A peaceful rural scene, no doubt, but Allan MacRae expresses strong reservations about the direction of public policy as it affects crofting. PHOTO: Catriona MacLeod

Am Bratach No. 193
November 2007
fiona@bratach.co.uk

Fiona Burnett talks to
ALLAN MACRAE, Torbreck

The Highland Clearances are not easily forgotten especially by a Highlander who has lost forebears of a distant generation. So it’s not surprising that for some the importance of owning their own land is such a driving force in their everyday lives.

Allan MacRae is such a man. He played a major role in the purchase of the North Lochinver Estate in 1992 by the Assynt Crofters Trust of which he is chairman.

I recently met Allan in Torbreck, near Lochinver, in the home he built himself, where his roots are firmly planted. “I don’t know if I have anything interesting to tell you,” says Allan modestly.

A native of Assynt, Allan was one of four sons born to John and Cora MacRae. John, also a native of Assynt, was general manager for the Little Assynt sheep farm for most of his life. Cora came from Central London. Allan grins, “Aye, a Sassenach! But she was a very adaptable person. Supposing she’d married an Eskimo she would just have got on with things. She could turn her hand to anything.”

Allan attended school in Lochinver, later the Golspie Tech, where he worked on the school farm, greatly enjoying the experience. In his youth, running was a passion and he once won the Ben Nevis Hill Race.

His working life included spells on hydro electric schemes, farm labouring on mainly dairy farms in Ayrshire, West Lothian and Midlothian, prawn fishing and JCB contract work — as well as being a crofter.

“Assynt has really changed dramatically in my lifetime,” says Allan. “The Highlands are changing so much and government agencies of all kinds are increasingly taking more control over everything”. He is especially wary of conservation bodies, as they purchase more and land. “They’re the new empire builders of the Highlands.”

While he has nothing against the conservation ethic, he says: “You would almost think they had hijacked the conservation ethic. As though it was something that belonged exclusively to them, when really in crofting areas, although people here never talked about conservation, it was very much an integral part of our use of land.

“For me, bodies like the John Muir Trust are in many respects a dead hand on the land. They don’t really want to see anything happening. I think it doesn’t bode well for the next generation because I don’t see wildlife and the promotion of it securing a future for most of the next generation,” he said. “It was the people who made the land the way it is — not these bodies. They’re keen to take credit for everything. Well, the wildlife was here long before they were”, highlighting the importance of holding on to land as once lost to the conservation bodies it’s lost forever. “We live in an uncertain world. The land may be needed in the future.”

So what of community ownership of land? “I think community ownership the way its been set out does, in effect, empower the government because crofters can’t buy the land unless they include everybody on it. The government know then that they can dictate their agenda through the wider community.

“In the long term it might be to the disadvantage of those who really want to use the land in an agricultural sense because they are outvoted by the wider community. That is the big danger. I believe very strongly in individual freedom. I mean this idea that you have a community buyout and everybody owns everything but nobody actually owns anything is not a recipe for individual enterprise because they’re subject to the views of everybody in the community. I think one should be very worried about that. Individual freedom is a very important thing and to me that is eroded away by land reform in its present form.

“Assynt Foundation — that’s the other community group — bought out 45,000 acres. They bought into the land reform legislation. Everybody in the community has a say, but the irony that I find is that they own 45,000 acres yet there’s no local will get a square inch of it from them. Now it’s always been said that the landlord wouldn’t give land to anybody. I see no indication that Assynt Foundation would give a piece of land to any local person. It’s all bought with government money. Most of it is managed with government money. What has changed? Nothing!”

So if the land’s not for the community, who’s it for?

“So well you might ask,” comments Allan.

“Well I’m afraid people have been misled. This kind of community ownership is just another name for public ownership in reality. There’s so much bureaucracy, it’s strangling the life out of the countryside”

Allan has great reservations about the 2003 Land Reform (Scotland) Act.

“What gets me is that my forebears had their future dictated for them against their will. You see the same thing now. Nothing has changed. You would have thought land reform would have changed that. Put the power back generally in the hands of the people. But has it? It just seems to me that when the land is bought with government money and money to run it, it’s the government that sets the agenda — not the local people.

“Today our community is very different from the past where everyone was struggling to make a living. With a new community emerging where many people are in the ‘comfort zone’, who come here to retire or seek a better lifestyle and who are not dependent on development and believe the land is there purely for them and shouldn’t be touched, the goalposts are changing.” Alan is quick to point out he has no problem with anyone moving into the community, but people must appreciate that development is necessary to anchor young people in particular to the community in order for it to survive.

What does he believe would keep young people here?

“That’s a very difficult question to answer. I think that young people need to be able to build a home for themselves, get a bit of land. At least it’s a start.

“It’s not that people don’t have the appetite to do different things, it’s just that they are curtailed with so many restrictions. If you put too many constraints on land, naturally people will see that there’s no future there for them. I hold conservation bodies accountable for that: I think they have a lot to answer for. I think they will have a lot to answer for. When social historians ask in the future how there are no people left in these areas — it’s the conservation bodies that could be standing in the dock. Just like the landlords from the past.

“Nobody else is making sites available to people wanting to build a house. Only the crofters. Yet they have all these groups, the Culag Community Woodland Trust in Assynt owning 3,000 acres, Assynt Foundation owning 45,000 acres, but will any local person get a site to develop the way they want to? No. There’s no indication yet. I mean I hope they prove me wrong. But they need to be challenged on that, these community bodies.”

“I was just saying to some of the young people here in Assynt what you want to do is take possession of some of the Assynt Foundation land and say since the land belongs to the community we want a share of it and challenge them to use the law to put you off it. That’s the only way you can challenge it. A bit like the Seven Men of Moydart. That would set them thinking.”

A visit to South Africa was an eye opener. Despite the beautiful surroundings Alan felt restricted by the many fences and dissuaded from venturing out as he was “liable to be shot.” Returning to Assynt gave him a greater appreciation of his safety and freedom.

Describing the Highlands he says: “Naturalness and freedom are our best assets. That’s what people love about the Highlands,” and it concerns him that, with regard to tourism, everything is neatly packaged and that we may become the same as everywhere else. “We may lose more than we gain”, he warns.