhancements<br />
to the service. With a basic broadband connection of<br />
5-6mbps, dropping to 1-2mbps during busy periods when<br />
other properties were logging on, access was severely<br />
restricted.<br />
Now with 38mbps at their disposal guests can enjoy<br />
browsing anywhere in the hotel - and not just public areas.<br />
As the editor of Stornoway-based, Heb Events, Fred Silver,<br />
points out, superfast has increased overall capacity. So his<br />
home broadband service at home is now three times faster,<br />
while at the office, he is no longer reliant on notoriously<br />
unreliable mobile broadband.<br />
However, since mid-December 2016 the service has become<br />
intermittent. For an enterprise that’s entirely reliant on digital<br />
technology, with tens of thousands of customers, any<br />
interruption is a critical issue. The situation in Lewis as of<br />
February <strong>2017</strong> is one of transition.<br />
Address the Demand<br />
Superfast speeds are available to businesses<br />
such as Heb Events and their immediate<br />
neighbours, yet much of central Stornoway<br />
awaits this upgrade and many other remote<br />
areas of the island are falling well short of<br />
fibre speeds. It’s a picture repeated<br />
throughout a multitude of island communities;<br />
but further developments are afoot to<br />
address the demand.<br />
Another Stornoway-based business, Acair<br />
Books, is benefiting considerably from the<br />
work of Digital Scotland. Having to stop<br />
sending emails after 15.30 because the<br />
network becomes too slow is now a thing of<br />
the past. The transfer of very large files<br />
between staff and printers across the world<br />
is now far quicker.<br />
Further street cabinets have now been<br />
installed in North Lewis and subsequent<br />
excavation work has been taking place in<br />
central Stornoway. Any tangible social<br />
advantages from the service are still a long way<br />
off, but by the end of this year far more infrastructure<br />
will be in place and active. It’s a fluid<br />
situation with capacity provisions in flux.<br />
Core Infrastructure<br />
As the project reaches more and more<br />
communities, expectations naturally<br />
increase in adjoining areas. This expectation<br />
needs to be managed against the<br />
backdrop of the enterprise’s fundamental<br />
aim: to build a core infrastructure, which<br />
did not exist previously, to reach as many<br />
properties as possible in the future.<br />
Further areas of the Outer Hebrides have<br />
had coverage re-planned so as to optimise<br />
the reach across these particularly scattered<br />
communities. Other islands, such as<br />
Orkney, are feeling the positive impact of<br />
the roll-out with over 7500 premises<br />
already reached through 34 new fibre<br />
cabinets enabling multiple providers.<br />
It is a similarly improving picture in<br />
Shetland, Arran and Cumbrae where 87%<br />
of properties had fibre access by November<br />
2016. Skye has also seen a comprehensive<br />
roll-out take place. The islands are just<br />
beginning to reap the rewards of fibre<br />
broadband. Provided the work stays on<br />
target, this year looks set to be a transformative<br />
one for islanders’ internet.<br />
Page 43: A fibre-cable cabinet at<br />
Leverburgh, South Harris, a keycrossing<br />
point for the subsea-cable.<br />
Opposite: The landing of the<br />
longest cable at Stornoway.<br />
Above: Tobermory is the end of<br />
another key crossing-point from<br />
Kilchoan.<br />
Photographs supplied by<br />
Highlands & Islands Enterprises.<br />
44 SCOTTISH ISLANDS EXPLORER MAY / JUNE <strong>2017</strong> MAY / JUNE <strong>2017</strong> SCOTTISH ISLANDS EXPLORER 45
Island Castles<br />
Island Castles<br />
Tom Aston considers aspects of extensive conference proceedings<br />
Castles played a central role in the<br />
heyday of the Hebrides from the<br />
Norse period through to the end of the<br />
Lordship of the Isles. They were linked by<br />
seaways, conduits for those vessels known<br />
as ‘birlinn’ or galley. The notion of ‘islandcentred<br />
geography’ (Ian Armit) appeals<br />
to this magazine and it is pleased to carry<br />
a review of a new publication from The<br />
Islands Book Trust.<br />
The three-day international gathering,<br />
Island Castles, took place in Barra in mid-<br />
September 2015 and was a conference<br />
organised by the IBT, Historic Scotland<br />
and Comhairle nan Eilean Siar. It was<br />
stimulated by the late Ian R Macneill’s call<br />
to revisit the study of galley-castles. This<br />
book is essentially a record of the conference<br />
proceedings and it will be available<br />
in <strong>June</strong> <strong>2017</strong>.<br />
Rory Macneil set out the challenge<br />
posed by Ian Macneil’s earlier research on<br />
the topic and that a comprehensive<br />
approach is needed to study galley-castles<br />
of the 800 - 1600 period. Vital to an<br />
assessment is to see the constructions as<br />
being sea- rather than land-orientated<br />
and situated directly on the Norse-Celtic<br />
Seaways. The nearby Kisimul Castle was<br />
literally shown as a significant example in<br />
this context.<br />
Maritime Mobility<br />
The exploits and seasonal lifestyles of<br />
‘Svein’ and other Viking compatriots were<br />
focused on by R Andrew McDonald, who<br />
stressed how, between 1000 - 1500, seedplanting<br />
would be followed by plundering<br />
Irish and Hebridean sites in a ‘Spring-trip’<br />
followed by harvesting and further harassment<br />
in an ‘Autumn trip’. Maritime<br />
mobility mattered with the galley-castles<br />
being in commanding locations.<br />
David Sellar then reminded the<br />
audience of how many Irish families<br />
claim descent from Nial of the Nine<br />
Hostages, High King of Ireland in the 5th<br />
Century. Recent research has considered<br />
the findings of DNA links and how a a<br />
survey of the Macneil of Barra descendants<br />
worldwide had shown that their<br />
Y-chromosome was not Celtic, but<br />
distinctly Norse.<br />
The galleys associated with the castles<br />
were used, as Donald McWhannell<br />
pointed out, for personal transport and<br />
display, as troop-transporters, as assault<br />
craft and for trading. They were wellsuited<br />
to these waters and the style of<br />
vessel remained in use for 900 years.<br />
Indeed, their historical longevity and<br />
multiple uses encouraged them to be<br />
considered as cultural icons, endowed<br />
with qualities by Gaelic poets.<br />
Harbours and Farms<br />
The Viking colonists who settled in the<br />
Hebrides came from a venerable tradition<br />
of fort-building from the Iron Age with<br />
hundreds of drystone and turfed<br />
constructions, particularly on hills. Alan<br />
Macniven considered the nomenclature<br />
of these together with the adjacent<br />
presence of harbours and farms. The<br />
transportation and feeding of armies are<br />
underlying components in any military<br />
strategy.<br />
Tom Macneill contrasted the ‘mottecastles’<br />
made of earth and timber, which<br />
were increasingly regarded as being<br />
primitive, with the ‘keep-castles’ which<br />
are defined as having a great tower that<br />
could be used for safe-keeping when<br />
retreat was needed and a siege<br />
undertaken. He also draws an interesting<br />
distinction between craft built specially<br />
for war and trading vessels that were<br />
adapted for military use.<br />
The material and sources in the construction<br />
of galley-castles was examined by Jamie<br />
MacPherson. Normally the stones would be<br />
as local as possible, but some, with a green<br />
appearance, at Kisimul were thought to<br />
have come from a South Uist source. The<br />
Chairman of the IBT, Alasdair MacEachen,<br />
who introduced the Conference, was able<br />
to identify similar in the fireplace structure<br />
at a friend’s home.<br />
Whether the Stuely green stone /<br />
slate source was identical has yet to be<br />
concluded, but this series of papers of<br />
the conference will enable those with<br />
a professional or keen amateur interest<br />
in Hebridean castles and craft to satisfy<br />
their interests. After all, the Vikings<br />
left several aspects of their sea-going,<br />
siege-seeking, treasure-hunting, namegiving<br />
culture plus identifying<br />
chromosomes.<br />
Barra conference leaflet; Kisimul Castle, Barra, from on high by Roger Butler.<br />
46 SCOTTISH ISLANDS EXPLORER MAY / JUNE <strong>2017</strong>
RESPONSES<br />
Responses<br />
CROSSWORD<br />
Page Index<br />
28<br />
Header<br />
by Tom Johnson<br />
When you have solved the crossword, transfer the letters from some of the numbered<br />
squares into the small grid and so discover the town with the UK’s smallest<br />
cathedral situated on a ‘Great’ island.<br />
Jennifer Flynn reflects on a day and night on Arran<br />
Living in Glasgow, I often find myself drawn to Arran.<br />
So days-off frequently involve boarding the ferry in<br />
Ardrossan with my partner and our dog, Hamish. On the<br />
island it is easy to look no farther than Brodick, with the<br />
Brewery, Isle of Arran Cheese and Arran Aromatics all worth<br />
a visit. But there is so much more on offer. All our previous<br />
visits have been day-trips, so this time we decided to spend<br />
the night on the island.<br />
Our destination this time was Blackwaterfoot, literally<br />
meaning ‘Bottom of the Black River’. This peaceful hamlet lies<br />
on the west coast. On a clear day you can see across the<br />
Kilbrannan Sound to the Mull of Kintyre and on a very clear<br />
day, even Ireland. Following concise instructions from our<br />
friendly bus driver, a Yorkshire man who followed the lure of<br />
island-life many years ago, we hiked to the King’s Caves.<br />
His Crusade<br />
Hugging the coast we trekked along, passing the impressive<br />
basalt cliffs of The Doon. The caves are believed by many to be<br />
the location of Robert the Bruce’s fateful encounter while in<br />
hiding at the lowest point of his campaign against the English<br />
when he thought that all was lost. His observations of the<br />
persistent spider spinning a web until his home was complete<br />
encouraged him to continue the struggle. His crusade was<br />
eventually victorious.<br />
Blackwaterfoot by Jennifer Flynn.<br />
We stopped for lunch at the cave before heading back to<br />
the village for a rewarding pint at The Kinloch Hotel,<br />
followed by dinner at the Blackwaterfoot Lodge Hotel<br />
where we were staying. The next morning we took the bus<br />
to Lochranza with our fearless bus driver taking on some<br />
rather hair-raising manoeuvres. Hamish did not like it, but<br />
I really enjoyed seeing, from a whole new perspective, an<br />
island I have grown to love.<br />
Decided to Roam<br />
Arriving in Lochranza we were met by some deer which had<br />
made their way onto the stony beach to forage and we<br />
decided to roam around the castle. The weather had changed<br />
from bright and sunny to gloomy, leaving the edifice looking<br />
rather sombre, sitting atop its promontory out in the bay.<br />
Lochranza Castle dates to the 13th Century and has been<br />
owned by many families. It is said that Bruce himself once<br />
landed there on returning from Ireland.<br />
Jumping back on the bus, we headed south towards Brodick.<br />
Driving up through the hills we were treated to some spectacular<br />
mountain scenery. We had time for a quick drink at the<br />
always welcoming Ormidale Hotel before catching the ferry<br />
back to the mainland. I cannot wait to see where our next<br />
spontaneous visit to Arran takes us - for the place has so much<br />
to recommend.<br />
ACROSS<br />
1. Morse or semaphore, eg (4)<br />
3. Nellie's fruity dessert (5,5)<br />
10. Terminal point of "the Road to the Isles" (7)<br />
11. Distinctive flair (7)<br />
12. Certainly not Morse's offshore area! (4,2,5)<br />
13. Feel unwell in Baillieston (3)<br />
14. Birthplace, in 1854, of Sir William Smith, the founder of<br />
the Boys' Brigade (6)<br />
16. Stupid fellow's melody with school boss (7)<br />
19. Largest settlement on the Knoydart peninsula (7)<br />
21. Make a strongly worded criticism on how to get caught,<br />
it seems (3,3)<br />
24. Hostilities in Rowardennan (3)<br />
25. Eagle legend about location of Islay's airport (11)<br />
27. Explain in general terms swapping for this rugby<br />
formation (4-3)<br />
28. Very briefly (2,1,4)<br />
29. Canna, Rum, Eigg and Muck (5,5)<br />
30. Priest going east to seaside village in Fife (4)<br />
DOWN<br />
1. Awful crime involving love in Strathearn village (6)<br />
2. 1968 hit for Tom Jones (7)<br />
4. Strathaird village overlooked by Ben Meabost with the Cuillins<br />
across Loch Scavaig (5)<br />
5. The north-western point of mainland Scotland (4,5)<br />
6. Maths take-away! (5)<br />
7. Scotland's longest, narrow stretch of water, in Lorne (4,3)<br />
8. Resort on the Firth of Forth -- could be Alder Bay (8)<br />
9. Manual worker (8)<br />
15. The Merry Widow and Orpheus in the Underworld, eg (9)<br />
17. Island Royal Burgh and Prince Charles' Dukedom (8)<br />
18. Central brick structures in Shetland village (3,5)<br />
20. Porch (7)<br />
22. Village on the shores of Loch Glencoul, opposite Kylesku (7)<br />
23. Sewing aid (6)<br />
25. Dog's angry, low snarl (5)<br />
26. Get five topped in sea loch (5)<br />
Send your answer from the small grid to:<br />
editor@scottishislandsexplorer.com or text to<br />
07510 127014 or by mailing it to SIE Elm Lodge IP22 1EA<br />
to enter the competition for a free year’s<br />
membership of The Islands Book Trust.<br />
Small grid answer to Crossword 27 was Rothesay<br />
Winner of Crossword 27: Fred Crawford<br />
Solution to Crossword 27<br />
48 SCOTTISH ISLANDS EXPLORER MAY / JUNE <strong>2017</strong><br />
MAY / JUNE <strong>2017</strong> SCOTTISH ISLANDS EXPLORER 49
ISLAND INCIDENTS<br />
Roger Butler recalls winning a cruise on the Hebridean Princess<br />
Scottish Islands Explorer Store<br />
It had been a long day. My train was already delayed and I<br />
killed time by drifting along the magazine racks at<br />
Paddington Station. Cars, garden makeovers or needlecraft<br />
did not appeal, but my mood suddenly improved when<br />
I spotted a glossy Scottish title.<br />
The content may have appeared fairly lightweight, but a<br />
special competition caught my eye. I knew all about the<br />
luxurious Hebridean Princess, partly because I had often been<br />
on board when she worked as the much-loved Columba and<br />
partly because I often received brochures that revealed how<br />
she now carried more staff than guests.<br />
I could but dream, but now here in front of me lay a chance -<br />
albeit very slight - to win a four-night cruise in a style to which I<br />
was not wholly accustomed. There were a few questions, but if<br />
you knew the Hebrides, you could not really go wrong. Where<br />
will you find the famous Singing Sands? Easy - Eigg!<br />
Top-notch Cruise-ship<br />
I posted an entry and forgot all about it until Claire, my<br />
wife, rang me late one afternoon. A magazine had been on<br />
the phone and someone had tried to explain that my name<br />
had been drawn out of a hat. She was not sure what they were<br />
talking about in confirming arrangements with a certain topnotch<br />
cruise-ship.<br />
I felt light- headed. I never thought people won competitions.<br />
Dates were set, our suite was booked and the itinerary<br />
was confirmed. In the meantime, just to oil the wheels, we<br />
had planned a backpacking- trip to the islands. This was our<br />
usual way of doing things, with a small tent, a tiny stove and<br />
plenty of midge repellent.<br />
Imagine our shock and surprise when we unzipped the door one<br />
morning and saw the Hebridean Princess moored just offshore.<br />
The luxurious Hebridean Princess is moored off-shore while an inflatable<br />
ferries passengers to a remote-island beach. Hebridean Island Cruises Ltd.<br />
Half an hour later, a red inflatable zodiac brought passengers onto<br />
a sandy beach and we smiled as we saw foldaway steps being used<br />
to avoid the slightest chance of wet feet.<br />
Would they really allow rough campers like us on board,<br />
even if we had won a competition? The great day came<br />
towards the end of October and, as usual, we strode through<br />
Oban carrying our hefty rucksacks, unusually packed with<br />
fancy dining-attire. We joked that any welcoming staff might<br />
point us in the direction of the ferry to Mull.<br />
For Drinks?<br />
That’s exactly what happened! We explained our predicament:<br />
“We’re not used to this, please excuse us if we don’t fit<br />
in. We won a competition …” The purser held out his hand<br />
and escorted us to a warm lounge, “Please come this way, the<br />
official photographer will be here in five minutes. Will you<br />
join me for drinks?”<br />
We soon settled in and never stopped smiling - or eating -<br />
for the next four days. We called at Tobermory and Portree,<br />
clambered over hills in Torridon and Knoydart and dashed<br />
around dazzling autumn colour on the Ardnamurchan. One<br />
banquet followed another and a captain’s reception seemed<br />
to take place every night.<br />
We’re still camping, of course, but if you only ever win<br />
one competition ... make sure the prize involves the<br />
Hebridean Princess.<br />
In the Next Issue …<br />
Mull - Ulva<br />
Seaweed - Discover<br />
Outposts - Depicted<br />
Community - Shops<br />
Rum - Castle<br />
Blind - Piper<br />
On Sale 18 <strong>June</strong><br />
1. Port Askaig (Islay) 2. Lochaline 3. Toft (Mainland Shetland) 4. Sconser (Skye) 5. Taylinloan<br />
6. Colintraive 7. Easedale 8. Kennacraig 9. Lerwick (Mainland Shetland) 10. Iona<br />
Stocked with items for you,<br />
family and friends<br />
• One-year subscriptions from £24.97<br />
with discounts for longer terms<br />
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50 SCOTTISH ISLANDS EXPLORER MAY / JUNE <strong>2017</strong>
ISLAND AND WILDLIFE CRUISES OFF SCOTLAND’S BEAUTI-<br />
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