by David Yeadon
“There’s enough seaside frontage here for the whole population of Scotland!” I remember exclaiming at one point as we sat in a sand hollow, staring southward from Ardivachar Point on South Uist down twenty-five or more miles of virtually unbroken beach. With not a soul to be seen anywhere.
“Yes—but those gales here. They’d blow them all back to the mainland!” said Anne, which at the time seemed an amusing retort. However, a while later, in unexpectedly ferocious hurricane-force winter storms, we learned that a whole family of five in a car had been literally lifted off the road in a gale-created tidal surge and drowned while trying to cross the two-mile causeway linking Benbecula with North Uist.
But such tragedies, past and present, have obviously not discouraged settlement along these shores. The rich machair was just too tempting for ancient Neolithic (up to 2000 BC), Bronze Age (to 300 BC), and Iron Age (300 BC to AD 200) settlers—a heritage of over five thousand years—whose bold remnant structures and standing stones still litter the island chain today. Then came the marauding Vikings in the eighth century, and subsequent generations of crofter-farmers who maintained a subsistence way of life here for centuries. The population increased rapidly, as in Harris, during the peak of the kelp industry in the early 1800s, and in the lucrative herring era. But then, crisis and calamity came just as it did to so much of Scotland, particularly the island communities. It’s the same story over and over. The overcrowding of the crofter populations, the terrible potato famines of the 1850s, the decline of kelp and fishing, and the frantic maneuvers of the clan chiefs to introduce widespread sheep farming by “clearing” the crofters off the land and shipping them off to Canada or Australia. All led to a decimation of the “old ways,” the destruction of the small crofts, and the creation of a machair plain inhabited only by sheep and cattle.
Today, although the crofters are back following dramatic reforms and tenancy laws after the passing of the 1886 Crofter Act and subsequent “social enhancements,” their numbers are few compared to the old days. And while prosperity is evident in the well-kept pastures, the neat fencing, and the newly whitewashed homes, the vast green machair still possesses an empty aura punctuated by the grass-smothered humps and bumps of long-abandoned black houses. Yet one more place of whispered tragedies and cruel evictions.
“We had to do it,” claim descendants of the clearance-era lairds. “There were just too many people on too little land and they were starving and the industries were dying—and we were going bankrupt too! So—we tried to help our crofters get a fresh start somewhere else.”
The crofters, of course, tell a far different story. And even today in bars and community halls all around the Hebrides, you can still sense their anger and resentment and their “never again!” spirit.
We got a smattering of it when we stopped briefly at the Politician pub in Eriskay to see what more we could learn about the famous story that made Compton Mackenzie’s book Whisky Galore an international best-seller and movie and put these remote islands well and truly on the tourist map.
“Y’wanna hear the story, d’ye?” An elderly, stooped man approached us as we were studying the old sepia-tinged photographs on the walls of the modern-looking pub, whose windows faced out across the Sound of Barra and the wide Atlantic. He gave a sort of lopsided leering sneer when he noticed we were reading the “official” history of the event framed beside the photos, and stood close enough to drench us in pungent whisky fumes.
“Aw, f’get a’that. Ah’ll tell’e wha’ really ’appened.”
“Why—were you there?” I asked. The event took place in February 1941, so as I guessed he was well into his seventies (but looking more like a hundred with his wrinkled, line-etched face), I assumed he might well have been a participant in this hilarious episode.
He gave a kind of “What kind of daft question is that?—Of course I was” grimace and proceeded to describe how the twelve-thousand-ton cargo ship Politician had been grounded by an errant navigator “on the last bit o’ rock between here and America” at the eastern end of the Sound of Eriskay and was quickly found to contain over twenty-four thousand cases of whisky ultimately bound for New York.
“This wa’ the war time when whisky—we called it the cratur—was a wee bit rare in these parts so y’can imagine what a lovely surprise this was for us all. And quick work we made of that liquor too—dropped those boxes off fast as lightnin’ and hid ’em in places like y’wouldn’a believe.”
“But it says here that the customs men were able to requisition most of the cases and very few were stolen…,” I said, pointing to the “official” story on the wall.
“Rubbish!” the old man responded with remarkable vigor, dousing us once again in a noxious smog of whisky fumes. “Tha’s wha’ they had t’say, weren’t it?! But even today y’still find people sellin’ them ol’ bottles fer enough cash t’fill this bar with the cratur fer a year or more. Oh, no—w’got a nice lot o’ the stuff off long before the customs got ’emselves up ’ere.”
“And it says that many of those that were caught got prison sentences…”
I waited for another blast of fumes but he decided to sulk instead at my tactless interruption.
“Och—believe wha’ the hell y’wanna believe.”
He moved away. I wondered if I’d been a little rude and Anne was nudging me with a kind of “do something” urgency, so I followed him to the bar and offered him a drink. “Och, weel—I’ll jus’ have a large one then, seein’ as y’askin’,” he replied, and I felt I’d been caught once again in a little local trap for gullible outsiders. But I bought a round for all of us, including the barman, and the old man started up again.
“Y’see, what they don’t really tell you in all this official history is what else was on board that poor ship. Y’won’t believe—there were boxes of cigarettes—real expensive ones—an’ silk dresses, an’ fur coats, an’ perfume, an’ fancy shoes an’ all kinds o’ cases—travelin’ cases like y’take fer a holiday. An’ can y’guess who all this stuff was for?”
“No idea,” said Anne. “Doesn’t sound like normal cargo…”
“No—and ’twasn’t!” The old man leaned closer (more fiery fumes) and half whispered, “’Twas for the Royal Family, King George and the Queen Mum and all of ’em—their stuff—bein’ sent over to Jamaica or Bermuda or some such island paradise to make them all cushy-like there if we lost the war with Germany…so…wha’d’ye think about all that then?!”
This was new information and we digested it with bemused skepticism, but at the same time we toasted our aged informant to prevent further misunderstandings.
I thought it best to return to the subject of Compton Mackenzie and his book.
“Ah, well—that Mackenzie man was a fine man, all right. Maybe he played ’round with the truth a wee bit, y’ken, with his book—he did another one too, y’know, about the rocket range up there in South Uist—Rockets Galore, he called it. Didn’t seem to catch on, though, like Whisky. But what did catch on was the man himself and his Scottish nationalism…”
“I thought he was English…,” I said, and wished I hadn’t.
“English?!” The old man made it sound like some kind of terminal disease. “Well, if ’e wa’, ’e wa’ a much better Scotsman than any Englishman I’ve ever met!”
“Okay,” I said, once again subdued into silence.
“…An’ he did a lot more for the people here—us crofters who’d been treated so bad for centuries—and the fishermen of the isles too—with his Sea League and all his speeches about illegal trawlin’ by the damn Spanish an’ those Ruskies an’ the Japs…he really tried to stop a’ that. An’ he lived down there on the beach where the planes land on Barra. He was there ’til 1945 an’—och, y’should have seen the fuss they made when he died in 1972 an’ they brought him back for burial at Eoligarry. All the islanders wa’ there. That was a fine, fine day for a ver’ fine man…a Scottish man!”
We thanked our informant for his
time and slowly crept out of the bar, passing a “genuine” bottle of Politician whisky proudly encased in a cabinet by the door, and leaving him to his musings.
We’d left with a similar humility too a while earlier in the day after one of the finest lunches we’d enjoyed anywhere in the Hebrides. The place was called the Orasay Inn—a true gastronomic oasis set way out in the lochan-laced landscape of South Uist. If it had not been for a friend insisting that we sample the fare here, we never would have noticed the small sign at the side of the main road near Ardmore pointing the way across a bleak, gale-whipped landscape to this intimate hotel and restaurant, where Isabel and Alan Graham proudly showed us just how good local Hebridean fare can be when prepared with imagination and flair.
All the raw materials of the isles were there on the menu: venison, lamb, duck, salmon, fresh fish, crabs, hand-dived scallops, cockles, mussels, locally smoked “flaky” salmon, Hebridean fish soup—even crème brûlée and “milky seaweed pudding” for truly discerning gastronomes. We dined like royalty.
There were hotel rooms too, all with spectacular views across the lochans and moors. It was tempting…but we had a second prebooked ferry to catch to Barra, so, in a gastronomic glow, we moved on.
We could see Barra quite clearly across the sound as the boat eased its southward way from Eriskay and we stood at the rail, sea breezes tossing our hair, remembering an evocative description of the island’s spirit by Alastair Scott in his delicious book of Scottish journeys, Native Stranger: “It was another Sabbath. The good people of Barra had attended mass. There was to be a football match that afternoon. The bars were open (though you couldn’t buy a condom for love nor money). A general levity rubbed shoulders with humor…Even the ferry sailed.” (The author was obviously well aware of the difference between Harris and Barra Sabbaths.) The idea of Sabbath ferry sailings and pub openings on Harris is, of course, taboo territory, as the Calvinistic islanders fight to keep their Sunday traditions sacrosanct. So Barra’s rather lax Catholic attitude toward such matters is regarded by the Hearaich as sacrilegious and “papist” in the extreme. Hence, the bad press up north and exaggerated rumors of the flagrant Sodom and Gomorrah antics of the natives down here.
As we were arriving midweek, we had no chance to witness the terrible sins of “Barra Sundays.” We do remember, however, the smiles and waves of the locals as soon as we drove off the ferry, up the slipway, and onto the main—the only—circular road around the island. Everyone seemed pleased to see us. Admittedly, we were grinning like tourists as we realized, within minutes of our arrival, just how serene this “small is beautiful” place appeared to be. And our grins turned to guffaws as a small twenty-seater turboprop plane skimmed low enough over our heads for us to feel the backdraft and landed, gently as a descending swan, on the golden sands of Cockle Strand Airport just ahead.
A sign at the roadside warned: KEEP OFF THE BEACH WHEN THE WINDSOCK IS FLYING. It didn’t, however, mention anything about keeping your head down when the plane is actually landing.
We decided we’d stop for a coffee at the airport. It was a clean, well-organized little facility and the sunlight-filled cafeteria even claimed to offer “home-cooked island specialties.” I was hoping for a “light snack” of fresh-steamed cockles with drawn butter or maybe a bowl of cullen skink soup, but all the cheerful lady behind the counter could offer was a rather wrinkled meat pie. (“So sorry—the passengers who are chust leavin’ ’ave eaten all the specials.”) Unfortunately, it was also one of those Scottish pies, a rather sad, deflated four-inch-diameter concoction of pale leathery pastry filled with an innocuous mix of minced meat—so very different from the crisp, bronze “cold pastry” pork pies of England oozing with jellied stock and richly spiced chopped meat. Anne wouldn’t touch it and I gave up after a couple of bites. Not a promising introduction to the gastronomic bounties of Barra, I thought.
A uniformed gentleman standing nearby chuckled, “Bet y’re from England—and y’re wondering whatever happened to real pork pies up here!”
I laughed too.—“Yes—absolutely. I just can’t seem to develop a taste for…these things…”
He nodded empathetically. “Don’t worry. When y’get down to Castlebay, y’ll be in for some fine dining!”
He was obviously an airport employee, so I asked how many flights he expected at the airport that day.
“Oh—just the one. From Glasgow.”
“One?! Y’mean—you have all this airport and all these staff people I see wandering about for one flight a day?!”
He laughed again, not in the least bit offended by the implication that this might be some kind of ridiculous bureaucratic boondoggle. In fact, he seemed delighted to have someone to talk to. And—could he talk! For the next fifteen minutes we listened to the most remarkable stream-of-consciousness monologue that encompassed the fickleness of the local weather; the current health of his wife and kids (five in all); the foibles of the British Labor government and the “craftiness” of the prime minister, Tony Blair; the eccentricities of the local Catholic church (“it’s like they’re all nervously whistling past their own graves!”); his resentment at only being a part-time employee of this nothing-much-happening airport, and his radically revised philosophy on life following a recent traumatic operation, which he insisted on describing in glorious technicolor detail.
We were worn out by his diatribe, although I was enticed by one Scottish quotation he gave as the key to his “new” life following his operation: “Nae man can tether time nor tide.” He then went on to explain in more extravagant detail how he interpreted this Robbie Burns aphorism to mean that you’ve got to make the most of each and every day because you never know what fate may have in store for you next. And as if to clinch his own “reborn” attitude toward life, he quoted the great bard once again:
“Heaven can boil the pot
Tho’ the deil piss in the fire.”
“Well, we’ll certainly remember that,” I said as we hurried for the exit.
Kisimul Castle—Castlebay, Barra
We drove on toward the end of the narrow peninsula north of the airport, passing Compton Mackenzie’s old home, and ended up in a windswept cemetery where the rambunctious writer is buried. The sheep-shorn grasses rose uphill to bulky stone remnants of an ancient church, Cille-bharra, thought to be a twelfth-century structure built on the site of a seventh-century church dedicated to St. Barr. The island’s mysterious patron saint, a loyal follower of St. Columba and also known as St. Finbarr or Barrfinn, is thought to have settled here from Ireland, bringing a staunch Catholic faith with him. Although he almost didn’t. According to local legend a missionary sent to prepare for his arrival was roasted alive and eaten by the Barra residents! This is, therefore, one of the most important religious complexes in the western isles—burial place of the island chiefs, the MacNeils, and once a monastic community with a famously unique gravestone boasting a Celtic cross on one side and an inscription in Norse runes on the reverse, which, historians claim, is ample evidence to suggest the conversion of Norse raiders and settlers to Catholic Christianity in the eleventh century. Their presence here was certainly a dominant factor from the eighth century, and the melodic names of the tiny islands off Barra reflect the ancient Viking tongue—Orosay, Gighay, Flodday, Vatersay, Mingulay, and many others. As do the place names of the tiny communities scattered around the island—Brevig, Skallary, Earsary, Boinabodach, Borve, and Tangusdale.
The sun was out and it was warm. So, as Anne wandered among the gravestones and over the marram grass–topped dunes to the beautiful mile-long beach of Traigh Eais, I sat with my back against a rock and tried to capture the power of these ancient ruins on my sketchpad—particularly the huge double-arched doorway that once led into the interior of the twelfth-century church. Birds chirped all around; buttercups and daisies that had somehow survived the constant onslaught of avaricious sheep danced in the late-afternoon breezes. And a great peace came over me. One of those frisson moment
s when everything in life seems to be just the way it should be. And I laughed quietly, remembering the Burns life-affirming aphorisms offered by the man at the airport. They pretty much said it all.
“You’re daydreaming!” Anne chuckled, her cheeks flushed by the strong ocean winds blowing on the other side of the dunes.
“I guess…,” I said, wondering why I hadn’t completed my sketch. “I just feel…ridiculously happy…”
“Must be the spirit of little Barra sneaking in…,” said Anne, and snuggled down beside me. We sat quietly together, our backs against the warm rock, listening to the birds and watching the flowers dance their summer dances.
A while later we drove southward down toward Castlebay, passing remnants of ancient Iron Age duns (forts) and standing stones—now a familiar sight across the wild Hebridean landscape.
“I think we just passed a golf course!” Anne giggled.
“A golf course?! In this wild terrain?”
“Go back…let’s see…”
So, obedient as ever, I drove back a mile or so and saw, way on a high promontory, the familiar golf course flags. And as we drove closer we realized that each of the greens had a neat little fence around it. We parked by an empty green-fee shed. Obviously, as on the similar nine-hole course on Harris, they use the honor payment system here.
We saw a young couple dragging their golf club bags up the steep hillside toward the shed.
“You look a bit weary!” I called out to them.
They both smiled. “We should be. It’s our third round here today!”
“How many holes on the course?”
“Only nine—but with crazy topography like this—all these rocks and cliffs and near vertical fairways—it’s a par sixty-eight. You should see the bunker on the fourth hole. World’s largest, so they say…”