“Life for most of us may begin at forty, but let no-one worry if a few more years go by before the real excitement sets in.” With these words Margaret Fay Shaw’s sister Kay begins her account of an epic and adventurous journey to visit Canna in 1939.
Category: News (page 2 of 5)
It is nearly 40 years since John Lorne Campbell fought his battle against the small boat scheme. He realised then that the proposal to withdraw the CalMac ferry serving the Small Isles of Eigg, Rum, Muck and his own island of Canna could spell the death to the islands as inhabited communities.
Two years ago the final chapter was full of hope.
Happy news for me – The Man Who Gave Away His Island has nearly sold out in hardback and large format paperback and will reprint next year as a standard paperback – is tinged with sadness with the decision of Aart and Amanda to leave the island.
The resourceful Chris Holme of the History Company has unearthed a rare find in the British Council film archive of life in the Hebrides in the 1940s.
Very disappointing news from Canna that Graham and Olivia Uney are to leave the island after less than a year. Their blog, Leaving Canna, gives brief details. I don’t know enough about the facts to comment on their individual circumstances, but since this is the fifth family to leave in two years, surely the National Trust for Scotland, which owns the island must ask itself some hard questions.
As I explained recently, my new book (Hubris: how HBOS wrecked the best bank in Britain) has nothing to do with Canna but John Lorne Campbell would forgive me borrowing space here – the FSA report on Peter Cummings has arrived before my brand new Hubris blog is ready to go live! – injustice was something he detested.
We watched the sun set on Rum as a wavering television set broke news of Lehman Brothers collapsing on the other side of the world. A mere two weeks earlier Alistair Darling had given his all-too prophetic interview with Decca Aitkenhead, predicting that the global crisis had a lot further to go. Read more
After an arduous journey by train and ferry, he arrived at Lochboisdale, at night to be met by the redoubtable Fr Allan McDonald, who set off at a brisk pace to walk the three miles to where Rea was to sleep for the night.
Island life was never for softies. I wrote previously about the conference exploring the negative impact the Education (Scotland) Act 1872 had on the teaching of Gaelic. But other legislation around that period had a more positive effect on the islands. The true story of the innovative young English headmaster on South Uist offers a fascinating example.
I’m grateful to John Humphries (no, not that John Humphries, but the publisher and editor of Scottish Islands Explorer) for drawing my attention to the conference to be held later this month on the impact of the Education (Scotland) Act 1872, which introduced compulsory schooling for children across Scotland, but excluded the teaching of Gaelic. Read more
A letter in the post. Not a bill or a fast food flyer but a real letter. One of the lasting rediscoveries I have made in researching and writing John’s life is that letters are a great way of making and keeping contact with other people. And in the post, this is not just any letter. Read more