Yumpu_ May_June 2017_02

Five Weeks on the Monachs
Five Weeks on the Monachs
Like Watered Silk
In spite of being almost featureless, the highest point is only
62’ above sea level, great beauty features, both on a large-scale
and in its details. For example, in high winds the sand-dunes
re-arrange themselves in stripes like watered silk. In storms
the sand has it unwanted side when a gently sloping beach
could become a 30’ high cliff, impassable for new-born seals
that were swept out to sea.
One could spend a whole week sharing the island with 5000
seals and their pups and, occasionally, with a feral cat which
a visiting zoologist had left behind. No one but us went to
the north and west, though the south-east and school-house
would fill with lobster fishermen if the weather turned. We
would then move out of the school-room, with its graffiti of
ships, to the larder, with its powerful odours.
They were lovable fisherman, bringing us fresh supplies and
the occasional crab or lobster. In exchange we unravelled old
nylon rope to make lobster-pots and brought firewood from
the beach. Oakum or tarred fibre was picked out on the
Sabbath because it was an indoor activity and therefore not
visible to the Free Church minister, allegedly on North Uist
... with binoculars!
Working-lives
The fishermen had varied life-stories. One was a native
of the Monachs and had attended the school until evacuation.
We had not appreciated that most of them had spent
their working-lives in the Merchant Navy until one usually
silent individual startled us by joining the discussion
with “The last time I went through the Panama Canal
...”
Most were crofters from Grimsay and Benbecula, but
one was Glaswegian, formerly a bouncer in a Paisley
dance-hall before taking up a new life as a fisherman on
retirement and entering public life as a community
councillor. The army personnel connected to the
Benbecula rocket range widened his social contacts and
he was known to almost everyone by his conversational
line, “So I said to the Brigadier ...”
It was he who took us out for a day’s lobster fishing,
thwarted by the few, undersized catches. As a bonus he
took us to the then derelict lighthouse on Shillay where
we saw Scotland’s only black white-coat seal pup - not
melanistic, but born in the former keepers’ coal-house
and thick with coal-dust. The ascent and descent of the
lighthouse was made in total darkness for a torch had
not been taken for fishing.
Our Memories
Here was quite a terrifying experience, with the steps
treacherous from bird-droppings and the twigs of their
nests as well as our memories from literary sources
concerning the wicked uncle trying to kill Alan Balfour in
Kidnapped. The writer was, of course, the really
appropriate author, Robert Louis Stevenson, a member of
the lighthouse-building dynasty.
We recalled our personal space being
invaded when at one sunrise a Sea King
helicopter landed a few yards from our
door landing a doctor wearing a wet-suit
and carrying his medical bag. The reasons
are too complicated to explain, although
connected to Ceann Ear being the only
uninhabited island to have a solarpowered
telephone.
On another occasion a Zodiac inflatable
was run onto the beach, disgorged two
telephone engineers and half-a-dozen
squaddies who spent the afternoon
building a large and ambitious sandcastle.
This was quite a contrast to the time spent
afterwards at home with our reference
books, which provided such information
that the Monachs were an official reserve
because of the quality of the machair
flowers.
Exists in the Minds
As autumnal visitors we could have been
forgiven for asking, “What flowers?” Would
someone who visited in June say, “What
seals?” Would we have known about
migrating geese if we had not stayed extra
days because of bad weather? Every
visitor to an island has a different picture
to take home and arguably the island
only exists in the minds of those experiencing
it.
Equally the memories in the minds of
visitors and the images depicted in their
photographs bestow immortality on the
seals, the geese and on such as the infinite
re-arrangement of sand grains to make
ever-differing patterns.
Rosa Baker (1940 - 2016) was born in
Hereford, brought up in the Welsh
Marches and lived for most of her life in
North Wales. Her first Scottish island
was Tiree (excavating with the
Hunterian Museum, Glasgow) and then
Orkney. With her family she continued
excavating and holidaying in Scotland.
She joined her husband on seal-research
field-trips to such as the Monachs and
North Rona. She visited 83 Scottish
islands, as well as 91 others worldwide,
and was in Orkney just two months
before her death despite infirmity caused
by Parkinson’s Disease.
Page 8 Top: The school-house,
Caenn Ear.
Below: The author being rowed
ashore, Ceann Ear.
Left: Cutting up driftwood to burn.
Below: A sleeping week-old seal
pup on Ceann Ear.
The photographs were taken by
John Baker.
10 SCOTTISH ISLANDS EXPLORER MAY / JUNE 2017
MAY / JUNE 2017 SCOTTISH ISLANDS EXPLORER 11