Utter fabrication

I met a weaver today, doing his thing in the Blackhouse Museum at An Gearrannan on the West Side (see, I left Stornoway!), and realised I have the facts about weaving completely tied around my neck. I said in the last posting that there were only two working weavers. There aren't, there are about 220. Where I got confused was in the relationship between them and the tweed *companies*, who take the finished cloth, and sell it as is, or turn it into garments and sell it. There are three such companies on Harris and Lewis, and they give all the materials to the weavers (who own their own looms) who create the tweed and then leave it on the doorstep for collection. The financial pinch is that the weavers are then tied to those three companies (which are not co-operatives, but separate private concerns), to the patterns they want, and to the prices they're prepared to pay. All the added value then goes to the companies who sell the tweed, with the weavers providing the raw materials.

So the comment about garment designers still goes. If there were a separate Island concern that was also a consumer of tweed, and someone to add value to it by making it up in situ (presumably employing local people to do so), and who could market it, more of a slice of the profits would stay on the island and could go to the weavers. So it's a bit like the situation with the vegetable and fruit growers and the big supermarkets - the Big Three hold a shared monopoly in the market, and there's no other outlet for the product - which means you have to stay on the right side.

Apologies for the mistake. I am realising I'd never make a journalist.

Colourful orange sheep bleat furiously

Saturday 26th July is a red-letter day in the calendars of many from South Lewis, because it's the Lochs Agricultural Show. The Lochs area is in the central south of Lewis, just at the foot of the Clisham hills that divide Lewis from Harris (I think I've said before that they aren't separate islands, geographically at least). So on a baking hot day me and Bon* got in the van and made our way there.

I've always liked agricultural shows - I used to be quite a fan in my earlier days, because I used to show things, horses in particular but also, as I've alluded to earlier, guinea-pigs - but I must admit I really like looking at the animals, and the stalls, and I do like to drink tea out of a polystyrene cup. It's a small show, but the cars were already lining the (single) road and the carpark was already full of land rovers and trailers. Beyond the inevitable bouncy castles lay tents full of photography, baking, vegetables, flower-arranging, knitting, and various crafts, but the bit I like best is the farm animal classes. Such fantastic sheep you never see out on the fields. Huge rams (and ewes) with curly horns, and an entire flock of (well, about 7) smaller sheep who appeared to have been dyed orange for the day. Apparently it's a common thing - nobody seems to think it's odd - and a small knowledgeable boy in a football shirt, who I had seen wrestling sheep into pens a moment earlier, told me it was 'stuff to bring their coats up'. Sure enough, they were springy as anything. (I don't think the orange can be a religious thing - it's more of a dark peach really - and there weren't any corresponding pens of green sheep, but then Lewis is a Protestant island). Bonnie, as an unemployed Working Beardie, has always been keen on sheep, and despite the heat and her interesting intestinal condition (she is currently 'under' the excellent vet in Stornoway, Hector Low, not now for her neck, but for digestive issues you wouldn't want me to explain further) she was completely riveted.


A rousing introductory speech about the state of island life and its political challenges was given by Lesley Riddoch, a prominent Scottish broadcaster and commentator, who managed to be both controversial and friendly at the same time. She's written a book about the Hebrides, cycling pretty much the same route I've done (I don't envy her being on a bike) and was on the committee that successfully oversaw the islanders' buy-out of the Island of Eigg, so she knows a thing or two. The main issues include (and this is partly for John Alderson, who I think likes the political bits) land ownership, where to put wind-farms and who gets the proceeds, how to create sustainable enterprise on the islands and stop exporting just raw materials (wool, seaweed, milk, fish) for other people to finish and get the profit, the status of the Gaelic language (particularly in education), why they can't get money from the government to build footpaths, how to keep young people here, Sunday ferries, the demise of the fisheries, and the increase in the 'de-crofting' of land to build houses - the converse being the lack of housing for people's families who want to stay on the islands. I'm not sure which of these she touched on in the speech and which in her book, which I've just finished, but that's a summary of the hot topics here at the moment, I think.

After her introduction, we got down to the business of comparing two Shetland ponies with each other (OK, the entries to the classes were small), judging the orange sheep, and awarding rosettes to chickens. An enterprising person was grilling salmon for sale, there was the inevitable face-painting, and a sheep-shearing demonstration that had Bonnie quivering and whining to the extent that I had to take her away. I went and touched one of the fleeces in the heap - after they're taken off, they're amazingly white inside where it's been close to the sheep's skin, and also very oily: your hand comes away shiny. That's the lanolin that makes them so waterproof, I guess. The sheep-shearer was encouraging kids to come and have a go (I was really tempted, but didn't want to compete with the island children who might make a career of it based on this one encounter) and later, after it was over, I saw him talking to someone else while a curly-headed two-year-old boy was holding the (switched-off) shears and pretending to use them. The little boy then giggled and ran away, and from the speed of the sheep-shearer's pursuit of him I guess the lad was his own. So he's going to be proficiently shearing before he's five, I should imagine.



There was an exhibition of 'waulking the tweed', which is stretching wet tweed to make it ready for the tailor (it shrinks as it dries, and then won't shrink after it's made up into garments). This is done by a row of women sitting each side of a trough full of water, simultaneously banging the tweed in and picking it up and pulling it. There are special 'waulking songs' that go with this, which these women just about remembered, that they use to keep the rhythm - a bit like the songs the American soldiers sing when they're marching. They're a sort of call-and-response in Gaelic, and the women insert odd bits of gossip and teasing into the verses. At the end of each length of tweed they pat and pass up the tweed for folding, and there's another special kind of song that goes with folding it up and patting it flat. The demonstration was done on a dry table, rather than round the rather less salubrious trough, and you had the impression that these weren't women who normally did this kind of thing (they were too young, for a start, and were a bit hesitant about the singing) but there was an older lady at the end, knitting, whose job it was to check and see whether the tweed was ready at the end of each song. She looked a lot more like she'd been involved in the real thing. (Tweed is going through a bit of a tricky time at the moment - there are now only two ageing independent weavers, without apprentices, in the islands. They work on hand looms. The rest of production comes from one factory, recently bought up by a business consortium who has reduced the range from over 5,000 different designs to just eight, mainly men's jackets. It means that independents can't sell anything except raw tweed (not made-up designs) and only in a limited range of colours. And the factory's policy means that many colours are falling out of knowledge - and most of them used to be made with natural dyes, collected around the islands, which is another side-industry gone. Anyone who's a clothing designer who wants to work in tweed, come up here immediately - the independent weavers need you.)

Best of all I met Dawn Susan, a basket-weaver who Annie knows, who** we were to have done a basket-making workshop with on July 22 but it was full. She had her own stall (you can see some of her baskets on the web at thewesternisles.co.uk/baskets), and spoke very highly of Island life -she moved from London 18 years ago - and we discussed, among many things, the challenges of growing tomatoes in polytunnels up here (they don't ripen: the light coming through the plastic isn't strong enough, and the growing season is too short). I bought from her a basket woven in several shades of willow, which is practical as well as smelling lovely. And of course some marmalade, among other things, from the other stalls. I couldn't quite bring myself to buy any decorated eggs, but I had a useful encounter with the woman who made them, who it turns out is a member of the Working Beardie Society (created so that people with non-pedigree dogs like Bonnie could register them and breed them) and may know where to get a Bonnie-like puppy. Shh. Don't tell the Bon.



Annie had warned me about the cake at these events. Before anything like this happens, the women of the community (presumably while their husbands are out dyeing sheep orange) bake their socks off, and the result is a tea canteen populated by (as well as the perennial enormous teapots) trays, and trays, and trays of ever-replenished cake. I'm afraid I wasn't going to hold back at this event (I don't know if you can tell from the photos I am getting wider - but what the heck, I'm brown) and even took some home at the end. And the enterprising ladies, realising that many people would get home late after a tiring day, had made takeaway curry and rice to reheat for later, for those who wanted it. (I had a veggie one, which tasted very nice, although the potatoes were crunchy).


The presentation of prizes (from on top of a curtain-sided 'Hebridean Haulage' trailer) at the end was quite draw out, mainly because of the reticence of the islanders in coming up on the stage ('And congratulations to Shona MacDonald for winning the Lochs Challenge Cup, sponsored by MacIvers, for the most points in the home craft section. Shona? Where's Shona? She must be here somewhere. Well, can any of the other MacDonalds come and take it for her? I can see about fifteen of you from here. Ah, here she is. Well done Shona!') Because the entry was relatively small (this show last ran in 2002, and has been revived) two farmers seemed to share most of the trophies, with one chap barely able to carry his off the stage. They also drew the raffle for a car, which I was grateful not to have won (although cash equivalent would have been OK). What puzzled me a bit was the lack of applause, despite the size of the crowd standing there. The only thing I can think of is that competition is not really part of this culture, and people are very communally-minded - and if you win, someone else has to lose. So despite Lesley Riddoch's exhortations to give so-and-so a big round of applause, it was rather slow going. It's a bit hard to give prizes to people who don't want to win. I think most people go to these things for what's called 'the ceilidh' - I've recently learned that this isn't a dance, it's any event where people get together and socialise and swap news - and while it may include music and dancing, it doesn't have to. So if any Gaelic speaker says 'thanks for the ceilidh' when you leave their house, you may now understand why, even if you've only been there for a cup of tea.

On the way out, an old-timer insisted on giving me his phone number so I could come and camp on his croft at Carloway on the west side, when I finally got over there (I was meant to go today, but ended up sunbathing all day and not going anywhere). I have just realised I was meant to ring him between 8 and 9 tonight and have forgotten, thereby cementing the reputation of the feckless, faithless English. However, I do feel a bit funny going over to camp on the field of a complete stranger, even if everyone round here can probably recite his family tree from memory right back to the Norsemen. All he would have to do is lock the field gate with my van in it, and that would be me. Caught forever in a life of baking and sheep-wrestling. At least I know I can get the cake-tins and the sheepshit-proof trousers at Lewis Crofters - if he ever allows me out.

*My mother would comment here that it's meant to be 'Bon and I' and not 'Me and Bon'. Because we are the subject of the verb. Now you can see where I get it from.
** Another comment from my virtual mother. See, you don't actually need your parents to be present at all - once you get the hang of them, you can have whole conversations with them inside your head. So yes, I am using 'who' and not 'whom' and 'with whom'. Unless I'm in particularly posh company, I just can't do 'whom'. Even to my mother.

Crofters' Original

In Stornoway (a place I can't seem to tear myself away from: I'm still here!) I have discovered a shop that may even displace John Lewis kitchen department in my affections. Even the one in Edinburgh. I'm sorry, but there it is.

Inside an unprepossessing shed near the pier beats the heart of a practical, resilient island. The shop is called Lewis Crofters. It began 50 years ago (I know: I have read their anniversary booklet from cover to cover) as a means of improving crofters' buying power for goods that had to be imported from the mainland. Rather than everyone paying through the nose for small amounts of fencing, animal feed, and fertiliser, as well as waiting for it to arrive over the Minch, which is subject to strong currents and bad weather, Lewis Crofters was formed to enable islanders to buy in bulk, keep materials they needed nearby, and profit from the savings that this new purchasing power could negotiate. And the idea was, too, that Lewis Crofters would also be able to work as a co-operative to find outlets for islanders' produce on the mainland. The success of that part of the business is less clear, but as a shop? Wow.

I have never seen so many diverse and wonderful things in one place. Exactly the right mixing bowls. Sensible (ie huge) sized pans for making jam or shiploads of mince and tatties. Waterproofs and warm breeks in every size and colour. Horse blankets. Headcollars. Louse remedy. Baking trays. Rope. Lightbulbs. Waterproof matting. Ornamental wall-clocks. Celtic music CDs. Air freshener. Dogfood. Toilet brushes. Hose. Those splash-proof chaps that people wear to keep muck off themselves when working with cows. Sewing materials. Garden implements. Towels. Training shoes. Jumpers. Tweed jackets. Dog leads. Dog guards. Fly paper. Seeds. Polyfilla. Paint. Cake tins. Cake boards. Storage boxes. Waste bins. I could go on, but you get the idea. And this is without going into the adjoining building with the fork lift truck in it where they keep the animal feed, fencing and fertiliser.

Now, I know it's not everyone's idea of a good time, but if there are two things that put me in purchasing heaven they are (1) kitchen implements and utensils, and (2) practical clothing - I am a woman who has been known to buy clothes from the Screwfix catalogue. My favourite find was a pair of waterproof trainers (Hi Tec, I think they were) at £30, which were fifty quid less than the North Face ones I bought a few weeks ago and appear just as good.

So well done Lewis Crofters, and happy birthday. I must admit I did also stray into the Fishermen's Co-Op, which is a similar emporium of waterproofs, waterproof containers, fluorescent paint, wellies of all colours, water tanks, fish crates, knives, flotation devices, wetsuits, fishing gear, emergency flares and fibreglass cleaner. If anyone wants rope of any length, gauge, material or colour brought home, just let me know. It will be a pleasure to go back and get it.

A message to both my readers

I must say it's really nice to think of people reading this when I write it - and I have found from the comments, and from what Jan tells me that people are, which is a real pleasure! It makes it much easier to write if I can think of people who are reading it. And also, in those moments when I'm lying on my back on a rock in a rainstorm, for example, I don't feel alone in the world (as far as humans go: Bonnie is always happy to breathe tripe-breath on me). So, Jo, Caroline and Alan from Leeds, Jo, Jan, and Veronica in London, Robert in Burnley, Farmer Dave in Cornwall...and I know there are a lot of other people who read it now and again. If you're reading, why not let me know you are? Then I can add you to my mental list...I am assuming of course that the Information Designers at The Brand Union are riveted, perhaps to the extent that reading Judy's blog has its own job number.... ;-

Festival time

Hurray - Stornoway's sleepy streets come alive to the strains of what a friend of mine used to call 'riddly diddly' music. I have been to so many gigs...anyway to start at the beginning. Jan arrived, wondering what to expect, at Stornoway's tiny airport and Bonnie was overjoyed to see her. Now the dog's holiday is complete: Annie and Martin, me, and Jan, all in the SAME PLACE! And I was quite pleased to see her, too ;-) A friend all of my own! Imagine! Jan settled down nicely into life in the van, which mainly consists of trying to remember where you put things. She's good at that (ie trying to remember) so it was plain sailing for her. We started the Festival at Stornoway's very impressive arts centre, An Lanntair ('The Lighthouse) seeing Mary Ann Kennedy with her band Na Seoid (sorry about the missing accent: 'The Heroes) with another guy from another band Skipinnish. Some really haunting Gaelic tunes (pronounced GA-LIK not GAY-LIK for Scottish Gaelic) and most of the banter being in Gaelic. Met up with Annie and Martin there, and then stayed on for the Festival Club, which was Skipinnish doing a Ceilidh. Next day we were in a Gaelic taster class from 11-1, taken by a very nice and intelligent Gaelic Studies student from Aberdeen University. Gosh what a language. It's not actually all that complex grammatically - no more than yer average, by the looks of things - but the mapping between the spelling and the sound is so different from English (try remembering that 'mh' is pronounced 'v', for example). The other thing is does is lose consonants (as English does) when certain sounds fetch up next to each other, and you have to remember which ones. But I did learn that 'Glayva' (as in the drink, it's not spelt like that in Gaelic) means 'very good'. All you naming specialists, take note.

After Gaelic we waited hours to be fed an omelette and chips at a cafe, and then walked around a lot and went to see the festival tent, then realised at 3pm we should have been at Saltfishforty gig - two very funny guys from Orkney. Managed to catch about the last few tunes, then back to the campsite before the evening do in the Big Blue tent - Julie Fowlis (who we missed because we were having a nap - typical) and then the Red Hot Chili Pipers (sic) and Four Men and a Dog. We moderately enjoyed the pipers, who are basically a high-energy bagpipe covers band (We Will Rock You, etc) but the crowd were wild for them. Much preferred Four Men (no dog) who were Irish, and played music that just made you want to dance. We went to the Festival Club at An Lanntair afterwards and saw them all over again. Because I wanted a drink, we left the van on the main road through Stornoway (really near to the bridge where you get across to the music tent) and slept there, oblivious to the passing traffic.


All through this I was attempting to be a journalist. It's different from my day job, because there, the people I'm talking to have usually hired me/us to do something they want. Journalism, you have to go up to people who don't know you from Adam and ask them things. And you have to think of sensible things to ask them. It was all a bit of a challenge to me, but we did go into the performers' bar and met the buran player from Four Men, who had asked for single women to come up to him during the gig but didn't seem so brave when we did. And I also talked to stewards and security men a lot to find out what they thought of things, and also chased anyone with a non-Scottish accent to find out the story about how they came to be here, which Caroline MacLennan who runs the Festival had expressed a particular interest in. We surprised some very nice Swedes at the next table in the Indian restaurant late one night, and I got some nice comments from them. But the man who was wearing a bandanna and doing the Pointy-Fingers dance at every event we went to, as well as a couple from Rumania who were so into each other I didn't want to look...I'm sorry, I just couldn't. I did interview two Germans wearing pork-pie hats and odd flared trousers, who apparently were journeyman carpenters wearing traditional dress, and didn't manage to get anything interesting. I must evolve my interview technique from something along the lines of 'So, you're not from here then?' It tends to elicit the response, 'No, we are from Germany', and not much else. So I say 'Where in Germany?' and they say 'Schleswig-Bad-Holtenstein-am-Rhein-mit-Slagsahne'. I am none the wiser. 'Do you like Celtic music?' 'Yes, we are listening to it often'. 'How did you get here?' 'We are on bicycles, and we have a small tent.' Und so weiter. It is not the stuff of headlines (although if you've seen the Stornoway Gazette recently, it might be: 'German carpenters join in', for example. Or 'Swiss role in Festival').

Friday we attempted to go to Callanish (site of ancient stone circles) with Annie and Martin, who came to pick us up in their car. We'd just turned into the road to Callanish and BANG - we were hit by a local coming in the other direction, who removed our wing mirror and made the driver's side window explode. We weren't hurt, but the car was full of glass - so we just had to turn round (after I'd taken loads of insurance-style pictures) and go to the nearest garage. Annie and Martin spent the rest of the day sorting that out, finding another car, getting police to attend, etc. The bloke drove away (perhaps he normally drives in the middle of the road, and we were expected to know) but he later reappeared at the garage we had gone to to get a cup of tea and sort ourselves out, to get petrol! He didn't want to admit it was his fault and seemed unduly concerned with the state of his own car, which looked like it wasn't its first experience of this kind of thing. The cafe was full of fisherman, and had the slipperiest floor, to the extent that Martin came in from his ordeal with the police and the other driver, sat on a chair, and promptly toppled over, very slowly and gracefully, onto the floor. You can understand they decided to call it a day.

Jan and I went back to the campsite in a taxi, and in the evening met up with Annie and Martin to see Ross Ainslie and Jarlath Henderson, who I really enjoyed - really young guys playing guitar, small pipes and whistle. Jarlath sang a song that made me cry buckets to the extent I had to go out and blow my nose! Annie and Mart weren't blown away by them - and we all thought they could do with a few more people on the stage (a drummer? a fiddle?) but I was so impressed with them, and particularly by their youth and the new compositions they'd come up with.

Saturday we went out to Annie and Mart's B and B to meet their landlady and visit them. It sounds a bit odd to be meeting people's landladies, but Ann runs a house where anyone can come and stay who needs a bed, so there are always loads of people there. While we were talking to her, she whipped up a batch of breakfast scones, and was very useful indeed on the subject of Bonnie, who wasn't at all well that day. I'd noticed she had a bad tummy (which isn't unusual) but she was very hunched up and unhappy that morning, and by the time she'd lain under the table for an hour or so while we were eating scones she couldn't get up and squealed heartbreakingly when she tried. Martin had to carry her out to the van. So Ann helped me get a vet's appointment back in town for 10 to 2, which put paid to the plan of going to Tong for the Highland Games (turned out that Annie and Martin didn't make it either, in the end). The vet was great - said she didn't think the stomach and the neck thing were related, gave Bonnie a jab, and I've got more Metacam for her (painkiller and muscle relaxant). I'm also having to feed nothing but rice, chicken (Co-Op delicatessen ready-roast) and vegetables for her tummy. Her neck seems quite a bit better now but we were really worried about her: I've never seen her that bad, just unable to move and all hunched up in a blanket. She has another vet's appointment for Thursday to see how she's going on, and we've just been for little walks since Saturday (it's Monday today). Just before us at the vet two men came in with a very old, grey-muzzled, blind border collie on a blanket (it's border collie central here: sheepdogs) and left him/her with the vet: I guess it was probably its last trip). It was one of those country vets' surgeries - not the kind that looks like a doctor's, but the kind that looks a bit of a mess, and has tall shelves behind the counter with sheep drench and horse liniment on. The feature that most struck me, though, was a pair of blow-up parasites (presumably supplied by a drug company) fully a foot long: a sheep tick and a flea. With all the legs and everything. Yuk. I wasn't at all sure about sitting underneath an inflatable tick while we were waiting.



Saturday night was great though, and we had relaxed because we'd seen the vet and felt OK about the Bon. We decided to sleep out again (An Lanntair carpark this time, just next to where the ferry docks) and the acts on in the tent were Seth Lakeman, Bodega and Shooglenifty. Seth L is a very handsome dark-haired Cornwall person who sings his own compositions as well as traditional songs - but we found it all a bit hard work. Despite it being quite rocky (the music not the coastline) it's hard to get on down to songs about the loss of 8 men in a lifeboat disaster. And the acoustic guitarist, who we felt looked a bit like Alvin Stardust, was emitting waves of ego to rival SL's own. Ego is not a thing that happens in Scottish Celtic music - not noticeably to me anyway - which is one of the nice things about it: people seem to see themselves as vessels for the tradition who owe a lot to their mentors, and will always talk to you about how so-and-so can REALLY sing/play, rather than thinking they're any good themselves. Anyway, we managed to miss Bodega - don't know how because we were there at 8, but another feature of these things is that they start on time, rather than keeping everyone hanging about for hours to wait for His/Her Egoness to turn up, but Shooglenifty were our favourite band of the whole thing: lots of odd mixtures of styles (Jan was trying to get me to Merengue at one point) but really danceable music, led by a mad-looking fiddler who looked like a cross between Billy Connolly and Roy Wood from Wizzard (remember him? No?). At the Festival club later we saw Shooglenifty again, and really enjoyed Bodega (well, I did: Jan was muttering about sound engineering, but then she does that). They were all really young, and musically I thought they were great. Shooglenifty came on again too, so we stayed until the end at about 2 and then staggered over and slept in the van.

Sunday, ah. Sunday, EVERYthing is shut. No cafes, petrol stations, shops, pubs. No ferries, therefore no Sunday papers (they arrive on the first ferry in on a Monday). Nowhere to get a coffee, so we self-catered and then drove (without incident this time) to Callanish, where we froze a bit at the stones and looked at the closed cafe in the closed visitor centre, and then had (guess what) a nap before I had to take Jan to the airport. Where we were a bit wobbly about saying goodbye to each other. Apparently, when they inaugurated Sunday flights they had Presbyterian ministers protesting on the runway. But there were quite a lot of people needing to leave after the Festival, and I found myself sitting next to a familiar face - someone I can't remember the name of, of course - but an extremely funny guy who was in the Scottish sketch show 'Chewin' the Fat'. Most memorable, I recall, as a lighthouse-keeper.






So where did the time go? We had a BRILLIANT time, and it was so good to see Jan. Because this is our third co-existing holiday we are getting quite good and not falling over each other in a small place, and it was lovely to have her company, particularly since we were going to gigs, because I've got used to having her at my side! And also because Bonnie was ill, and she gets as worried about her as I do. Jan likes to nap, which is good, because it's also one of my hobbies. And now she's gone we miss each other, and I have only a light coating of long red hair all over the van and several discarded bindis to remember her by (that's not true, actually, the text message traffic both ways is quite active). But I'd like to thank everyone who contributed - or even thought of contributing - to Jan's birthday trip, because it was great - for me to see her, and for her to come up and see Lewis at its best.

Today (Monday) I haven't done much except get a new gas bottle and go to the Co-Op for the Monday Sunday papers. The campsite has emptied out: around 60ish tents and a dozen or so camper vans disappeared this morning, leaving me pretty much on my own again. It's so cold and windy today that Bonnie doesn't want to walk, despite being taken to a beach, and neither do I. But I have made a birthday cake for Annie (birthday tomorrow). Shhh. But it's highly unlikely they'll be sitting over at their house reading this. The cakes, made from a box of Co-Op chocolate cake mix, have come out about 1cm deep each, and wonky. Here's a tip: if you ever want to find out if your van is REALLY level, bake a sponge cake and observe how it rises. We're all very excited about tomorrow because Tesco's is opening in Stornoway - the only one in the Western Isles! But more about Stornoway another time...and I'll let you know how the Tesco's opening goes.

Stornoway way

Where was I? Since we last spoke, I have driven up from Muasdale on Kintyre to Oban, got on a ferry to Barra, then another one to Eriskay, driven from Eriskay to South and then North Uist, taken a ferry from North Uist to Harris, and I've today driven from Harris up to Stornoway in Lewis (Harris and Lewis are attached).

Tomorrow the Hebridean Celtic Festival begins, and Jan arrives at Stornoway Airport at 11 in the morning! I am so excited I have spring-cleaned the van and done the laundry. And I also met up with Annie and Martin in Harris last Saturday, which was brill...we had a lot of laughs and some nice meals in and out. We also went on a boat trip and saw seals and lots of seabirds. They're now up here, and we're meeting up tomorrow night at one of the first gigs of HebCeltFest. Which I will be reviewing for the HebCeltFest website!




I was correct in my assumption that electricity and a signal would both be hard to get on the islands: on Harris (where they make the tweed: it's not just the name of one of the Queen's corgis) I had one of the only four electric hook-ups on the island, and had to walk about 200m up the road to get any kind of signal. I did take my laptop up there one evening to read mail, but was driven off by midges. And also by an islander passing with a sheepdog who had the kind of expression on his face that said 'Tourists!', despite talking to me politely about dogs. I don't suppose you see a woman with a dog and a Macbook sitting on the steps of an abandoned cottage every night of the week. But then fair's fair: what counts for normal on the islands in not your everyday...for example, a man next to the campsite was burning his house down on purpose, presumably to save demolition costs. And most people have abandoned tractor parts (some historic) in their front gardens, particularly on Barra. It reminds me of something my sister told me, from the mouth of a tour guide in Ireland: 'And the biggest thing they ever found in the bog was....(dramatic pause)...a village'.

There are few formal campsites in the Hebrides. I found a place to camp on Barra mainly because a little boy on a bike rode up to my van and asked me where my bed was, and then his mum came over, and I got talking to her and she ended up opening a gate and showing me the loveliest little field where I could camp.

I did lots of good walks: fantastic one on South Uist along a causeway with huge crescent beaches either side, and it was hot enough when I got into the dunes at the end of the little spit of land to lie down and sunbathe. As long as you kept out of the wind. The grassland here has a special name - machair - and is known for its wild flowers, cottongrass, and abundance of wildlife, including the rare and elusive (but loud) corncrake. Wherever I was, sunset was usually spectacular - although you have to wait until 10.30 at night to see it.

As you'll see from the photo, life in the van has settled into a kind of comfortable clutter. And that's my very nice new Harris blanket. It's hard not to buy wool on Harris: 2 pairs of socks, a blanket, a jumper and a scarf later...

Hope to be back during or after the HebCeltFest madness.

Roll out the Barra

Tomorrow morning I'm going into Oban to stock up a little bit - mainly on fresh fruit and veg. And then off to the real wilds.

Around 1 o'clock I will be on the five-hour ferry trip to Barra. There is hardly anything there - it takes 40 minutes to drive round the whole thing, there are no campsites, and certainly therefore no electric hook-ups, and I don't know what the mobile signal will be like.

We will see how far the reach of Vodafone extends: but if you don't hear for a wee while, it's because I've gone Hebridean: from Barra, I'm going to Eriskay, to South and North Uist, and then on to Harris and Lewis.

(Not the Mull of) Kintyre

Strictly speaking, I wasn't quite in Paul McCartney country: the 'Mull' of Kintyre is the southernmost tip of the peninsula, but I was pretty near.

Off the ferry at a little place called Claonaig and then straight down the only A road on the peninsula to a place called Muasdale. I am having to be brief here - it's late and I have to leave for Barra tomorrow - but I did want to catch up with the blog: who knows when I'll next have a signal? Or any electricity to go with it?


Muasdale is a simple beach site on the side of the A83, the road to Campbeltown. On the hill side of the road are static caravans, and a little field right next to the beach is reserved for tourers. I spent quite a lot of the time looking at the beach (seals, oystercatchers, sunsets) but didn't walk much: the wind was strong and gusty, and there was a lot of rain. But each morning it seemed to clear up enough for me to take Bonnie and a cup of coffee to the beach, and sit and look at the view and the seabirds, including two very distinguished-looking female eiders (the females are brown, the males a striking black and white - but both sexes have a roman nose, which makes them look very thoughtful and intelligent).


I made friends with two children from Paisley who came to talk to Bonnie: Declan aged ten, and Chloe aged three. Declan was a serious boy and made many sensible observations, and he accompanied me on several errands round the site. I got to know his father and mother when I took Declan to launch my kite, and then realised he was perhaps too small to hold onto it in the wind while I sorted my lines out. Rather than send him skywards, I enlisted the help of Martin, his father, who was nearby.

Declan wanted to know where I was from, and when I told him his jaw dropped: London was MILES away. But he seemed flattered that I would come so far to come to see Scotland, which was, after all, his country. I got talking to Shona and Martin at their tent and they were very interested in the van - they are thinking of getting one, after trying to cook for a week in the rain and wind outside behind an inadequate windbreak. Declan asked if he could use my deep-fat fryer because he wanted to have chips: I think he overestimated the kitchen equipment that the van runs to. While we were having this conversation, Bonnie was thoughtfully stealing tuna out of the tins they were going to have for their supper. I think Shona forgave her. For the rest of the time, I enjoyed watching Declan out in the drizzle doing what looked like T'ai Chi, but what I think he was actually doing - given that it involved a football - was re-enacting some of David Beckham's winning moves very slowly indeed.

The story about the tuna reminds me that Bonnie had a genuine Scottish experience on the Arran campsite. I'd gone to talk to some guys who had arrived with some very cute tents: they got two round, flat, zip-up holders out of their pickup truck, unzipped them, and shook out - hey presto - two tents, fully popped-up and ready to peg down. I've seen a few more since and they are lovely. Anyway, while we were having the tent conversation, Bonnie had nipped behind one of the tents and polished off the remainder of some haggis out of their frying pan. The guy was amused rather than annoyed, and seemed to think the sheep's stomach that they use as casing might cause problems. I thought it was less likely to do so than the modern plastic equivalent. But Bonnie is now fully re-introduced to Scottish cuisine. Fried haggis. Rather her than me.

On the last night at Muasdale the wind ran to about 35 knots (at which point, my wind-meter packed up: I think it's got sand in the little fan bit). But I was actually getting seasick in the van, and gave up trying to sleep at 3.30am (I turned the van round to face into the wind, but it didn't help). So I went for a shower and eventually left the site completely at a quarter to six, driving a few miles before I found a forestry track sheltered by trees, parked up, drew the blinds, and slept for another three hours.

But from Muasdale I had an interesting day trip - apart from a quick trip to Campbeltown for provisions, which was quite unremarkable except for a nice drive down to look at Davaar island, accessible by causeway (not to vehicles) at low tide, but permanently inaccessible to me because they have native sheep on there and don't allow dogs. I saw people collecting shellfish on the sands, though, which was interesting (but looked like backbreaking work). My interesting day trip was to the tiny isle of Gigha, seven miles by one and a half, which I went to on the ferry (20 minutes) as a foot passenger. Worthy of a post of its own, I think - but these photos are all of Gigha, including the wonderful Achamore Gardens, which are now owned and maintained by the Islanders. The odd sculpture is by a local artist who makes art out of things she finds on the beach - the figure is made entirely out of washed-up baling twine, rope and net.





By the way, I like Kintyre because it's got such a long uninterrupted coastal view: wooded at the top, hilly and barren at the end. It's really just a thin spit of land. And Tarbert, which is at the top of Kintyre, is a jumping-off point for the ferry to Islay: we had several happy trips there to rented cottages. No time for a trip there this time, I have been dallying about so much - but then, dallying about is what this trip's all about. I used to go to Kintyre on and off with my friends from Stirling University, because a very good friend from there was seeing a chap who was doing a PhD in Aquaculture at Stirling. Stirling has (or had) a research centre at Machrihanish at the foot of the peninsula. His PhD was about halibut metabolism: I think it was to find out if they could be farmed (as far as I recall, they couldn't). Neil Auchterlonie, if you're reading this, perhaps you could correct me ;-) Neil's other distinction was that he went to school in Crieff with Ewan McGregor.




Here's to the memory of those halibut: I met them and they came up to the top of their tank to say hello.

A note on reversing

And again I am momentarily distracted from my purpose - a man is chasing his greyhound around the campsite, trying to catch it. It is having a high old time, skipping off every time he tries to grab it. Of all the dogs I would choose to chase, I guess a greyhound would be last on the list.

Anyway, what I meant to relate is a little husband-and-wife car-reversing vignette I observed today. Husband is reversing car towards caravan hook-up, with wife (see earlier post) making gestures to guide his progress. Suddenly she screams. He slams on the brakes and gets out of the car. Looks glumly at the towbar which has made (very gentle) contact with the boot of his car. And says to wife: 'Could ye no have screamed a wee bit earlier?'

Folks from round 'ere...

I wanted to say something that would help capture something of the atmosphere of these islands and coastal regions. There is something very distinctive about them. First of all, a lot of the people who run campsites, cafes, hotels and so on here are English, mainly (from their accents) from the North of England. Often, people who've holidayed up here and decided to make a complete move. Every campsite I've stayed on bar one has been run by English people, but there doesn't seem to be any anti-English feeling. There is a bit in the cities - or I've experienced it in the past - but the nearest I've come to it here was a chap that was talking about a place called the Devil's Punchbowl near Moffat, which was a place, apparently, where 'Your people came to take the cattle from the Scots, but the mist came and covered them over'. I think at the time - and this was probably in the first half of the 18th century - half of 'my people' were living on the breadline droving sheep in the Welsh borders, while the other half were running a mill somewhere in Poland. But some people have long memories.

The population up here is sparse, and almost exclusively white. They have a struggle, particularly on the islands, keeping the schools open, because much of the industry has declined: many whisky distilleries have closed (including many famous ones on Islay - and if you are still drinking Islay malts, you may be using up the last of the stock) or been bought by large conglomerates. With fishing quotas becoming increasingly restrictive, and insurance going sky-high, much of the fishing has declined or disappeared. And cottage industries such as weaving have also more or less collapsed, leaving most of the jobs in seasonal occupations involved with tourism which can't always sustain large populations (and disappears in the winter). With the exception of oil boom areas such as Shetland and Aberdeen, there isn't much round here for young people to see as a lasting occupation. That means that there aren't enough children to keep a school going in a small place beyond primary level, and many children have to leave their island, or travel a lot of miles in buses, to go to secondary school. Much of the land is either moorland, or has rock so near the surface that the land isn't farmable and can only be used for grazing the hardier kinds of cattle and sheep. In some places there are still wild goats, who do well on this land, and indigenous ponies (such as Eriskay and Shetland).

Originally (and forgive any errors in this account: these are complex and emotive subjects, and my knowledge is only that of the layperson) the land was run by the Clan system, where people were largely in self-managing clan groups. As the clan system degenerated, many landowners who perhaps had made their fortunes through cattle-farming wanted to 'improve' their estates, and run them as private concerns - perhaps running sheep on the land - which put them at odds with the people who were their tenants. Many tenants, indeed whole villages, were 'cleared', often violently and forcibly, and people reallocated poorer land elsewhere, left to build their own houses and create crofting communities: these were smallholdings operating at subsistence level with a few sheep, cows, and pigs, and people were growing their own crops where the soil permitted. This wasn't wheat to sell, it was potatoes and vegetables for the family to eat. (By the way, a 'croft' is the name for the whole smallholding, while the building you live in is called a 'shieling': many people seem to think a croft is a building). Because there were few (or in some cases, such as Harris, no) trees, people cut bricks of peat from the moorland, dried them in piles, and used them on the fire (many still do: peat is the forerunner of coal, geologically speaking, and burns pretty well and with a sweet, distinctive smell). Many of the people given short notice to leave had nowhere to go, and so people either went and added to the poverty-stricken population in the cities, or scraped together the money for a desperate journey to Canada and America. Many didn't survive the journey, and you hear in both the Scottish and Irish folk song tradition lots of songs about leaving the homeland and about ships being wrecked in storms. But this is why there are so many Scots names in Canada (Nova Scotia, for example) and it now fuels a lot of tourism: people coming back to see where the original lands were. And there are often ruined cottages to look at as a reminder of where their ancestors came from.

Nowadays there is a lot of regeneration, with Government and European money for businesses and local subsidies. Incomers are often encouraged, particularly if they have a craft or skill or want to set up a business, and may bring children with them or have children to fill up the schools. The art and craft scene is reviving, and there is a lot of pride in local and community regeneration. Second-homers are frowned upon - although there is nothing as far as I know that can be done to stop it - because people leaving homes empty for most of the year, and not supporting local shops because they stock up in supermarkets before they travel up - means that they don't contribute to the local community or economy. Many people want to build or extend homes, and there are many new homes going up, but it's slow going, mainly because builders are in short supply, the season in which building is possible is short, and materials often have to be shipped long distances on ferry services that are themselves dependent on the weather. The influx of Polish builders has been a boon here, and I've seen quite a few sites where Poles are doing much-needed building and restoration work. And some of the children who went to University on the mainland are realising the value of the healthy, outdoor, non-materialistic lifestyle and wanting to return. To some extent, the internet has helped, as have industries such as fish-farming (whatever you think of it: it's not ecologically brilliant, but it has brought money in). Even if there aren't many shops, the doctors have open surgery in the mornings for anyone to drop in without an appointment, you can get a lift with the post on the Post Bus where there isn't a regular bus service (and often, there is, subsidised by the Council, but the buses are an hour apart. You just have to do things more slowly). There may not be a bank or a library, but RBS comes round twice a week in a van, as does the mobile library. There's also a boom in things like local indigenous food (cheese, fish, shellfish, and so on) and, of course, golf. The controversial wind-farms are springing up - some of them owned by the multinationals and serving the whole of the UK, so locally-generated income from these is minimal, but one excellent example is the Isle of Gigha, where they have three of their own turbines - Faith, Hope, and Charity - that supply the community and sell excess power off into the system.

The populations here are ancient, and the Islands in particular have a spiritual quality: it's not just the shifting mists and dramatic coastlines, but the feeling of a really antique history. It's hard not to get spiritual when you're standing there on a misty evening and you can hear the odd booming call of bitterns above the sound of the waves, and it doesn't get dark until nearly midnight and then for only three hours. There are many standing stones, tombs, fortresses and other remains of those populations. People seem to be stoical and humorous, hugely capable, and there is a lot of wisdom in these parts. And because life is historically tough, people seem to help each other out - there's a great sense of community, and people who contribute are welcome, wherever they're from. There's a respect for skill and education - it's not cool to be ignorant and disaffected, so the 'whatever' culture you see a lot of in London doesn't seem to exist so much here. And you read in the local papers of people being cautioned by the police for doing things like shouting at their girlfriend in the street, or being drunk and disorderly, which goes by the by in many English (and Scottish, come to that) cities.

It's not surprising in these wildernesses - often covered by either moorland or forestry - that there is an amazing array of wildlife. The red squirrel is alive and well up here, as are deer, otters, and our most rare birds of prey: Ospreys, Red Kites, Hen Harriers, and of course Golden Eagles. The corncrake and the chough are being looked after by the RSPB on some of the islands, in collaboration with the farmers - and these are some of the rarest birds in the UK. The islands are the breeding and/or feeding grounds of the largest UK - and sometimes world - populations of gannets, barnacle geese, and puffins. It's not unusual to see dolphins and porpoises, and you very frequently see common and grey seals. The odd whale passes by. There is talk of reintroducing beavers and wolves. But overall there's a sense of geography which I think we sometimes lack in more urban areas: you always know where you are in relation to the sea, and in relation to the points of the compass. It's a sort of connectedness to the features of the landscape (things like sea, hills, lochs, forests, and so on) that we don't use much in the city.

One of the things I particularly like about the islands is that you meet everyone in the village shop because you know exactly what time the ferry comes in that has the daily papers on it - and everyone goes down to get them at the same time. In some places, the traditions seem restrictive: some of the islands, for example, are very closed indeed on a Sunday, even to the extent that driving around is frowned upon. I am currently stocking up - rather like the second-homers - with things I know I can't get on the islands, because I'm off to Barra soon, beginning a month-long sojourn in isolated places. But I also know that I can probably ask just about anybody if I can park in their field, and it will probably be OK in exchange for a few quid and an account of where I've come from. I now haven't watched TV for a month, am reading local rather than national papers and listening to Radio Scotland, because things happening even as far away as Glasgow and Edinburgh seem rather away from this world. I probably won't be able to get fresh pesto, 'real' coffee, or nearly as many varieties of olives as I can in London. But seeing as I'm just as happy eating cheese and onion sandwiches and making my own soup, I think I'll probably survive.

Arran jumper

It's a short trip from Ardrossan, just up from Ayr, over to the Isle of Arran. They've put on extra boats for the summer, so I got a lift on a little one (no egg and chips a la Caledonian Macbrayne, which are excellent, but never mind). It takes about an hour, and there were only five vehicles on the ferry. The ferryman told me I should 'birl round and reverse on', which amused me - I didn't realise that 'birling' was something you did outside of Scottish Country Dancing, and the idea of birling in a 20ft motorhome in an enclosed space was a bit of a laugh. Anyway, I birled, and a lot of men in orange overalls waved their arms and told me where to park.



It's quite funny seeing the van from the top (the roof is filthy, for a start) and I could see what the dog gets up to when she's on a boat. For a while now I've been following a line from Annie Proulx's book 'The Shipping News' where a grizzled Newfoundlander reassures the incomers that it's OK to leave the dog in their vehicle: ''E'll sleep the 'ole way across. That's 'ow dogs are.' He is right.

The tall thing in the photo is Goat Fell, the highest peak on the island. A lot of people come to Arran to walk up it. (Not me, this time - I had other challenges.)


Soon Arran envelops you in its welcoming arms, and you are in the port town of Brodick.


Arran is a nice island: big enough to spend proper time in, and with very varied scenery. I headed down from the ferry to the southern tip of the island and found a space at Seal Beach campsite near the little village of Kildonan. You can park there looking directly at the sea, with the tiny island of Pabba and its lighthouse in the foreground. The weather came and went - intervals of sun, showers, rain, wind...you never get bored with the weather on Arran. And from my beachfront position I could see it all sweeping across.



I met lots of nice people on this site - and it was this site that made me think that the world of the Caravan Club is not all there is to BWV-ing. Seal Beach was very friendly (to the extent that I went to the pub with other campers two nights out of the three I was there ) and has all sorts of interesting set-ups on it - not just BWVs. Paul and Lizzie from Stafford had a trailer tent, Julie, Colin and Cath from Nottinghamshire had a touring caravan plus a Ford transit home-converted as a van, and a family with a French dad and a Scottish mum had a smart Landrover with a tent mounted on top of it and accessed via a ladder - it looked like you could pull the ladder up to stop any passing lions getting in. (The Scottish Wildcat is not known for its raids on campsites, but you never know. Bet they could climb a ladder just like that).

Anyway, I spent a lot of time at Kildonan just looking at the sea, but I also did the 6Km boulder scramble up to Whiting Bay on that trip. I talked before about that being a bit of a humbling experience - also quite scary.




After I fell over I did lie where I'd fallen for a bit wondering if I was dead, and trying to move everything...then I realised that the rock was quite comfy, as rocks go, the sun was coming out, and I hadn't lost any teeth. So I sat up and lit a cigarette. But 6km of bouldering looks like this in both directions when you're in the middle. And Bonnie genuinely got stuck in some places, because there was nowhere she felt safe jumping down to. A couple of times I had to go back and lift her, which meant getting a foothold, bracing myself against a rock somehow, and then finding somewhere safe to put her down, all without losing my balance. Makes carrying Spike on the tube seem like a walk in the park.


I was so contented in my beachside position that I wasn't tempted at all to go anywhere in the van. So I just did local walks - and even more local naps - until it was time to drive up to Lochranza in the north (I went back the way I'd come, via Brodick, because I want to save the west of the island for another time. I cycled the whole way around it in about 1985, but that's another story).



On the way back through Brodick I did a bit of shopping - I'd been looking out for the factory shop of Arran Aromatics, for example, who make lovely bath things and cosmetics, and I also saw a place that had an outdoor gear shop so I bought a pile of OS maps for the Hebrides. Next door was a pottery, too, and I had a good look round that, and found a little milk jug that amused me: in style, a sort of cross between Rennie Mackintosh and Wallace and Gromit. I don't need a milk jug, but it made me smile so I bought it.

Perhaps more importantly, this little cluster of shops was at one of the entrances of Brodick Castle grounds. As the rain had abated a bit, I thought it was time for a walk. Had a very good (if wet) walk around the gardens, which are (like many of the big Scottish gardens) home to a wonderful collection of rhododendrons. They like the acid soil. (Sorry, distracted for a moment there by the arrival next to me of a silver camper van from Germany. It's got 'Big Nugget' written on the side. And I though the Datsun Cherry was about the worst name I'd heard for a vehicle).




After a damp walk through the gardens (including an interesting experience in the loos - they have motion sensors (no pun intended) and left me in the dark and unable to do much about it after far too short a time. And am I the only one who takes it personally when one of those automatic air fresheners goes off when you're in there?) I drove off to Lochranza (through a scary glen with a narrow road: it was odd being surrounded by mountains after so much sea). I had been told by Lizzie to get a poached salmon sandwich from the little sandwich shop by the pier, and boy it was good. Nothing posh - just really good salmon, nice dressing, and brown bread. And a very nice woman from the South of England who was another who'd given it all up to come up to the islands. She said she used to have 'a proper job', but she spoke as if it were ancient history. And she seemed to get a great deal of satisfaction out of serving up local seafood in her sandwiches (she offered me something called 'squat lobster', which she was peeling when I arrived, but it looked a little bit too insecty for my taste).

The little port is really one you just turn up at, because the crossing is another short one - back to Claonaig on Kintyre, which is an arm of the mainland which has Arran in its armpit.









And off we went on yet another tiny boat - next stop, Kintyre peninsula: one of my favourite parts of the world.