Harris Tweed Ride II
October 13, 2012 § 7 Comments
Last year I organised Glasgow’s first Tweed Ride and such was the demand for another one in 2012 it would have been rude not to oblige.
Being so far from the city meant that this time around I took a back seat / saddle and placed the event in the hands of two Glasgow chaps I knew would make a sterling job of it.
And that they did…
Mor Macleod 1914 – 2012
January 8, 2012 § Leave a Comment
Mor Macleod, a highly respected Lewis tradition-bearer and the very last orphan of the Iolaire disaster, has died peacefully in Ospadal nan Eilean, Stornoway, after a brief illness. She was 97 years old and had all her faculties to the end.
Born Marion Smith in Earshader, Uig, in December 1914 – her younger brother, Coinneach Iain Smith, would be a noted bard – Mor vividly recalled word coming (two days late) to Earshader of the wreck at Holm, on 1st January 1919, and the death of her father, 46-year old Kenneth Smith, and so many others. (Her mother, who died in November 1980, would be the tragedy’s last widow).
Over 200 returning service men had died when HMY Iolaire hit rocks and sank - just yards from safety - at the mouth of Stornoway harbour. Only 79 men survived. Celebrations to greet their home-coming on New Year’s Day 1919, turned to an extended period of mourning as corpse upon corpse washed ashore in the days and weeks to follow. Many bodies were never recovered.
It was Britain’s biggest peace-time maritime disaster and tore the heart out of an island as scarcely a single village on Lewis did not lose men in the sinking. The majority of the dead came from Lewis. Seven belonged to Harris while 31 were crew members from different parts of the UK.
Mor was frequently interviewed on the loss of the Iolaire and made a memorable appearance on BBC’s ‘Coast’ programme in June last year, quietly recalling how she had sat, puzzled, on her grandfather’s lap as his tears splashed onto her face.
But Mrs Macleod – who had spent her youth largely in the company of very old people and amidst rich oral tradition – was an authority on many aspects of Lewis lore, life and geneaology, and appeared frequently on radio and television, discussing everything from the healing properties of the bog-bean to Lewis Evangelicalism to oldtime wedding customs to how to make a really good marag.
With some help from the Iolaire Disaster Fund, and proving bright and capable at school, Mor duly travelled to Edinburgh and trained for nursing. She was duly appointed, in 1937, District Nurse for Barvas and Brue, and supplied primary-healthcare to that considerable area throughout the Second World War, armed with little more than a bicycle, the primitive physick of the time, and keen professionalism.
She had of course personally to deliver every infant born in Barvas and Brue – there were then no hospital confinements – and was quietly proud that in her decade of service she never lost either infant or mother.
She also liked impishly to recall the diplomacy necessary when pressed, more than once, if she believed in tinneas a Righ - the prevalent belief in rural Lewis that the touch of a seventh son (or, in a pinch, a seventh child) could cure scrofula, a glandular form of TB.
Retiring to marry local crofter John MacLeod in 1947, Mor settled happily into family life but never ceased to read, learn, and exercise her keen brain. Possessed of bardic dignity, matchless presence and speaking the most beautiful, purest Gaelic - to say nothing of utter, pitch-perfect command of English - in her latter decades she took quiet pleasure in being approached so often to impart lore and knowledge.
On the ninetieth anniversary of the Iolaire sinking – an exceptionally fine New Year’s Day, January 2009 – Mor sturdily attended the little open-air service of commemoration at Holm, along with the other surviving orphan: Alasdair ‘Sandy Mor’ Macleod of Garrabost, who died in 2010.
Mor and John cared at Brue for her mother, Mrs Christine Smith, in the final year or two of her life - six decades after the Holm calamity and when Mor herself was already an old woman.
- John Macleod
Piper
November 13, 2011 § Leave a Comment
Lewis musician and composer Iain Morrison letting loose on the pipes.
Hebricana
September 3, 2011 § Leave a Comment
Mata Macdonald was born and raised in my hometown of Stornoway.
His music is a blend of Americana, Country, and Folk, as well as Celtic influences. The majority of his songs are inspired by the people and the culture in which he was brought up in.
Mata has been writing songs since he was 15 years old, however it’s only now that he has appeared from the woodwork, thanks to some recording time at the wee recording studios, run by Keith Morrison.
This recording time had brought forth a new 5 song EP called Hebricana which was launched this week.
Available on iTunes now. Go forth, support a fine local musician and enjoy the music.
Meantime here’s one of his tracks not on the EP…
From The Land
August 16, 2011 § 1 Comment
The current An Lanntair exhibition by photographer Ian Lawson blends his photographic talent with the people, landscapes and unique Harris Tweed cloth created in the Western Isles.
Ian’s book ‘From the Land’, from which the idea for this exhibition was born, will be published later in the year and contains Ian’s personal and intimate portrait of the Hebrides and the people and places connected with the production of its iconic textile.
If you’re in Stornoway don’t miss the opportunity to preview the work. We saw it last month in the midst of live music and bubbly (it wasn’t even the official opening so gawd knows what was going on) and loved it.
It’s unashamedly romantic, something that generally goes against my island-focussed world view, all ruddy faced locals and wind-through-the heather beauty, but even this cynical cove found it chiming chord after chord.
Some things you simply can’t photoshop and while the island and weavers aren’t always of these images’ ilk, the photographs are not shot through a dishonest filter.
The images are quite breathtaking at times and the innate link between colour, patterns and texture of the Clo are cleverly linked to the island and its natural world. For some reason the herringbone diptych is particularly striking for me.
So go see it if you can, and if you can’t hold tight for the book. It’s a keeper.
All images © Ian Lawson
