Glasphein

The penny land

Chirsty MacDonald

Ciorstag nan Crannag

When we were children, our parents would send us to the Mission House with a bottle of milk for the lady missionaries. It was a nightly duty. Miss Catherine Mary Martin MacLeod was from Lewis.  She was the last of the lady missionaries who came here in the first half of this century. She gave me a text book - with thoughts for each day.  As long as I was in school, I didn't miss a morning or night of reading it.  As well as Sunday School, she ran the Band of Hope which the girls attended. There was a white placard on the wall proclaiming 'I promise by God's help to abstain from all intoxicating drinks such as beverages'.  Miss MacLeod didn't have Gaelic, unlike the others. She played the organ beautifully. She gave classes in nature studies, and she had a library of books which we could borrow.  She had a kind heart.  I still have a brooch and kilt pin that she gave me.

The lady missionaries were an important part of our young lives.  They stayed at Brogaig. They provided spirtitual guidance and practical help. Their Sunday school was inter-denominational. Almost all of the children went from the surrounding area - Digg, Glasphein, Brogaig, Sartle and Stenscholl. The ladies took on the role of nurse where people were suffering.  They provided where houses were poor.  And the local households supplied the ladies with milk, eggs and fish. The Mission House was the second house on the right hand side as you turn the corner of Brogaig on your way to Glasphein.  Originally cottars had lived there.  It had been home to a family of Rosses.  Morag Ross was brought up there - her husband, John MacKay from Kilmaluag, died in recent years in Cornwall at the age of 95.  The ladies provided classes in spiritual guidance, by teaching the scripture and hymns. Over and above that, they taught local youngsters many useful subjects.   They had little in the way of remuneration. The Ladies Highland Association had been formed to assist people in distress and to strengthen the gospel in communities.  Their headquarters were in Edinburgh.

The lady missionaries glow fondly in people's memories.  I never met Mrs Nicolson - I just remember the older people talking about her. Miss MacPherson came from Melness. She was in Brogaig before I was born. After she left, she married a Rev James MacKay from Lewis.  My mother never lost touch with her after her marriage.  Through time she received a card from her, which I have upstairs. It said, 'Twins born - our joy was mixed with sorrow - one is in the loving arms of her mother and the other is in the cold earth'.  Mrs MacKay died when I was very young.  Her daughter, Isabel Catherine, was born the year after me.  I've never met her, but I've often meant to trace the family. Not so long ago, Coinneach MacIomhair's Gaelic radio programme was interviewing people from the coast of Sutherland and Caithness.

Miss Montgomery came in the 1930s, after Miss MacPherson's time.  She was a ban Leodhasach.  She married Eòghan Grant, a widower from Uig.  Their son, Norman Grant, lives in Glasgow.  I was too young to know her well - too young to attend her Sunday school. But I did visit her in her final days at Edinbane hospital in the early 1980s.  She had two step daughters who were very fond of her.

Miss Alice Ann MacRae was the next lady missionary here.  She had come from 33 Keith Street in Stornoway.  I was old enough by then to have a clear memory of her.  The first time I attended her Sunday school I fell asleep. I was only four, but I got the works from my sister and brother, on the way home.  I remember hiding under the bed in the huff.   Along with Miss MacRae in the Mission House, there was a lady called Aunty Annie (Munro) and two boys - Alasdair and Calum Munro. I believe a sister of Miss MacRae had been the boys' mother.  Alasdair went on to join the Forces.  Calum was in the cadets - he used to come on holiday to our home at Crannagan when I was in my teens.  Calum was last heard of in Muir of Ord a number of years ago. A big crowd of us went to Miss MacRae's Sunday school.  She was like a family friend, and she was full of fun.  Every Sunday, Aunty Annie gave each of us a pandrop.  Miss MacRae left our area in the 1940s.  She kept in touch with my mother until she died in a cancer hospital in Glasgow.

Mary S Kelly was from Heast. I believe a nephew of hers is living there today.  She travelled about the district on a motor bicycle of sorts.  She was lame.  She played the organ well. I remember her sisters visiting her here. She didn't stay long in our district as she took a stroke.  After Miss Kelly, came Miss MacLeod, the last of them.  The LHA disbanded after that, I believe.

Many local girls learned the art of embroidery, knitting, sewing and flower pressing.  The boys learned how to make stools and brushes, and they got raffia work.  I would be surprised if there aren't still examples around today of the craftwork that was learned there.  It was a welcome opportunity for young people to gather. After the evening sessions concluded, the boys would be waiting at the crossroads for the girls.  The excitement of any new romances would be brewing in the air.  It was a happy time.  We were in our teens and early twenties.  I never forgot the hymns they taught us - I still go through them - Safe in the Arms of Jesus, When He Cometh, Once in Royal David's City.  And I never forgot the joy of the Christmas parties they organised for us.

I was the youngest of eight children. The oldest, Angus, was born in January 1919 - on the night that the Iolaire boat was lost off the Beasts of Holm in Lewis, with devastating effects for the island.  My mother lost her first born - he didn't live to see his fifth birthday.  And at the age of 36, she found herself a widow with seven children to bring up. I was only a year and a half. My father was Donald MacDonald of No 2 Glasphein -  Dòmhnall Mhurchaidh Iain Mhoir nan Crannag.  His people had long been settled there.  My mother was Chris Ann MacNeil from Earlais.  We used to visit her old family home there at No 7. During the blackouts of the Second World War, she would be asking my grandfather to disguise the wee house that I had made outside from the stones of the tobhtaichean. I had whitewashed it with lime!

Before her marriage, Granny Earlais was Mary Ann MacDonald from Heribusta.  I have an old Bible which belonged to my great grandmother, her mother. In great granny's day, the family was called MacCuan.  A number of them changed their name to MacCowan and others to MacDonald.  I've never been sure why.  Brothers of my great grandmother were responsible for starting off MacCowan's toffee, which is still popular today. It is one of the brothers who recovered the old Bible for my great granny on a trip home from Manitoba where he had settled.  The only one of the MacCowans that I ever met was on Games Day in 1954 or so.  He was Seonaidh Beag MacCowan.  I remember he gave us money to buy ourselves a pair of nylons! His brother was a minister - I forget his name - but seemingly he had a tremendous library of books. But the Bible has interesting notes of births, marriages and deaths.  My grandmother's death in 1944 is recorded there.

Granny's husband was Dòmhnall Ruaraidh (MacNeil).  The MacNeils had been in Glenmore near Portree before they settled in Earlais. It was Dòmhnall Ruaraidh who composed Oran a' Mhotor Char.  He was a witty man. Dòmhnall Ruaraidh's father had lost his wife.  Clann Mhurchaidh (as they were known).  Dòmhnall Ruaraidh's first cousins, Bellag and Peggy MacNeil, went to Vancouver. My sister Mary Ann visited them over there.  When Ruaraidh MacNeil married, my grandfather was the only surviving one in the family. They had 3 or 4 cows, sheeps, and 2 goats at 7 Earlais and my grandfather was forever fishing.  He would eat fish three times a day.  In his seventies, he used to walk over the Bealach from Earlais to Staffin to visit. A crate from Dunlops (Glasgow) used to arrive full of groceries.  When he died, Dunlop wrote a nice letter to the family.  He recalled 'many a cheery chat' at my grandparents' fireside. My grandfather died in the 1950s. Both he and granny died in their own home.

I didn't have many jobs before I married. I got the opportunity to go to Canada as a nanny when I was a teenager. But I wouldn't hear of it. The thought of leaving my mother was too much to bear.  A lot of Staffin girls found work in Glasgow.  It was easy to find a job in perhaps a doctor's house in Glasgow, because one Skye girl told another.  They were homesick, though, the girls who went, and the journey home was a big undertaking. They received a great welcome every chance they got to come home.  There were always presents in their suitcases and stories to keep us amazed. Holidays were short though, and before you knew it, the Monday morning bus would be leaving Staffin again at 6.15 am.  Friends and family would be running alongside the bus shouting 'beannachd leibh, turas mhath leibh'. The road was so poor in those days that the bus took an hour and a quarter to get to Portree. From there, you boarded the Loch Nevis, stopping in Raasay, Kyle and Mallaig.  From Mallaig you got the train to Glasgow Queen Street.

I was 24 when I married Tormod Sheumais on the 24^th of October 1957.  In those days, you had a choice.  Either the banns went up in Eòghan beag's house which was the registrar's base (beside Mackenzie's shop today), or otherwise your forthcoming marriage was intimated in church ('air eigheadh', it was called).  I believe that in the olden days, the proclamation was read for three Sundays. On my wedding day, I left from my home of No 2 Glasphein.  The service was in the Church of Scotland in Staffin, and my brother, Donald, gave me away. Lots of people at that time had their marriage ceremony around dusk time, but our ceremony was at 3.30 pm. The reception was at the Portree Hotel. When we left the hotel that night, there was a crowd of people to see us off - croileagain dhaoine.   In the crowd there was my brother (Donald), my sister (Mary Ann) who was my bridesmaid, Uilleam Iain Ruaraidh and Dòmhnall Eòghainn from Brogaig. They were singing 'Sporan Dhòmhnaill is e cho gann'.  We hired a car to Kyleakin. As we got on the ferry, Norman and I were showered with confetti.  We turned around to see my friend Morag Munro from the Post Office and Isabel Boyd. I still have the 100 telegrams we got on our wedding day.  Our honeymoon was a fortnight in Inverness and Glasgow, staying with family.

Gum bi fada beò sibh agus ceò as ur taigh
ma théid mi a rathaid, seasaidh mi staigh

An old favourite toast at weddings, and a popular message on wedding telegrams, wishing long lives to the newly weds, with smoke coming from their chimney.

The day we came home, Lachie Gillies met us in Portree: he had bought a wee black car.  On the journey back to our family home, we met the first blazing bonfire at Lonfern. There were thirteen bonfires before us - all going full blast. This was the tradition of welcoming home a local groom and his bride.  Bonfires were going in Valtos, at the top of Grenicle, at Ruaraidh Aonghais' house in Garafad, and at the site of the war memorial, before they shifted it. There was another bonfire up at Creagan Stoighseil, one on our family croft at No 9 Stenscholl, two in Brogaig (one was at the home of Somhairle Mór, I remember).  Another one was on the hill where Ruaraidh and Murdella live in Glasphein, a further one at the other end of Glasphein, one where Sandra lives in Glasphein and the last one was on the croft of Donald Angus in Digg!  They weren't wee bonfires: people had been gathering wood all afternoon in preparation. And when we got to the family home at 9 Stenscholl, there were 40 people gathered for dinner - older men and women who hadn't been at the Portree reception.

As well as the bonfires, there was a candle in almost every house from Lonfern northwards.  People knew their community then, and they were well organised. Also, there was no traffic on the road in the 1950s.  From my own family home, at Crannagan - No 2 Glasphein, you could make out the headlights of the approaching bus as it reached the Sìthean Thobhta. You knew that the bus took half an hour exactly from Tobht to Glasphein.  You could time it well, to be sure that your candles were lit. I believe the last time that people lit candles to welcome home a bride and groom was when Aonghas Chaluim Sheonaidh brought home his bride, Peggy, in 1969.

Aig bàinnsean 's aig tòraidhean, aithnichear càirdean agus eòlaich.

 At weddings and funerals, you can recognise family and friends.

Traditions were strong in relation to the important events in family life.  When my sister Mary Kate married in 1953, I was her bridesmaid and my niece, Chris Ann, was her four-year old flower girl.  On that occasion, the bridal couple came home via Earlais, Uig and Kilmaluag. Because my mother had come from Earlais, the marriage was acknowledged, and on that occasion the candles were even more widespread, being right round the north end, from Earlais to Kilmuir. At weddings, relatives were much more important than friends.  And on the Sunday following the wedding, the couple would attend the bride's church. 'Kirkeadh' they called this practice. Thereafter, the couple always attended the groom's church.  Norman and I had followed this tradition by attending the service at the East Church in Inverness (where my own daughter married in 1993).

My mother was very fond of her husband's people - and perhaps particularly my father's aunties.  They were Peigi Mhurchaidh Iain Mhoir (a Mrs MacLeod in Digg), Cairistìona (a Mrs Gillies in Flodigarry) and Catriona Ruadh (a Mrs Bethune in Clachamish).  My mother and I had a special bond.  She was a big influence in my life.  She couldn't watch people lifting corn or potatoes without going out to help them. People here helped one another in their toils through life, but they also helped to prepare one another for death. It was common to 'caithris' - to keep company with a dying person both up to death and in the few days and nights before the funeral.  There were few district nurses in days gone by, and anyway they probably preferred to do this for one another.  The bond of friendship went very deep.

Oran a' Mhotor Car

This song was composed on sight of the first motor car to visit Earlais area. The words were written by Donald MacNeil of Earlais (Dòmhnall Ruairidh), who was the maternal grandfather of Ciorstag nan Crannag, who was born and brought up at No 2 Glasphein.