by David Yeadon
“You’re really in the thick of it,” I said, “surrounded by so many remnants of the lifeways you’re trying to restore and maintain here. And in one of the most scenic parts of Lewis too. What else could a young family wish for?”
“Y’can’t beat it, can ye?” agreed Peter. “Sometimes when I’m cursing at how stubborn and hard this land of ours can be, or when I’m getting real frustrated by all the jobs left to do to get this croft the way we want it—all I’ve got to do is straighten up, take a few deep breaths, look around me, and I know it’s all worthwhile. Money just can’t buy this kind of place. And our two boys—Oliver and Jason—they love it too, so it makes it all fun. And Jane—well, of course, she’ll never leave…she’s set for life here!”
And, right on cue, who should emerge from the house but Jane, Peter’s grinning, red-cheeked, blond-haired mate, exuding all the rural charm of a happy farmer’s wife. “Instead of just standing around in the mud, why don’t you all come in for a cup o’ tea?” she said, laughing.
Of course, a “cup o’ tea” in a Hebridean home is never merely a cup of tea. It was, in Jane’s case, a cornucopia of buns, fruit pies, slices of thick, moist “boiled fruitcake,” and sandwiches layered with succulent roasted ham.
“This ham is gorgeous—where did you get it from?” asked Anne.
Jane smiled as she watched us devour her home-baked delights. “Oh. That’s Bernie.”
“Bernie?” asked Anne, wondering if it was the name of her local butcher.
“Bernie—one of our pigs.”
“Oh,” said Anne hesitantly.
Jane laughed. “No, no…eat him…it…the sandwich. He had a great life here. Spoilt rotten by the kids. I’m sure he’d be really pleased you’re enjoying him…it…the sandwich!”
But despite her generosity as our hostess and her beguiling grin, something seemed to be bothering Jane. Finally, at the end of a meandering conversation, she suddenly let it all out. “Look, you know, I’m sorry. It’s just that I’m feeling a bit bad right now for our two boys. We’ve all just come back from the Perth Mod.”
“Ah, we saw bits of that on television last night,” said Anne.
“Yes—it’s been on a lot. And it really was a great event. A huge celebration of the Gaelic culture: music, songs, dancing, choirs, poetry, and stories—all that good stuff. But our poor lads. They had a bit of a rough time. Oliver—he’s thirteen—plays guitar and he’s got this little band and they wrote some lovely Gaelic songs—all their own. They won the local Mod here. People thought they were fantastic. Giving Gaelic a bit of a boost with guitars and drums and whatnot. But at Perth, oh no—not at all! ‘Far too modern,’ they said. ‘Not traditional enough. Too loud’…and other stupid things. They got praised for the songs themselves but they didn’t even get a look-in because of the way they played them…I mean, you’ve got to keep up with the times, haven’t you, for goodness sake!”
Jane looked a bit more cheerful after her outburst. “Well—I’ve got that off my shoulders now. Sorry. But look—have some more tea.”
I must admit, it did strike me as rather ironic that a family so determined to authentically revive and maintain the generations-old traditional crofting lifeways would be frustrated by a similar intent on the part of the Mod itself, but I didn’t say that. Instead I asked about her own paintings, proudly displayed on the walls of her cozy dining room, where we all sat devouring the last of her culinary delights. They were bold works—mostly semiabstract renditions of fishing boats and harbor scenes in Stornoway.
Highland Cow
“I can’t go totally abstract,” she explained. “I’m not sure I want to. It can get far too personal—too self-focused. What I try to do is use my big black marker pens to sketch some of the basic composition lines—you know, how the massings of the boats echo the verticals of the quays, and the horizontals pick up the lines of lobster creels, the harbor wall, the decks of the trawlers. I try to find patterns—geometric forms—that work as partial abstracts of color and light but still keep the essence of the actual reality. You know, the things that made me want to sketch that particular subject in the first place…things that might make people see new beauty—awareness—in everyday scenes.”
“There seem to be touches of Cézanne…and Georges Braques in them…,” I said hesitantly. I’m always a little nervous when discussing “influences” in art. Some artists can be rather sensitive about such things.
“Oh, really—you think so?” Jane said. She giggled too, so I think she was pleased to be included in such elite company. “Thank you.”
At that point Peter interrupted our little art-soiree chat with an invitation to go see some of his projects, with a warning that “it might be a little muddy.”
Muddy it indeed was, but we soon forgot the gooey going as Peter pointed out some of the nuances of his work on the twelve-acre croft. Much of it was over our heads—references to dual-purpose cows; “natural weaning” for the calves; “maintaining family groups”; reduced castration of male sheep to increase breeding rams and the rare Hebridean stock; strict rotation schedules for potatoes, hay, and other crops on the lazybeds and higher pastures; and even the creation of a small bird-conservation area for the protection of the increasingly elusive corncrake, already nesting on Peter’s land.
It was a hard, gloppy slog up the steep slope of his croft, leaping across newly dug drainage ditches and avoiding pernicious patches of bog by hopping from tussock to tussock through the spindly marsh grass. At the high end of the croft above the Harlingtons’ home, the rough-and-tumble land began to meld with the weed-smothered remnants of old black houses. Little was left other than stumpy humps of ancient and thick stone walls, but it was obvious that over the last few centuries, a thriving crofting community had existed here.
“Some of these ruins have pre–Bronze Age origins,” said Peter. “There are burial cairns and standing stones all around here, many with cup-and-ring markings. This place has deep echoes.”
We stopped to look more closely at the rubbled remnants. A chill wind skirmished through the marsh grass, making the brittle blades rattle like old bones. Peter watched us closely and then said quietly, “Presences…can you sense them?”
Anne nodded a little warily, remembering our strange drive across the moor. I too felt that beguiling aura of layered life and death. So many centuries, so many stories, so many existences scrabbled out of this primordial, peaty earth.
“I love it up here,” Peter said quietly. “I feel we’re part of something so enduring, solid, and honest.”
Peter’s enthusiasm was contagious—about the land, about his little croft slowly being revived from the decay of decades, and in particular about his carefully nurtured livestock. In fact, he identified so strongly with his animals that when he discussed castration, you almost sensed he was talking about himself.
“I don’t believe in it at all,” he said stridently. “The meat is much tastier if you leave them ‘intact.’ The fat can be a bit gamey but a shoulder or a leg from our own breed will be the best you’ve ever had. And these St. Kildan sheep—at the moment we’ve got ten ewes and one ram and fourteen lambs—they’re smaller, hardier, and unlike most other breeds, they love these tussocky grasses here—which is good because we’ve got an awful lot of tussocks. Also, they’re very selective about how they eat the heather compared to other breeds. They don’t tear it out by the roots, so it keeps on growing.”
“How have the other crofters reacted to what you’re doing here?” asked Anne.
“You know, that’s been one of the best things in these last two years. So many come by for a chat and we exchange ideas. And they’ll tell me some of the things that their great-great-grandparents used to do to make the croft better. I feel quite privileged. And they seem to enjoy my classes too—particularly the women at the flower and garden classes. Things are changing quite a bit. Old gardens and inbye grazing land around here were previously unused but are now being turned over for
new plantings. It’s very encouraging.”
“So—no discouragements?” I asked.
“Well—I suppose, in any experiment like this, there are bound to be disappointments…frustrations. I mean y’wouldn’t believe, for example, all the new European Union regulations about how we can—actually, can’t—use our own milk. Can you believe this—even if I fully pasteurize our milk, I’m the only one in the family allowed to drink it! And I certainly can’t sell it. And cheeses—forget about it! I looked into building our own small cheesery, but wow—when I saw the books and books of regulations, I realized that they weren’t interested at all in supporting small farmers. It seems they just want to wipe us all out. I don’t know how the small farmers in countries like France and Italy even manage. I mean, there are so many of them over there and they’re getting smothered in these mountains of regulations that none of them can afford to implement—or even understand.”
“So, what’s the future for the small farmer—crofter—in places like Harris and Lewis?” asked Anne.
“Well—we’ll have to see how all this works out, won’t we? I mean, that’s why we’re here—why we came. To make it work. To show it can be done. To prove you can live a reasonably self-sufficient life on a few acres with very little money. Which is, of course, the essence of the old crofting life. Simple, basic, wholesome, healthy—entirely the result of your own hard work and the community spirit of the other local crofter families. That’s what it was all about then…and if we’re lucky here, that’s what our lives will be all about too…now.”
“It’s very…inspiring,” said Anne quietly. “You’re giving something back to a way of life that’s almost vanished.”
“Well, we’re not advocating a mass ‘return to the land’ movement. That’s far too visionary—and irrelevant—to what’s going on today. No, it’s really all about choices, I suppose. We’re trying to show that this way of life is still viable as an option, not a necessity. And for me—for us,” said Peter, extending his arms to encompass the whole beautiful tableau of this small corner of Lewis, “this is definitely our option. This is our choice.”
THE “HARLINGTON SPIRIT” REMAINED WITH us over the ensuing weeks, and when Celia and Robby, a couple of close friends, decided that it was time to leave the familiar comforts of their New York home and visit us at our island cottage, we knew that Peter and Jane’s croft would be one of the first places we’d take them. And not just for a cursory tour but for one of their gargantuan dinner feasts.
We, and they, were not disappointed. Jane had transformed the small dining/living room into a scene fit for a regal banquet: brightly colored place mats spread across their antique oak dining table; gleaming cordial and wine glasses; freshly cut flowers from the garden; two enormous home-baked loaves still warm and aromatic from the huge Aga oven at the side of the room; candles glowing in the early-evening twilight; and bottles of wine and sherry ready for immediate imbibement.
It was a truly memorable gastronomic experience. First—after a platter of cheese and homemade pâté hors d’oeuvres—came a huge steaming tureen of sorrel and squash soup peaked with dashes of tarragon and nutmeg, which Jane ladled out into our brimming bowls. We floated chunks of her walnut and oatmeal bread across its thick, silken surface and let them suck up all the gentle flavors. Then (there should have been a trumpet fanfare at this point) Peter marched in with an enormous haunch of richly marinated, nut-crusted venison and proceeded to cut thick, juice-dripping slices. Rich, gamey aromas filled the cozy room and we salivated as plates of steamed home-grown vegetables, roast potatoes, deep chocolatey venison gravy, and a relish of pureed Carloway red currants floated their way around the table.
Silence reigned as we ate, interspersed with moans and gasps of overindulgent delight. Chairs creaked and bellies rumbled, but we steadfastly continued on into the dessert course—that great mounded Christmas pudding–like Hebridean delight known as steamed Clootie dumpling, served with whipped cream, slices of the Harlingtons’ pungent homemade cheese (deliciously illegal, of course—according to those interminable EU regulations), and a marmalade-like side relish of fresh oranges, lemons, and sweet dark treacle (a very British oddity, similar to blackstrap molasses).
There was silence again as we enjoyed the thick, rich dumpling and then—applause! Sudden, spontaneous, and utterly deserved. Jane and Peter stood and bowed, and I’m sure we would have stood too if it weren’t for a strange affliction of chair-bound lethargy.
How we got back home to Harris much later that night after such Lucullan indulgence I can’t quite remember, but as the four of us stood together outside our cottage bathed in soft nocturnal fragrances and that strange half-light of those island summer nights, Robby added the final oratorical flourish to the evening’s proceedings: “Now, if that’s your typical Hebridean dinner,” he said between gentle burps, “we’re staying!”
Celia groaned—but it seemed to be a groan of happy satiation…
AUTUMN
Luskentyre and Seilibost
12
Time for a Change: Life on the Sands
SO MANY FINE WRITERS HAVE been bewitched by the beauty and mysteries of the Harris seashore that I thought it only fitting, before describing our own “bewitched” state, to share some of their descriptions, perceptions, and enticing images that possess true “take-home” longevity.
I begin of course with Finlay J. Macdonald’s immortal memoir of his Hebridean childhood, Crowdie and Cream. Perhaps more than any other book, including Compton Mackenzie’s comedic Whisky Galore, the word pictures so carefully crafted by this raconteur extraordinaire and maestro of island memoirs have enticed outsiders for decades to this remote place and enabled them to sense the enduring traditions and bondings that existed here deep in the old crofting days. Of the vast west coast beaches he wrote: “The relentless rocky moorland gave way to flat green pastures fringed with golden beaches…. As far as the eye could see there was nothing but beautiful emptiness—I was a miniature fluff of infancy on an infinity of sand…”
Bill Lawson, our genealogical-guru friend and one of the island’s most respected historians, lives virtually on the sands and writes of their unique spirit in his enticing book Harris in History and Legend:
The views…must be among the most beautiful in the whole island—especially on a summer’s evening, looking across the sea pools and the sands against the light of a setting sun…Pure white stretches of shell-sand, with views across to the mountains of North Harris and to the island of Tarasaigh (Taransay) with the machair itself a carpet of wildflowers…
Alison Johnson and her husband, Andrew, best known for the restoration of the old minister’s “manse” overlooking the machair and beaches of Scarista and its transformation into Scarista House, one of the most celebrated small guesthouses in the Hebrides, seem to have an ongoing love affair with these great golden west coast beaches. In their early twenties they relinquished their mutual “degree collecting” at Oxford, combined their varied interests and life goals, and formulated a visionary plan of action: “We could buy a large and derelict old house (architecture) near the sea (sailing) and in the country (rural living), restore it ( joinery), and run it as a hotel (cooking.)”
And this is precisely what they did, although their arduous, calamity-filled odyssey between dream and reality, so humorously described in Alison’s evocative book, A House by the Shore, can only make one boggle at the boldness of their achievements. At one point Alison admits to utter “shell shock—a dreadful feeling that everything is completely out of control, and the recurring question ‘What on earth are we doing here?’ Andrew,” she adds, “even favors a spell in prison to facilitate reflection!”
Fortunately, they found their reflective times in rare interludes of peace among the great sandy infinities immediately below their tiny jewel of a creation. Even on a chill winter’s day, Alison manages to capture the enduring magic of this evocative shore:
The vast expanse of Scarista Bay w
as in front of us. It was a blustery gray day in February but the sands glowed and sang in the wind, golden, pink and silver. Inexorable Atlantic swells bore slowly towards them. As each green mile-long ridge of water breasted the shoreline it reared and hung stationary for an instant, and crashed, growling in the foaming shallows. Long wisps of spray tore loose from the threatening crests and mingled with the sand-devils above the tideline. Blowing sand stung our faces. Tatters of dry black wrack and broken shells scuttered towards us, chittering faintly against the massive roar of the water. Down the beach where the pale dry sand became wet and ochre were drifts of shells, a prodigal treasure of gleaming violet and yellow, pink, blue and silver. Some were as tiny as grains of sand, and the sand itself was made up of the shattered wrecks of these shells…You cannot walk on this beach without feeling cut down to size. So inhuman is this area of wind-sculpted dunes, bare sand and moving water that its very indifference eventually makes welcome a sense of kinship with the other short-lived things of flesh and blood that blow and scuttle across it. Our footmarks criss-cross with the round-toed prints of an otter, the long lope of a rabbit, a black-back’s clumsy webs, the scurry of a rat. The impassivity of the mountains and the sands leads to speculation: what were they doing; what do they feel?