From Arran to Africa – supporting the work of Mary’s Meals

We live in an ill-divided world, but three Scots are doing their bit to help feed some of the world’s neediest children. In this month’s iScot magazine (issue 66) I look at how Alison Page on Arran and Gerard Butler in Holywood are helping Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow with the work of his life-changing charity, Mary’s Meals.

Just how Magnus, from a shed in Dalmally, has managed to create a charity that now feeds well over a million children every day is an extraordinary story. But there’s even more to it than that. For it’s not just food that Mary’s Meals provide. It’s also hope. That meal, given to them each day at school, helps these children get the education they need to get themselves out of poverty. It makes a better future a real possibilty.

Both Alison’s Westie stories and Gerard’s film, Love Reaches Everywhere, show that books and films really can help change lives.  And that we can all do something to help redress the balance.

More about Corrie’s Capers

More about Mary’s Meals

More about iScot Magazine

Rev James Dey

A man who could make chocolate cakes!

I first posted this piece about High Corrie in 2015.  It was linked to the article I’d written about that unusual coterie of men and women for whom High Corrie was a special place. Just last week the last of that group, my father, Rev James Dey, passed away. In many ways it’s the end of an era. They were all men and women who had experienced the reality of war, of poverty, of suffering and hardship. Yet they were all men and women who looked to the future with courage and determination.

They helped make their world a better place for all, not just for a few. Something I’ve tried to do in my life, and see reflected in the words and actions of my own children. Life is never static. Change is always with us. I hope we always try and make those changes good ones. Just as my father did.

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Burnbank Cottage, High Corrie

If someone asks you to name your favourite book, or song, or food, or place, it’s not always easy to come up with an answer, even though the question itself seems perfectly straightforward.  Somehow it all depends on a host of factors, and in the end, for most of us, it isn’t really possible to come up with a once-and-for-all favourite.

But that doesn’t mean there aren’t books, or songs, or places that are special to us – and  some that are more special than others.  For me, a very special place is High Corrie on Arran.

Sunshine on Burnbank 1973

It’s special because of the island it’s on, special because of its wonderful setting and special because of all the happy associations and memories it brings with it. Wonderful carefree family holidays, when the sun always shone (well, most of the time!) and we were free to roam the hills and shore and cycle safely wherever we chose (there were far fewer cars back then!).  Each year we stayed in Burnbank, one of the small cottages in High Corrie, a clachan designated by Historic Scotland as being of ‘outstanding historical interest’.

High Corrie United FC 1969

There was the High Corrie Burn to explore, Goatfell to climb, and a flat-ish area where we held our own ‘olympic games’ and football matches, along with a home-made two-hole golf course set on a steep slope with the sea far below.  Not far away was Corrie, and then Brodick,  so there was also putting and crazy golf and rowing boats and sandy beaches to enjoy. Adventure beckoned at every turn!

1973: My father Rev James Dey of the BBC (left) and playwright Robert McLellan relax during a break in filming in High Corrie

It was also a place where summer-holiday stories were written and where there was time to slow down and talk and think and unwind.  But it was also a place where adults could stop and unwind too.  For my parents it was a break from their challenging jobs at the BBC and in a tough Glasgow secondary school respectively. The cottage opposite Burnbank was the home of the playwright and poet Robert McLellan and his wife Kathleen. Nearby, the summer homes of the editor of the Guardian, later the Controller of BBC Scotland, the Director of the Royal Scottish Museum and many artists.  A small place but one alive with thoughts and ideas.

It’s a place I’ve been back to on many occasions and I’ve written about some of the things that made this place special not just to me and my family, but to many others. It’s good to have places like this, places that played their part in our young lives and continue to hold such a store of fond memories. Whilst I’d still find it impossible to name a favourite place, High Corrie comes pretty close!

 

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.