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Arran: Corrie Connections

Cottages in Corrie

Corrie: It’s been called the prettiest village in Europe and has been both inspiration and home to many artists.  Elegant sandstone villas and sturdy sandstone cottages face out to sea, while the mountains of Arran rise majestically behind.  It’s a beautiful village, one full of history and character, but which only really came into being as we know it today during the major social upheavals of the 19th century.  When the surrounding land was cleared of small farming communities, the inhabitants of these areas had to leave their homes and find work elsewhere.  Some went to the growing industrial cities of the central belt of Scotland, others emigrated to new lands such as Canada.  But some were fortunate enough to be able to take up quarrying and fishing in the new village along the shore, Corrie.

Transport improved and slowly but surely the the famous Clyde steamers made access to the beautiful islands of the Firth of Clyde quicker and easier.  Tourism grew and the villages of Arran became a favourite haunt of the growing urban middles classes from mainland Scotland. Then World War Two brought a new wave of visitors when large numbers of children were evacuated from Glasgow and sent to the relative safety of Arran.  Some found the contrast between town and country too much and went back to the mainland – despite the risk of bombing.  For others it was the start of lifelong connection to Arran and Corrie in particular.

Corrie port

Life is never static and Corrie is a good example of this.  For different people it’s meant different things.  The artist Joan Eardley loved it, as did the Sandeman family.  For the author and illustrator Mairi Hedderwick it was the beginning of a lifelong love of Scottish islands.  While the family of the founders of the great publishing house of Macmillan started life there too. And it’s a place we can make our own connections with today as well.

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Handa Island – Puffins Galore!

My first visit to Handa Island was in 1977, more than thirty years ago now.  Two things in particular fascinated me about Handa’s history. One was that long ago families from the mainland brought their dead to be buried on Handa to keep the graves safe from scavenging wolves.  The other that the island had had its own ‘parliament’ presided over by the eldest widow, the ‘Queen of Handa’, and that the islanders held daily consultations to decide the work to be done that day. It seemed wholly appropriate that the people who lived there were the ones who took the decisions that most closely effected their lives.  And took those decisions as a community. Sadly, like so many Scottish islands and so much of the Scottish Highlands, Handa ‘lost’ its people in the mid-19th century and has been uninhabited since.

But its wildlife still flourishes!  I remember vividly that sense of amazement on experiencing at first-hand the sight – and sounds – of the soaring sea-cliffs with their thousand upon thousand of nesting birds: the reality exceeding anything we’d imagined.  In particular the unforgettable puffins, who seemed far more sedate than many of their more raucous neighbours!  Handa is well-managed by the Scottish Wildlife Trust, with more than 5,000 visitors a year.  And there was good news for all those visitors: to help cope with such an annual influx a new eco-toilet has been built on the island, aptly named “The loo with a view”

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Island Going – Robert Atkinson

I recently came across Robert Atkinson’s wonderful book “Island Going”.  First published in 1949, it charts Atkinson and his friend John Ainslie’s journey from the south of England to the north of Scotland in search of the rare sea-bird, Leach’s Petrel. Setting out in July 1935 in Ainslie’s mother’s car, they motored all the way to Kinlochbervie in a day and a night – going ever onwards until the road runs out: “Fifty miles beyond Lairg the road reached a little township called Kinloch Bervie … The ribbon that unwound from London in July sun petered out into rain-swept moorland two or three miles beyond Kinloch Bervie. Another fifteen or so miles of uninhabited, trackless moor and the cliffs turned the north-west corner of Scotland at Cape Wrath.”

As ornithologists they were looking for a remote island as a base for their study and had set their hearts on getting to North Rona.  But then, as now, reaching North Rona, was not easy. And so they had to change plans, put Rona on hold and make Handa Island their first port of call.  Handa lies off the North West Sutherland coast at Tarbet, near to Scourie.  Though not their first choice of island, it was there that their adventures began. Writing of their first view of a sea-cliff colony, Atkinson said: “The birds were sounding long before we reached the cliff edge; then, peering over, the void below was a snow-storm of flying sea-fowl. The noise struck us like a blast. It was new, all new…”

It’s a book well-worth reading, not only for their enthusiasm and insights as ornithologists, but also for the descriptions of the islands they visited and the often very primitive conditions they were prepared to camp in to carry out their studies.  They were brave and hardy young men!  And they did make it to North Rona.

It’s a book that makes you want to be ‘Island Going’ yourself.

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‘Memory hold-the-door’ – looking after our past

The Isle of Arran Heritage Museum, Brodick

‘Memory Hold-the-Door’ is the title of John Buchan’s autobiography. Buchan was an amazing man: born in Perth in 1875 he became a lawyer, worked in South Africa after the Boer War, wrote best-selling thrillers, was an eminent historian, an MP and finally Governor General of Canada. Thanks to his autobiography we know a great deal about him and what was important to him. But he would have been one of the first to stress that of no less importance are the lives of ordinary people. How though, if not the subject of biographies, do we know how others lived? We are the people we are thanks to our memories – memories of ourselves, of the places we live, of the families we belong to. Our lives are also shaped by the landscape in which we grow up. Landscape in its full sense – historical, geographical, cultural, religious, climatic and linguistic. If, as individuals, we lose our memories we lose our identities.

The Isle of Arran Heritage Museum, Brodick

The same is true for communities and peoples. That’s why I have such respect for local museums and one of the best that I know is the Isle of Arran Heritage Museum. Take a step back into the distant – and not-so-distant past – and see why this island and its people are the way they are today. Museums of this quality are lifelines to the past and to our understanding of others and of ourselves. And this is certainly one to treasure!

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St Kilda – the final frontier?

On the road to the St Kilda View Point on North Uist

For some people ‘space’ will always be the final frontier. For the Romans it was the north-east of Scotland. For me it’s St Kilda; that group of tiny, rocky islands, lying 40 miles west-northwest of North Uist in the Outer Hebrides.

The islands – often little more than sheer cliffs rising straight out of the Atlantic – were inhabited from prehistoric times until 1930, when the final 30 islanders requested evacuation. The main island is Hirta, or in Gaelic ‘Hiort’. No-one is quite sure what the name originally meant, but it’s possible that it’s a very old Irish or Gaelic word for ‘west’.

St Kilda information board from on North Uist

Another possibility is that the name means ‘shepherd’ or ‘herd island’. Certainly there is nothing further west than America! And the islands did support herds of soay sheep, along with an amazing abundance of bird life.

When still inhabited most of the islanders lived in Village Bay and, with permission, it’s possible to camp there today. The islands are managed jointly by the National Trust for Scotland, Scottish Natural Heritage and what can seem like a strange bedfellow, the MoD (Ministry of Defence).

Although I’ve visited a great many Scottish Islands, I’ve not yet been to St Kilda. It’s not an easy journey, and bad weather has put paid to our attempts to get there in the past. But if you’re especially lucky you can sometimes see it from North Uist, and it’s incredible to think that some people have been able to look across a distance of 40miles and capture the archipelago in a photograph! While we could see several miles across the water, and the lens of my camera even further, we could only imagine the jagged outcrops in the far distance.

A new St Kilda Centre, Ionad Hiort, is to be built at Mangurstadh near Uig on Lewis, and will stand upon the magnificent cliffs there. Ever since reading Archie Roy’s All Evil Shed Away I’ve wanted to get to St Kilda and one day I hope to actually reach that ‘final frontier’ – and to set foot on St Kilda for myself!

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Scalpsie Bay – A Walk through Time

Looking across to Arran from Scalpsie Bay

The Isle of Bute, although lying in the Firth of Clyde and close to the main centre of population in Scotland, is often called ‘The Undiscovered Isle’.  Many people think of it only in terms of the main town, Rothesay, once a thriving summer coastal resort, now rather run-down and tired.  But beyond the town lies beautiful countryside, magnificent bays and a wealth of history – just waiting to be discovered!

Scalpsie Bay, on the south-west of Bute, is home to a populous seal colony, as well as having magnificent views over to Arran.  It also holds thousands of years of history – from a Bronze Age barrow and Iron Age dun, to the water channels built by the 19th century engineer Robert Thom to power the islands then flourishing cotton mills and the “Russian Cottage” used during the Cold War to listen for possible Soviet submarines in the Firth of Clyde.  But there is much, much more to this beautiful bay than this, so go and discover it for yourself!

Fragments of Bronze Age pottery found in the Scalpsie Barrow in 2010

 
 
 
 
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Plague, Priests and Pirates – Islay’s intriguing past

The standing stone by Cill Tobar Lasrach

From Port Ellen on the south of Islay to Kildalton, five miles to the east, lies a wealth of archaeological and historic sites, all of which add to the rich story of this beautiful island.  Ancient place names, standing stones, early Christian ruins, a battle-scarred castle, deserted villages, shipwrecks, the tragedy of the plague village of Solam, beautiful and weathered medieval crosses – all speak silently and potently of the lives of those who lived here in days gone by.  It’s an area of the island that I know well and have written about in Scottish Islands Explorer.  I would recommend a visit to everyone.

The article also appeared in the wonderful Islay Blog website.