Trip to Scotland 1983: Four and half months in the Highlands and Islands

**Jock Scot** · 11th January 24, 05:49 AM

Originally Posted by DCampbell16B

Well, sort of! But also, no. Part of the reason I wanted to stay out there was to see what living in Scotland was like in reality. Not the "Tartan Twilight Tourist Tat" world.---------------------

In my long experience of the Scottish Highlands and admittedly shorter but fairly extensive visits to the Hebrides the two places do not compare in almost every way. In my experience there are great, marked and profound differences of every day life -----------particularly on Sundays-------between the mainland of Highland Scotland and the Hebrides. In passing, Orkney and Shetland have their differences (in human outlook) too but, nowhere near as much as the Hebrides.

**DCampbell16B** · 14th January 24, 09:16 AM

Originally Posted by Jock Scot

In my long experience of the Scottish Highlands and admittedly shorter but fairly extensive visits to the Hebrides the two places do not compare in almost every way. In my experience there are great, marked and profound differences of every day life -----------particularly on Sundays-------between the mainland of Highland Scotland and the Hebrides. In passing, Orkney and Shetland have their differences (in human outlook) too but, nowhere near as much as the Hebrides.

I have been thinking about what you have said here. Without a doubt my experience would have been very different if I had had the opportunity to stay in a community on the mainland. It was mere serendipity that I got to know the nephew of the folks I ended up staying with. And that was in a fairly large, but largely physically isolated, Gaelic speaking community (Lewis and Bernera Lewis, but the Islands in general). Many things were still happening out there that hadn't changed much, and I was extremely lucky to have been there, seen it, and sometimes even been a part of it.

**DCampbell16B** · 15th January 24, 05:09 AM

£1.75 map

Morning to Stornoway. Didn't feel well all day. Checked skirts [for my sisters]. Perhaps Erisort w/ skirts £40. No maps available [for the ] Uists. Perhaps go to Uists 6 days? Also K in town [their daughter and family in Stornoway]. Did not go to Ness football (darn!). Anna very busy again. Oh well, see Teacher morning with bank [I don't know what I meant here]. Will probably just have to walk in anyway, busy or no. Nice storm this evening. Watched "The Outlaw Josie Wales" on TV, "explained" some things in it to Gibb and An. C got me out of bed to chase An, she thought he was in garage. He wasn't around. Rainy night.

**DCampbell16B** · 16th January 24, 07:28 AM

Missed bank today [the bank came around in a van just like the grocery van]. Went to shore to beachcomb but need NW or N wind to blow on shore [probably Traigh Shandaidhor Traigh Crois]. Drained rings, also found three more. C wants them. An doesn't. [The mooring rings described earlier. Drained because they were cracked and no good.] Finally getting to Anna a'Mhurdaigh's tonight. Mairead from Ireland there. Anna drove us around Ness. Two very nice thatched houses between Europie and Eurodale. They've been picking on the new teacher Marion since she came, too. [The new teacher at the primary school]. Her boyfriend from Glasgow here. His family from Ness and Shabost, but chan eil Gaidhlig aig. Saw some small haystacks. Several piles twisted together [somewhat unclear, but with a poor drawing of hay twisted into a rope and around the top of the stack to hold it together]

**DCampbell16B** · 19th January 24, 05:40 AM

Seriously trying for Gaelic today.

https://postimg.cc/f3QSd7Fx
Cross toward Butt from Cnoc Fianal

https://postimg.cc/qz9NfXp9
North Dell, Traigh Crois, Alastair, Anna, School

https://postimg.cc/LJDhqdtM
North Dell Gibb? Catriona Sheocain

https://postimg.cc/Whj20Wbp
An Taigh Chatriona Sheocain, lived in thatched house

Letter from Carol [sister]. Pretty much wasted the rest of the day. Watched TV, evening. D came, evening mostly Gaelic. Night gorgeous, balmy. D brought back cuidigean from fishing. An cleaned by fingers, broke head off and cleaned out guts. Said broth was well looked forward to in lean times when he was a boy. [That was a reminder to me then, and now, about how poor some areas of Scotland were, well within living memory.]

**DCampbell16B** · 27th January 24, 12:50 PM

Off to Storn[away] today preparing for the Uists. Letter from Mom. Went w/ F, CT. Met An in town. Was told I wouldn't be left and was. Waited til 4:50 then walked past Laxdale and caught a ride to Barvas w/ a van construction. Then caught a ride to North Dell w/ Englishman living in Port of Ness. Walked in just as An was ready to call Police. He and C very worried and very relieved. Watched TV (yuch). Men back from Sula Sgeir tomorrow [the guga boat coming into Port of Ness]. Am going. Cashed 2 checks of $50. Also saw D and Donald a'Muileann in town, and [K] C nighean An and Iain Scalpaich [Iain a'Mhurdaigh]. Calum Lobster actually a Lobster by his wife Mairead, like Iain Scalpaich.

[The "Lobsters" actually got there name from their Grandfather who was a lobster fisherman.]

**DCampbell16B** · 5th April 24, 04:48 AM

56p letters

Wrote Mom and Carol [sister]. Not much else, waited for gannets to come in [the guga boat]. Came in about 2:00, didn't know until 4:00, didn't get there untiln4:30. Too late. All sold out. Went with Alasdair Tuilcean, C and J. Only ones left were large orders. Men had beards. An and Gibb painting (??unclear) Effie in Bernera. Spoke Gaelic a little.

[One of the scenes of which I have a very clear memory. Clear skies, lovely temperature. Lots of people down at the port. I heard a voice yelling across "A Thormaid!". There was a beautiful pair of oars stacked against a wall. Eight feet long and very slender. There were made of a 2x2 length of wood with blades attached to either side. (Back home I made a similar pair and tried them on a 14 foot rowboat. They really moved the boat! (It was not my "first time in a boat") But the torque was so high it snapped one oar and I was stuck in the middle of Little Sodus Bay.)

I took a picture of some gugas ready to go but it didn't turn out. The slide is very washed out. I've tried some digital work on it but it is beyond my skills. I think it was at that point my camera failed. It was my grandfather's with a low power telephoto and a wide angle lens. I still have it, but no one can fix these anymore.

For those of you unfamiliar with guga, think somewhere on the internet is a video about the guga hunters. The men were basically unemployed, and go out and live on Sula Sgeir for a month or so collecting the birds and "preserving" them by gutting them, burning off the feathers, then packing them in salt. A Ness specialty.

]

**Hauge** · 9th April 24, 04:36 AM

Thanks for this venue in to the past! It has been a interesting one indeed...

As to fixing cameras, theres plenty. But it aint for free.
Try to search the web, for photo groups. And i'm sure You'll find quite a few references, to specialists "out there".

**DCampbell16B** · 16th April 24, 05:17 AM

50p loaf of bread

Boring day. Evening[?] Insurance man brought gannet which C briefly mentioned before he left. £3.50 this year [for An's guga] (x5000 for 10 men). Mostly packed for Uist. Watched Remington Steele, cheers[?] for Stephanie Zimbalist. Salmon tea!

[£3.50 x 5000 gugas was what the 10 men on Sula Sgeir earned for a months work. The men who went were usually out of work. So about £1750 per man if they split evenly.

Remington Steele was a detective show on US TV at the time. It was Pierce Brosnan's introduction to the US. I don't know if he was known in the UK or Ireland before that.]

**DCampbell16B** · 22nd April 24, 04:18 AM

Shorter church today. 40 min sermon, visitor. Muffin, potatoes, lentil soup. Full. Egg for tea. The girls over tonight, played with them. Finished packing for Uist. Wearing [unclear] how long. [I have now idea what I was writing here].

[Sermons were usually an hour. I had never had lentil soup before, so I wrote that down. And I hate eggs. But I are it and never told C. She would have been embarrassed and fussed to make something else, which I did not want.

I remember playing with D, who was about 4 years old. I had a coat over my head looking at her through the sleeve and shaking it around like an elephant trunk and making an elephant noise, and her just screaming with laughter. An and C were watching and grinning.]