Arnish Lighthouse

A PhD student from Lancaster is looking for residents of the Western Isles who are willing to give an hour or so of their time to talk about the use of language. Α project is being run across the UK and Ireland about the difference between how older and younger people speak and how they feel about it.

If you are interested to participate, or know people who want to take part, please leave a brief note in comments. I’ll relay the email address (which will show up in the comment notification) to the academic concerned, and you can then make arrangements direct. Confidentiality will be upheld by this blogger, and for anyone participating in the study.

Please relay.
Thank you.

Habost, South Lochs, as seen from Keose

When I arrived in this island in November 2004, I started off in South Lochs. At the time, there was a buzz of excitement in the air, with a vote on the 29th of that month on whether the community would bid to gain ownership of their land. The vote was in favour. The few hundred ‘lochies’ tried to set the wheels in motion to get the Pairc estate under their belt.

I am sad to report that this has so far proved unsuccessful. In my tenure of the Arnish Lighthouse blog, I have been very critical of local and indeed at times national (Scottish) politicians. I am not going to change that stance. I was pleased, in a way, to note that our MSP has finally woken up to the realisation that there was such a thing as a community buy-out bid in Pairc, and finally realised that there was an incredible amount of thwarting going on. Whilst I am very pleased that the Galson estate buy-out was successful, it was overlooked that theirs was NOT the oldest or the first buy-out in Lewis. Theirs was the first one to be successful.

The Pairc buy-out is mired in the deepest South Lochs bog for a couple of reasons. The main one, it would appear, is the way estate owner Barry Lomas is displaying his reluctance to part with his property. I can understand why - there are plans afoot to build a windfarm in South Lochs, which would generate a lot of £££. Mr Lomas is reported to be using the instrument of the interposed lease - leasing the land to another company (which he owns as well). Other reasons for the lack of success in Lochs is the difficulties in describing what the estate actually consists of. There is no definitive map. Instead, we have pinpoint accuracy in descriptions like: “stretching for 400 yards in a southwesterly direction from the Stornoway road”. Furthermore, patches of land may be sublet, sub-sublet, and no trace of who is the main lessee. It is enough to make a stone weep.

Our MSP has finally remembered that the legislation which applies to community buy-outs does not just cater to the benign situation that the landowner willingly parts with his land. It also includes a clause for a hostile buy-out bid. I am still not holding my breath. I’ll have to go through my files, if I can find the Pairc ones under that thick layer of dust and cobwebs, because I faintly remember something about a Land Court hearing that would take many moons to come to a ruling - back in July 2008.

The people in the Pairc Trust will hopefully have a more accurate and up to date status available, and hope that this will be forthcoming in local newsmedia in the very near future.

Postscript
I have just conducted a search on postings on this blog using the search term Pairc. Found at least 3 similar postings to the one I have written above, made in 2008, 2007 and 2006. Just goes to show how stuck this issue is. Let’s hope the Environment Minister at Holyrood, who is responsible for buy-outs, will move things forward before the year is out.

I’m sure our Norwegian friends will forgive me for this title, which was inspired by this scene on Saturday morning.

Submarine S300 and cruiseliner tender from "Marco Polo"

The Marco Polo left just after lunchtime, but the submarine appears to be attracting a lot of attention from the Saturday shoppers. Firmly tongue-in-cheek, it could be suggested that the sub is there to take people to the mainland on Sunday who do not want to be seen going on the ferry…

Stornoway from no 1 pier, 25 July 1994

View from the Ravenspoint Centre, Kershader, on 30 July 1996

It is worth noting that the above view no longer exists. The (former) Storlann, Post Office and Croileagan presently stand in the centre / right of the picture, blocking the view down Loch Erisort.

Scaladale, 29 July 1996

Ardvourlie Castle is still a ruin, and the Scaladale Centre does not yet exist.

Departing Stornoway, 31 July 1996

Scottish Citylink have advised their passengers to pre-book their seats, or run the risk of not being conveyed on their chosen service. This applies (of course) to the Ullapool to Inverness (and vice versa) service. Please note the date of this post: 24 September 2009.

On Friday 3 October 2008, I journeyed from Stornoway to Kirkwall, and this included the 55 miles bus trip from Ullapool to Inverness. On alighting from the MV Isle of Lewis at Ullapool in the morning, the busdriver was shouting at the top of his voice that only passengers with tickets would be allowed on board. Anyone without tickets had to wait until 5pm (7 hours later).This summer, the demand for travel to the Western Isles has been some 30% above that seen last year. Frought scenes have been played out at Inverness Bus Station, with people being left behind - with or without pre-booked tickets. Those with tickets were later conveyed to their destination by taxi, paid for by Citylink.

I am very displeased that it has taken Scottish Citylink TWELVE months to finally publicise their advice to the public in the Northwest Highlands.

Tonight, the final programme in the series on Harris Tweed was aired on BBC4. The outlook remained at best a questionmark, and not much short of gloomy. Rather than get hot under the collar, I’ll restrict myself to putting down the way I think the industry should move forward - a purely personal take, not unduly burdened by excess knowledge.

Harris Tweed is a product, unique to the Outer Hebrides, and therefore unique to Scotland. Its production, as laid down by the trademark description, has to take place in the Outer Hebrides - exclusively. This is such a narrow remit, that it merits intervention at Government level (Scottish Government) to take the industry in hand.

Brian Haggas’s ownership of the Kenneth Mackenzie Mill in Stornoway should be bought out. He has a stock of men’s jackets, which he is pandering off through newspaper competitions, saucy photoshoots and what not. At the rate he is going, it’ll take nearly a decade to shift the 70,000 jackets that clog up his warehouse. The KM Mill’s production capacity is needed, in conjunction with that of Shawbost and Carloway’s mills, to make the volume, necessary to reinvigorate Harris Tweed. Rather than being in competition with each other, Stornoway, Shawbost and Carloway should work under an overseeing body which directs the work of the mills.

The BBC4 programme showed that there is demand for Harris Tweed. This should be channeled to be produced in the Outer Hebrides, using the abovementioned overseeing body. Who should this overseeing body consist of? Weavers as well as mills, combined with the Harris Tweed Authority. A cooperative? Well, I don’t know enough about that sort of thing.

I’ll repeat what I said at the end of my previous post on this subject. The Kenneth Mackenzie Mill in Stornoway is the keystone to Harris Tweed. Without this, the cloth will be relegated to handbags and seatcovers. And Brian Haggas’s jackets.

The Harris War Memorial on-line, which was first published in August last year, has been extensively revised and updated with more information on many of the casualties. This contains listings for both World Wars, ordered by village. Any further information is more than welcome, in fact, desperately needed.

A Roll of Honour was never published for Harris for the First World War, leaving only the War Memorial at Tarbert for reference. Finding further information from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (the primary source) can be very tricky and time-consuming in some instances.

All the main islands in the Western Isles now have their WW1 and WW2 casualties listed on line.

I would like to close this post by dedicating it to the memory of all the approximately 2,500 men from these islands who laid down their lives for King and Country during World Wars I and II.

Contrary to my suspicions on Monday, the Uist rocket range was reprieved from closure. This means that 125 people in the Southern Isles will keep their jobs, and the threat to the upkeep of the St Kilda national reserve is removed. I fully back Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond in his praise of the efforts of the Taskforce and others, thanks to whom the range will now remain open. Losing 125 jobs in a community of 5,000 would equate to losing 125,000 jobs across London - at a stroke.

BBC4 has been running a three-part documentary on the present plight of Harris Tweed. The 3rd instalment will be aired next Tuesday, 22 September, at 9pm. BBC4 is not available on terrestrial television; the episodes can be seen on BBC iPlayer - if you’re in the UK. Apologies for the plugging of BBC services.

More to the point, it showed the fate of the Kenneth Mackenzie Harris Tweed Mill here in Stornoway, which was mothballed earlier this year, shedding all of its attendant jobs. Owner Brian Haggas had sought to convert it to a production unit for men’s jackets made out of Harris Tweed, with 4 patterns. He utterly failed to grasp the idea behind Harris Tweed. And as a result, he as good as had to admit failure of his Stornoway enterprise.

Harris Tweed is still in demand, as the programme shows. However, with production capacity of tweed and yarn reduced drastically, it would require the re-opening of the KM mill in Stornoway. For that, it would probably be advisable for Mr Haggas to sell the plant, in order to cut his losses. If not, Harris Tweed is doomed to be reduced to handbags and seatcovers.

The information from the War Memorials for the islands of Berneray, North Uist, Benbecula, South Uist, Eriskay and Barra has been transferred to the Internet. Apart from the actual war memorials, pictured courtesy Scottish War Memorials Project, the cemeteries in the islands as well as the invaluable Commonwealth War Graves Commission website were all sources for further information. There are gaps, like there are in the information on Lewis casualties.

To reiterate: these are lists of the Fallen from both world wars. For the sake of clarity, there are separate pages for the First World War and for the Second World War.

Graveyard in Eriskay

The operators of the Uist rocket range, QinetiQ, have posted a job-advert for a project manager to downsize said rocket range. This implies that a decision has already been taken for the range to be downgraded, even though the Ministry of Defense in London deny that.

QinetiQ call the recruitment drive prudent business practice. I call it something else. You do not advertise a job vacancy if it later turns out the job isn’t going to be done. That could land you, as an employer, in seriously hot water. Although I find the efforts from our MSP to save the situation laudable, it is not the MSP that should be jumping up and down. Our MP, the man who represents us in Westminster, should be making a lot of noise over of this. For Defense is NOT a devolved issue, i.e. not something that the Scottish Government has any say over, and neither has the Scottish Parliament.