News and views from the North West
Highlands

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Updated by 11.00am on the first Thursday of the month

February 2012

No fuel rebate for North West in sight
by Mandy Haggith
As fuel stations around the Scottish islands prepare to cut their prices for customers, there is growing resentment that remote areas of the mainland are being unfairly excluded from a European tax rebate scheme. More

Postbox
On the trail of Patrick Sellar
Kevin Crowe complains that I attributed to him words which were in fact quotations from Leith’s book (Am Bratach, December 2011). This fact was made clear in my letter, but Kevin should not need to complain. His review makes it obvious that he fully agrees with everything Leith wrote — a view reinforced by his latest letter. More

Martin Morrison writes about
Facebook
As if the Diamond Jubilee and the Olympics weren’t enough to lift the gloom, Goldman Sachs have shone yet more light on the path to the sunny uplands of market prosperity by provisionally valueing Facebook at $50 billion prior to it being floated on the stock exchange later this year. More

Some other reports and features from this month’s print edition

Walking-to-school regime receives mixed reception
Strathy Point parents keep daughter off school
by Mandy Haggith
There has been a mixed reaction to the changes in Highland Council’s school bus runs around North West Sutherland, which mean that children previously getting the bus to school now have to make their own way there. This means either being driven by parents or walking long distances.

No respite for respite care
“Nobody’s done any joined-up thinking”
Mandy Haggith reports
Highland Council’s funding negotiations with North West Sutherland Care Alliance are missing the main point, according to the Alliance’s manager. Sylvia Mackay said: “The major issue we are facing is the 58% cut in funding to the respite service. Yet there has been no needs assessment or analysis of the impacts of this cut.” She cites job losses of staff as one impact, but her main concern is for the alliance’s vulnerable clients and their carers.

Bonnie Strathnaver
A year or two ago I happened to drive down “bonnie Strathnaver” in company with one of the crofters, and we discussed the question in which he and his fellows were so much interested. I asked him to point out how in old days the local population were better off than they are at the present. There was a long hesitation. That they were better off was an article of belief, undeniable as any or all the great thirty-nine, unquestionable as a postulate of Euclid. I endeavoured to clear the way by suggestions.

North West missing out on Gaelic classes
by Mandy Haggith
According to the most recent Highland Council figures, the national scheme to give children access to Gaelic education is failing to reach children living in North West Sutherland. More

Council transport contracts revised
by George Farlow
During 2011 Highland Council has been going through the process of re-tendering public transport contracts. Any bus service which exists because of a taxpayers’ subsidy has been up for grabs — apparently for anyone across Europe who feels they could run the North West omnibus. The new contracts all start on January 1 2012 or at least it is hoped that they start then, but there are many issues left to resolve. More

Postbox
One of the most haunting laments ever composed
I was very pleased to note from Mandy Haggith’s feature last month that noted Assynt Gaelic singer James Graham had mentioned Drumbeg bard Donald Macleod’s poignant lament for his countryman Alec Munro, who died in the Great War. More

Some other reports and features from this month’s print edition

Royal Mail ends bus service immortalised by famous poet
End of passenger bus service means isolation for some
by Mandy Haggith
The postbus service between Lairg and Assynt ceased operation at the end of December. For decades the morning postal delivery between Drumbeg, Lochinver and Lairg has taken passengers, dropping them off in Lairg in time for the morning train.

A 100 years ago this month my grandfather came home
by Sandra Train
Some time in the last decade of the nineeenth century, a young man of Halladale, Alexander MacDonald, faced a choice: to stay and work on the croft at Dalhalvaig where he had been brought up from early childhood by his grandparents and an uncle, Colin, or to seek his fortune firth of the Strath.

From our archives — January 1992
Music from Farr School
CEANN GEAL
A review by Joseph Mackay
When asked to do this review for Am Bratach I immediately had reservations for several reasons. The generation gap which separates my age group from the early teenager would seem insurmountable. It is said you can’t put an old head on young shoulders and it is equally difficult to do the reverse. If you listen to the teenagers’ latest favourites from Top of the Pops, which seem to have a hypnotic effect on the young, they leave the more mature listener cold.

Non-profit group forges ahead
For the past two years, Transport for Tongue, Melness and Skerray (T4T) have successfully provided “wheels for the community”. A Highland Council grant enabled the purchase of the 5-seater Peugot disabled-access vehicle for most local runs complemented by volunteer drivers using their own vehicles and reimbursed at the government recommended mileage rate. T4T also utilises an aged 9-seater minibus “inherited” from a multiple sclerosis group when they upgraded their vehicle. More

Song guardian
Mandy Haggith talks to James Graham
It was standing room only in Drumbeg Village Hall on Saturday November 12, as people crushed in to hear James Graham performing the Gaelic songs of Assynt. An intimate session gave what he called “an airing” to a crucial aspect of the district’s heritage. More

View from the croft gate
by John MacDonald
I seem to have been attracting attention over the ongoing land dispute that filled a couple of news columns in last month’s Bratach. It is an issue that has been rumbling on within part of our crofting parish this last few years ever since the estate changed hands and the new owners discovered that as although the estate was theirs, most of it was under crofting tenure and they could not do just what they liked with the land or the crofters on it. They are 125 years too late on the scene for that to happen. The only bit of land in the whole estate not under crofting tenure was the lodge policies and some eighty acres that was our summer pasture, shared with neighbouring crofters should they wish to put animals on it. More

Some other reports and features from this month’s print edition

Highland Council agrees to local control of Kyle Centre
GP highlights need for patient services to continue
Care for senior citizens in Tongue and surrounding district has taken another move towards becoming a local community responsibility, writes Mandy Haggith. The threat of closure of the Kyle Centre has been averted, with an agreement from Highland Council that the local community can take over the running of the building. A local committee is working to bring this about.

Cinderella comes to town!
A new amateur dramatic group will be strutting their stuff on stage in Bettyhill after Christmas in “Cinderella”, the beloved folk tale first performed as a pantomime in London in 1904, writes Catriona MacLeod. Graham Best, the director, has been involved in many amateur dramatic productions in the South over the years and was pleasantly surprised at how keen people were to join the production, both on stage and behind the scenes.

Petition presented to MSP
A parents’ petition, said to contain over 140 names and addresses, was presented to Caithness, Sutherland and Ross MSP Rob Gibson on November 25. The petition, from Tongue Parent Council, calls on Highland Council to provide free transport for 6-year-old Molly, only child of John and Fiona Burnett, Kempy, Loch Eriboll, to attend the school nearest to her home, Tongue Primary. Instead, they are offered transport to Durness Primary, which is three miles further away, but, they find, takes twice as long to travel to.

A history in stone
Historian may have found Strathmore 'lifting' stone
Before the Highland Clearances, when the glens and straths of the North West Highlands were vibrant with communities, the young men tested their mettle in many aspects of physical strength which formed the basis of the modern Highland games. One aspect of this culture, the stone of strength or "clach neart" (stone of force) became a focal point for competitions or just simply having fun. Lifting the heavy stone was popular all over the Highlands and Islands of Scotland with many different styles of lifting and different types of stone used depending on the local geology. More

Bookends
by Kevin Crowe
"The Man Who Went to Farr: Patrick Sellar and the Sutherland Experiment" by JG Leith, 2010, Baseline Research. £10.00.
Much has been written about the Strathnaver Clearances. From Macleod and Miller in the nineteenth century to Prebble, Grimble and Richards in the twentieth, as well as newspaper and magazine articles, official reports, songs and poems, fictional accounts, archived correspondence and biographies and autobiographies, there has been a wide variety of perspectives. More

Litir bhon a’Cheathramh
le Alasdair MacMhaoirn
Fad mìosan choimhead mi air ainm-eòlas agus mar a tòrr ri ionnsachadh ann. Thug sinn sùil air mar a tha curaicealam ri lorg anns a’ chànan fhèin tre, mar eisimpleir, ainmean-àite, cruth na tìre, ainmean lusan agus an-dràsta bu chaomh leam sùil a chur ainmean bheathaichean. Gu fortanach tha stiùireadh mionaidean air a chuspair anns an leabhar, Gaelic Names of Beasts…, leis an t-Urr. Foirbeis, 1905.
For a number of months I’ve looked at naming systems and what can be learned. We’ve looked at how the language itself contains a curriculum, for example in placenames, land shapes, plant names and now I would like to look at the names of animals. Fortunately there is excellent information on the subject in the Rev Forbes’s, Gaelic Names of Beasts, 1905. More

Some other reports and features from this month’s print edition

Rogart estate may build houses in park used by crofters for 100-plus years
Crofters using the Rogart Park on Tressady Estate for cattle grazing coexisted with the wealthy landowners holding dominion over them without interruption until the present owner, Reneta Coleman, burst on to the scene in 2006.

Alasdair MacLeod talks to Agnes Mackay about her early life
There’s something compelling about the sight of a 93-year-old lady racing up a Bettyhill slope in a Landrover Defender. Yes, we all looked on with awe and admiration as we saw pictures recently of a 100-year-old completing the Toronto Marathon, but Mrs Agnes Mackay rallying up to her home at 134 Rhian Chatail, Blàran Ridge, manages to trump Mr Singh on style if nothing else.

History File
by Malcolm Bangor-Jones
At the end of 1847 the Duke of Sutherland’s commissioner, Loch congratulated McIver, the factor for the Scourie district, “in relieving the people under the accumulated distress” brought about by the Potato Famine. The duke had turned his attention to the future situation of the small tenants. According to Loch, the people of Knockan and Elphin “formed the object of the most anxious solicitude, and whose case deserves more immediate attention.” McIver would be aware of “his Grace’s extreme, and constant anxiety”.

Mission impossible?
Mandy Haggith looks at the pros and cons of a state-funded enterprise in Lochinver
The Lochinver Mission project has been at the heart of some heated debates in recent weeks, concerning how social and private enterprises can operate together in small communities. More

Around the shows
We begin with the photo on this page of a very special dog (and his pretty special owner, Catherine Macdonald). Five-year-old “Jimmy” is a bearded collie dog owned by Catherine of Cnocbreac, Torrible, Lairg, whom we caught up with at the Lairg Crofters Show. More

Every town should have a Willie Bain
writes Willie D Mackay
I enjoyed our correspondent Graeme Mackay’s article about his recent visit to India and derived a degree of comfort in knowing that we are not the only ones experiencing a wet summer and envy him the luxury of a warm soaking as opposed to the ice-cold drenching on my recent holiday to the appropriately named Coldbackie on the Kyle of Tongue. More

Some other reports and features from this month’s print edition

Tongue faces new challenge as council drops Kyle Centre
by Mandy Haggith
‘A significant number of my patients would benefit from continuing to get day care at the Kyle Centre’ — local GP
Residents in the parish of Tongue are taking action to try and save their senior citizens’ day care centre. A working group is putting together a plan to bring the Kyle Centre under local ownership and management.

Fiona Burnett talks to Iain Anderson, broadcaster
“A safe haven of music” declares the female announcer followed by the distinguished sultry voice of Iain Anderson, “…As we sail into the high water blues”. A comforting introduction to Iain Anderson’s late night radio programme on BBC Radio Scotland, where an eclectic range of music meets my ears. All very relaxing, as was my recent catch up with Iain last month when he graciously gave up some of his free time to chat to me at his Durness residence.

Coast to coast walk, July 2011
by Fraser Mackay
With a good weather forecast I was bound for the West Coast of Scotland and the sea weedy shores of Loch Broom at Inverlael for the start of a Coast 2 Coast (“C2C”) walk to Ardgay and the Dornoch Firth on the east side of the country. Joyce was my back up, driving me to Inverlael for 9.30am and was to pick me up at Ardgay in the late evening. Armed with my OS sheet and compass I set forth at 10 o’clock.

Council out on limb on wind says planning expert
by Mandy Haggith
Highland Council's planning service is being described as "out on a limb" by wind energy companies which claim that its approach to turbine noise is harsher than anywhere else in the country. More

Gruids crofter shows Beltex lamb in Lairg
People may say that crofters are a conservative bunch, not prone to experimentation, when the truth is that their small economic base often rules out expensive investments whose returns are often a step into the unknown. More

Life in Korea
by Graeme Mackay
“... the poor wee thing was doing cartwheels between the cars in an attempt to increase her selling power.”
Well here we are coming ever closer to the end of summer, and if it is any consolation at all, the weather in Korea this summer has been the wettest they have experienced for many years. More

Some other reports and features from this month’s print edition

Obituary
Thomas Mackay, Melness
The far-flung north community was immensely saddened by the recent death of Tom Mackay, of 236 Achnahuaigh, Melness, who slipped peacefully away, aged 70, on August 2, with all his family at his bedside.

Greyhound rescue
by Mandy Haggith
“They make wonderful pets” — Irene Mackenzie
If you are considering a new pet, it is worth considering whether you can adopt a greyhound that has been abandoned by the racing industry.

Nature’s call
by Andy Summers
Some events both local and national can define the year; they are markers for my poor memory in the time line of life. Events such as a wedding, the foot and mouth disaster of 2001, the first golden eagle chick I ever saw or the muir burning that got out of control and burnt many square miles of heathland and bog at Clachtoll. The mass stranding of Pilot Whales in the Kyle of Durness will forever be a marker for me of 2011. And although I did not really take an active part in the subsequent liberation of some of these magnificent animals, to observe the life and death struggle and the heroic actions of the brave souls who tried to help was something I will never forget.

Durness Highland Gathering 2011
Last week’s Durness Games may not have been blessed with the fairest weather — it was decidedly cool, though dry — but a fine crowd turned up and gave every appearance of enjoying themselves as athletes from far and near gave excellent displays of their prowess and a number of records fell. More

Group wins funds for Gaelic training
by Mandy Haggith
“I look forward to the day when you hear Gaelic spoken around the place.”
Adults in Assynt who are keen to learn Gaelic have received a big boost as a result of the local Gaelic organisation winning funds for training which they are distributing to local people, writes Mandy Haggith. Còmhlan Gàidhlig Asainte has received funding from Bòrd na Gàidhlig and Commun na Gàidhlig to support the revival of Gaelic in the community, where very few people still speak the language. More

Bridge closure means cash for local community
A £1.2 million Kyle of Tongue Bridge refurbishment, presently being undertaken by a structural repair and refurbishment contractor on behalf of Highland Council, could mean the closure of the bridge for a limited period and a payment made into a public fund to compensate for the inconvenience caused. More

Some other reports and features from this month’s print edition

Digging up Assynt’s past
by Mandy Haggith
“Excavations on this scale are rare”
Historic Assynt is launching a new project which will explore how people lived and died in Assynt in the past, writes Mandy Haggith. A team of archaeologists will be excavating three sites (from 5000, 2000 and 200 years ago) and local people are invited to get involved in the digs. The project will kick off on Saturday (August 6) with a guided walk at Clachtoll followed by “Iron Age food and drink”.

It’s festival time at Skerray and Bettyhill!
by Mandy Haggith
It’s gala time. The community of Skerray are launching their first Harvest Home Festival on the weekend of September 2-3 and Bettyhill will be re-playing their successful Gala weekend from August 4-7. The Harvest Home Festival will begin on the evening of Friday, September 2, with a magical touch as a flotilla of hand-made small boats will be launched with tea-lights on board, followed by a lantern parade. This will lead into a ceilidh, with story-telling from Essie Stewart. Everyone is encouraged to bring a musical instrument along.

History File
by Malcolm Bangor-Jones
Elphin and Knockan are among the very few inland crofting townships in the north-west Highlands. Lacking access to coastal resources, they partly resembled townships in the parishes of Lairg or Rogart. But, despite being on limestone, the climate, the size of the crofts, and the distance from markets all made for significant differences.

Lairg Music Festival 2011
On this and on pages 4, 5 and 14 we bring you a selection of photos from the recent Lairg Music Festival. Above are two young fiddlers who made their mark. Kathleen Steventon from Ullapool is 17 and for the second year running she was placed first in the open slow air competition, this time with a fine rendering of Nathanial Gow's Coilsfield House. More

Crofting body calls for 10,000 new crofts
by Mandy Haggith
An organisation representing thousands of crofters has challenged the Scottish Government to join in an ambitious vision to expand crofting in Scotland. In a Crofting Policy Resolution, the Scottish Crofting Federation have called for the creation of 10,000 new crofts across Scotland by 2020. More

Bonar Bridge Mod goes down well
‘Don’t you think they should hold the Mod here every year?’
This was the encouraging remark made by a gentleman from Lairg to your correspondent, and, yes, the first Mod thought to have been staged in Bonar Bridge was widely held to be a very friendly affair with some very fine performances on show. More

Some other reports and features from this month’s print edition

Broadband to get broader
Next Generation Broadband is coming...eventually
by Mandy Haggith
By 2020, everyone living in the Highlands and Islands should have a download speed of 30 Mbp per second, with a minimum of 2 Mbps for everyone by 2015, if Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) can find an industry partner to help them to achieve their ambition.

Support for Gaelic could ‘head south’
by Mandy Haggith
Lewis-based Pròiseact nan Ealan, Scotland’s main Gaelic arts development agency, has been told by Creative Scotland that from 2012 it will no longer have “foundation organisation” status. Although this is unlikely to be fatal to the Stornoway-based organisation, it has led to speculation that the development of Gaelic language support is “heading east and south”.

Under the skin
An incident at Droman shore
by Helen Rice
I’d just hung out my dripping washing on the short line hanging from the caravan to a post at Droman shore. There’s something about this place that pulls me back again. And it has to be this exact location at Droman, where I once lived. It’s under my skin.

Assynt crofters to appeal against turbine decision
by Mandy Haggith
The Assynt Crofters Trust is appealing a planning decision by Highland Council in March 2011 which refused them permission for a 6kW turbine at Stoer.
John Robinson, crofting administrator for the trust, said: “We will be putting in an application by mid-June asking the council to put the decision to the planning review body”. More

Ticks can make you seriously ill
Fiona Burnett counts the cost of being struck down by Lyme Disease
With the recent spell of good weather many of us are grabbing the chance of enjoying the freedom that our great outdoors offers us. But before you set off on your great adventure, be aware of unwanted hitchhikers roaming our countryside that might just leave you seriously ill if you allow them to tag along for too long. More

View from the croft
by John MacDonald
May is a probably my favourite month of the year, before the bracken takes over and obscures much of our wood and hillside from everything trying to compete with it. So we enjoy the display of primroses and bluebells while they last. In former times the main activity of the croft at this time of year would be preparing the ground for a crop before starting the peats. More

Some other reports and features from this month’s print edition

Church ministries could merge in Tongue and Farr
by Mandy Haggith
Plans are afoot to amalgamate the churches in Melness, Tongue, Bettyhill, Strathnaver and Althaharra under a single minister.
The change is on the cards because Rev Tony Thornthwaite, Church of Scotland minister of Altnaharra and Farr parish, is to move to Dundee. He has been based in Bettyhill with his wife and youngest son since 2008, but he is moving south to be closer to his grandchildren. “We will miss Sutherland very much”, he said.

Life in Korea
Graeme Mackay (Lairg) writes from East Asia
About six months ago, after receiving yet another job application rejection letter, I decided that it was time to think outside of the box and try something completely different. Recession, raising unemployment levels, excess graduates (with all sorts of weird and wonderful degrees), rising taxes, a Conservative government and very few possessions to show for ten years of hard work; well I am maybe pushing the idea of hard work, but at the fruitful age of twenty-seven I thought I would have been a lot more settled than I was. So in true Graeme Mackay style I opened my world atlas, about the only possession I have, closed my eyes and pointed toward my next adventure. So here I am in South Korea!

Memories of a retired railwayman
John MacDonald in conversation with Geordie Adams, Helmsdale
I joined the railway as what they called a cleaner, cleaning all the engines. £1/9/6d per week; that was in 1943. My home was in Brora and I used to cycle every day to work. Twelve miles there and twelve miles back. I was fit then. I got used to working with fires through my father. He was in charge of the boiler for the wool mill in Brora. He was the fireman there. I used to go over at nights with him and see to the boiler and learned how to keep it fired. I could have got a start in the mill but I felt like doing something different and seeing that I knew a bit about keeping a boiler stoked up I was a fairly obvious choice to try for a fireman’s job on the railway.

Asainteach heads arbitration centre
Andrew Mackenzie, a native of Culkein Stoer, was recently appointed head of the new Scottish Arbitration Centre, based at Dolphin House in Edinburgh. He is on secondment from the Scottish Government Justice Directorate. The centre was opened by Fergus Ewing, minister for community safety, and Jim Mather, minister for enterprise, energy and tourism, in the outgoing government. More

Withdrawing the subsidy
by Willie D Mackay
You never know what to expect when you withdraw the subsidy. “You’re Alex’s boy, aren’t you?” said a voice from behind as I stood at the bar to buy a round of drinks for my Scullomie neighbours, Danny Mackay (Charlie’s father), Johnnie “Christopher” MacLeod and Howie Munro from Coldbackie. It was over thirty years since I last saw my father and, with no disrespect to his memory, he was the last person on my mind at that moment and it did not dawn that the remark was aimed at me. More

Bookends
by Kevin Crowe
Jackie Kay: “Red dust road” and “Fiere”. Both published by Picador, 2011, £8.99.
Jackie Kay is one of Scotland’s most accomplished writers, equally at home with drama, poetry, fiction, memoir and children’s writing. She is one of those people who can’t be pigeonholed. She is of mixed race (a Highland mother and Nigerian father) and was adopted by a Marxist Glaswegian couple. She is both a mother and a lesbian. Her writing features English, Scots and Igbo (a Nigerian language). She can see the profound in the simplest thing and find humour in the most tragic circumstances. More

Some other reports and features from this month’s print edition

Melness wind farm plagued by delays
Funders insisted on crofters giving up ownership
by Mandy Haggith
From the day the Melness crofters became owners of their land, they planned to develop wind power to generate money for the local community. Fifteen years later, the Melness Wind Farm is still to be installed, but those involved say that they are “hanging in with it” and are determined to see it through.

Made in Assynt
Mandy Haggith writes about the ‘real buzz in the air’ around crafts in Assynt
A wealth of creative talent will be on display at craft fairs in Assynt throughout the tourist season, going some way to meet the long-discussed need for a brand for products from the area.

Fiona Burnett talks to
Bernard Hames
With recent closures of fourteen Highland police stations, I recently spoke to Durness-born Bernard Hames (pictured), a retired sergeant now living in Dornoch, who shares with me some of his experiences as a “bobby on the beat”, stationed at Lairg, Golspie, Dornoch, Melvich and Thurso, and how times have changed dramatically since he enrolled with Sutherland Constabulary in 1956, until his retirement in 1986. It was then one of the smallest forces in the country.

Researchers in Stornoway and Oxford are fired up by hydrogen
by Mandy Haggith
“It should be possible to replace both petrol and diesel with a fuel containing a hydrogen additive within two to three years.” — Stephen Voller, Cella Energy
As fuel prices rocket and concerns grow about climate change emissions, scientists exploring alternatives to diesel and petrol predict that cheaper, greener fuels could be pumping into our car and boat engines in the not-too-distant future. More

Crofting and bumblebees — a new initiative in Tongue and Farr
by Bob Dawson
A new initiative will be launched this month in the parishes of Tongue and Farr. The North Sutherland Crofts and Bumblebees Project will work with crofters to support one of our rarest species — the great yellow bumblebee Bombus distinguendus — which in UK terms is now a Scottish speciality. The initiative will run for one year, and provide specialist support for applications to the competitive Rural Priorities scheme of the Scottish Rural Development Programme. More

History file
by Malcolm Bangor-Jones
Evander McIver had been only a matter of months as factor when he was faced with several challenges to his authority from the small tenants of Assynt. A major source of trouble was the salmon bothy at Clachtoll being built for the new tenant of the fishings. More

Some other reports and features from this month’s print edition

Marine energy ‘slanted in favour’ of big boys
by Mandy Haggith
The energy of the sea is being harnessed in the Pentland Firth between Caithness and Orkney, but will there be any local community benefit, or will all the commercial gain be captured by multinational energy companies. In March, the Crown Estate Commission granted ten new permissions for renewable energy developments in the Pentland Firth. The permissions will allow a new generation of marine power devices to generate electricity, through projects belonging to three large energy companies: Scottish and Southern Energy, Scottish Power Renewables and E.ON.

We were treated like royalty!
by Willie D Mackay
Christeen and I had reason to go to Norwich last week and I phoned Kitty Ann to tell her we intended to pop in and see her. Being aware of her ninety-two years and hospitable nature I told her I would walk straight back out if she went to any bother of preparing anything other than a cup of tea. “Yes, that’ll be alright — I’ll just make a scone,” she said. So I reluctantly agreed to that compromise because I knew it was pointless to do otherwise.

View from the croft gate
by John MacDonald
Equinox time again, the transition from winter to spring and summer activities. The end game is played out for the recreation activities associated with the winter months before time and energy is wholly focused on the serious business of working the land. This time of year brings a flurry of “Annual General Meetings” from various local organisations, wishing to keep the books on track. Sometimes such affairs can become a trifle tedious, especially to those of us who have endured and experienced many years of serving on this committee and that committee. I have lived through many bursts of enthusiasm that inevitably wane with the passing of time.

March 2011

LibDems at sixes and sevens over Gaelic-medium education
by Mandy Haggith
The effect of Highland Council’s cuts is starting to be felt, and classroom assistants in schools are coming off particularly badly. In Gaelic-medium units, classroom assistants play a key role in providing children with the experience of immersing in a completely Gaelic-speaking environment. There are therefore concerns that the cuts could have a particularly negative impact on the fragile efforts to revitalise the Gaelic language in schools. More

Backcoaster’s Diary
Headline of the month: “Gaddafi sets stage foer violent showdown” — Grauniad website, February 23. More

A tale of two bachelors
Exploring croft inheritance in Achmelvich — Part 2
by Roger Kershaw
Of course my genealogical narrative should not exclude reference to several persons who out of kindness or shared interest, or through official position, have contributed to this side in particular. As aspects of the investigation may make a stimulating story in their own right (though I risk discouraging others from family research by revealing the effort and many frustrations involved!), I will talk about that saga-within-a-saga first of all. More

Some other reports and features from this month’s print edition

Mystery of the cross-marked stone
by Mandy Haggith
A mysterious cross-marked stone, found in Lochinver, may help to unlock the secrets of early Christianity in the North West Highlands. Gordon Sleight, chairman of Historic Assynt, said: “This is a very exciting find. It might be another enigmatic sign of early Christian presence in Assynt”

New fèis ‘buzzed’
by Lisa MacDonald
Exhausted maybe, but also buzzing with excitement, and that’s not just how the kids felt at the first Fèis an Iar Thuath. The tutors unanimously agreed that it was a very special weekend, and the organising committee are over the moon with the success of the first ever fèis in the tiny village of Scourie.

Fiona Burnett talks to Jim MacLeod
When is a MacLeod not a MacLeod? When he’s a Canister! Originally from Midtown, Melness, James MacLeod from Thurso, known as “Jim the Canister” inherited his nickname from his father Willie, who was often referred to as “The Canister” as a youngster, due to his knack of transforming empty syrup cans and boot polish tins into toys to amuse himself, mischievously tying them to horses tails or to the axles of tinker’s carts.

Third time lucky for Assynt Foundation
Assynt Foundation will hold its annual general meeting at the third attempt on February 22, at 7.30pm in Lochinver Village Hall. The community land owner is calling upon members to turn out to show support for the organisation. More

A good turnout expected at Scourie’s first ever fèis
Mandy Haggith reports
Scourie will host Fèis an Iar Thuath, its first ever Fèis, on February 18 and 19 of this month when children from around the district will gather for a weekend of music and other Gaelic arts tuition. More

Nature’s call
by Paul Castle
The other morning I awoke to the sound of sleet hitting the bedroom window hurried along by a stiff north westerly wind. Even below the duvet I could tell it was cold outside and the only sensible course of action was to curl up and stay right were I was. A few moments later the alarm clock rang and the horrible truth that I would have to emerge ran through my entire body causing me to shiver. More

Some other reports and features from this month’s print edition

No tantrums as wedding party tuck in at banquet!
by Fiona Burnett
There were no colourful outbursts, no heated exchanges and no temper tantrums in the kitchen when chefs and staff came together to cater for a special wedding reception at Kinloch Lodge, near Tongue, for their friends who are also work colleagues, Australia-born David Malcolm, a former head chef of Tongue Hotel, and Tongue lass, Nadine Henderson, daughter of Barbara and Norman Henderson, proprietors of Tongue Stores and Post Office.

Fiona Burnett talks to Alasdair Corbett
Alasdair Corbett, or Tattie as he is better known, was goalie for Kinlochbervie football team in earlier days and a faithful follower of the Scotland team. His passion for football took him to twenty-six countries over twenty years, where he made many friends in the Tartan Army, got up to lots of mischief and brought home many an amusing and scary tale.

A tale of two bachelors
Exploring croft inheritance in Achmelvich
by Roger Kershaw
I do not know how to pronounce dùthchas, for although reputed to lie close to the hearts of native crofters, it is not a term that falls from their lips every day, at least when I am within earshot. Still, it features often enough in intellectual texts for me to have picked up a sense of its meaning.

Shot in arm for Gaelic in North West
by Mandy Haggith
The revival of the Gaelic language in North West Sutherland has been given a big boost through a tutor training programme in Assynt. The six-day intensive course, which was run by Deiseal from December 13-18 in Stoer hall, trained five people to become Gaelic tutors using the Ùlpan system. Eleven local people attended the course as “guinea-pig” students, braving snowy weather to take advantage of the opportunity. More

Anyone remember the Highlands & Islands Film Guild (1946-1970)?
by Ian Goode
The recent exploits of Tilda Swinton, Mark Cousins and associated devotees in dragging the Screen Machine around the Highlands as part of a pilgramage during the summer of 2009, attracted a lot of media attention. The Screen Machine continues to perform a very important and beneficial role in providing cinema to the communities of the Highlands and Islands. But what preceded all of this? The history of cinema has been written, mainly as an urban phenomenon, but what does this exclude in a country like Scotland, where the geography extends a long way beyond the Central Belt? More

View from the croft gate
by John Macdonald
Well, we now have confirmation of our fears as to why the geese returned early: so has winter. It’s bearing on croft activities was immediate as we endeavoured to cope with very hungry stock. The sheep were on fields that had still some rough grazing and the expectation was to see out the start of the tupping season with just a few blocks of supplement. More

Some other reports and features from this month’s print edition

‘Big Society’ in action
Local charities could take charge of health care
by Mandy Haggith
Community Care Assynt and North West Sutherland Care Alliance have held preliminary talks about how they can work together to wrest control of home care services from distant bureaucrats and run them locally. This would build on Community Care Assynt’s takeover of the Assynt Centre, enabling it to become a hub for provision of care in the community, at home as well as at the centre itself.

Postman honoured
John Alexander Mackay, 63, Newlands, Bettyhill, postman for Strathnaver, Bettyhill and surrounding districts for almost forty-five years, has been awarded an MBE in the Queen’s New Years Honours List for “services to the Royal Mail and to the community”.

Nature’s call
by Andy Summers
Autumn has more or less given up the ghost and winter has arrived with a vengeance. And
here I am again writing about a frozen wasteland that was once the North West Highlands of Scotland.

Farewell Cathie Barbara
Cathie Barbara Mackay, Whin Cottage, Tongue, died in Raigmore Hospital, Inverness, on Thursday, November 18. Aged 74 at the time of her death, she is survived by her husband, John, and two sons, Graeme and Iain. More

The Edinburgh-Sutherland’s 144 and still going strong!
The Edinburgh-Sutherland Association was instituted in 1866. It is a registered charity, and its objectives are to afford assistance to necessitous and deserving people, especially natives of Sutherland; stimulate and further the education of the rising generation of the county; and uphold and foster the art, literature, music, culture and language of the county. More

Bookends
by Kevin Crowe
Andrew Greig: “At the loch of the Green Corrie”. Quercus. £16.99.
I have long admired the work of Greig. He is among the best contemporary novelists, combining page-turning readability with profound insights into the human psyche. He is an award winning poet, and has written several works of non-fiction. More

Some other reports and features from this month’s print edition

Norman MacCaig: a man in Assynt
by Mandy Haggith
The poet Norman MacCaig was born 100 years ago, on November 14 1910. He spent his summers in Assynt for forty years, from the late 1940s to the late 1980s. To honour his poetry, the community of Assynt ran a week-long celebration from November 5 to 13 involving readings of new poetry and old, walks, talks, ceilidhs and art exhibitions. Assynt’s children played a key role in the celebration. Poems by forty-six pupils from Stoer, Lochinver and Ullapool schools, many illustrated with lavish exuberance, have been displayed around the parish in shops, notice-boards and windows and gathered into a collection called “Assynt’s Casket”.

Will turkeys vote for Christmas?
George Farlow takes a look at the boundary question
It used to be just love that knew no bounds. But what about climate change, disease, hunger, incompetence, ospreys, internet crime, and the state, red tape that is? People prefer boundaries for that weel-kent stability and comfort zone protection. Civil servants favour working in silos, though they carry an endemic health and safety warning. Boundaries are for budgets, national and community, depending on your view of this Big New Society.

Backcoaster's Diary
A simpler explanation
In Balchrick, writes Andrew Marshall, we sometimes used the Gaelic word “buisteach” (we pronounced it booschach) meaning the power to put a spell on somebody. Thus we would say of people from Polin, “They have the buisteach.” Or the word might mean the spell itself, as in “He’ll put the buisteach on you.” Recently the buisteach was put on me.

Super broadband but not in strath
by Mandy Maggith
Broadband users in Strathnaver have been suffering from poor service in recent weeks, with frustration building about slow, inadequate response from BT and AOL, the only broadband providers in the area. Ironically just as connections ground to a standstill, Highlands and Islands Enterprise announced that superfast broadband would begin rolling out soon across the region. More

Ben is top notch apprentice
Ben Stickland from Skerray was awarded a Certificate of Outstanding Achievement by UHI Inverness College at their award ceremony last month on completing his second year Modern Apprenticeship in plumbing. More

History file
by Malcolm Bangor-Jones
Of the petitions presented to the heritors and kirk session of the parish of Farr, none was to prove more interesting than that of Ann Macdonald of Kirtomy. This was mainly because the case went to the Court of Session and generated some interesting evidence. More

Some other reports and features from this month’s print edition

Thumbs up for Caithness Mod
by Donald MacLeod
By all accounts, and backed by my own experience, Mòd Ghallaibh 2010 was a resounding success. The Royal National Mod, to give it its formal title, was mainly staged in Wick and Thurso, with accommodation in the two towns taken up so well that some Mod-goers stayed in Bettyhill, and perhaps further west.

Royal Mail: Universal Service Obligation at risk, say critics
by Mandy Haggith
The government’s plan to privatise Royal Mail may threaten the postal services in rural areas like North West Sutherland, according to politicians and Post Office representatives. The future of our postal deliveries hangs on whether new legislation can protect the Universal Service Obligation, which ensures six-days-a-week deliveries of letters to all addresses across the UK for a uniform price.

View from the croft gate
by John MacDonald
As if there were not enough obstacles in place to deter those of us endeavouring to make a living out of agriculture and keep crofting going, there has recently crossed my ears news of another new piece of legislation. It has to do with the powers that be tinkering with our tractor fuel and altering its compound. Naturally, it is all to do with meeting national targets for reduced emission of carbon and keeping this global warming at bay, which is a pity as I was looking for a bit more global warming around the croft, especially at haymaking time.

Aliens have landed in Kylesku!
by Mandy Haggith
Residents of North West Sutherland are being invited to help prevent the invasion of a dangerous predatory alien. It comes in the night and travels with stealth. Locals are being warned not to be taken in by its cute appearance: the American mink (Neovison vison) is a merciless killer. More

2010 Assynt Games report, results and photos
At mid-day on Friday the 13th August, Neil Gudgeon, Assynt Games Chieftain for 2010, sailed into Lochinver Harbout aboard the Chieftain’s barge, this year the Lochinver Lifeboat, RNLB Julian and Margaret Leonard. More

The Inner Man
by Chris Duckham
Now that the children are back at school it seems that summer is probably over for another year, although of course it hasn’t been much of a summer when seen from most perspectives. After such a hard and prolonged winter it would have been nice to have had an old fashioned, warm summer, especially for the children who love swimming in the sea. Not much opportunity for that this year. From the perspective of the forager though it has actually been a good summer. The local wild mushrooms seem to have been even more plentiful than usual and at times the chanterelles at one of my favourite spots seemed nearly to carpet the ground. More

Some other reports and features from this month’s print edition

Alistair ‘The Milkman’ retires
Alistair Maclean retires after fifty years delivering milk (and much else besides)
In 1960 Donald (“the Shoemaker”) Mackay of Viewforth, Tongue, decided to buy a van to supply milk to local schools. This was when all primary school children were entitled to free milk as part of a government scheme to improve the health of the nation post-war. Whilst his wife Phoemie cleaned the inside of the van, Donald painted the outside, and thus began a unique service to Tongue, Farr and Reay that was to last fifty years.

A book at bedtime
by John MacDonald
My bedtime read at the moment is a book lent to me by a crofter friend who was a bit surprised that I had not already read it. The book in question is Crofting Agriculture by Fraser Darling. I had read his book on living on Tanera, but not this book, which my friend regards as the crofter’s Bible.

Fiona Burnett talks to Bob Jaffrey
After writing about Hamish Campbell, shepherd from Balnakeil, Durness, I was contacted recently by Robert Jaffray from Forfar, who, along with his late father, had also worked for the Elliot family, sheep farmers from the Borders. Robert was born in 1932 to Robert and Agnes (nee Welsh) at his maternal granny’s house at Northfield Farm, St Abbs. “Just north of Berwick on Tweed, in fact just north of the Border, a near thing no less!” says Robert.

August 2010

North West is only area in UK free of bee parasite
by Mandy Haggith
Local beekeepers are urging vigilance to protect bees from their most serious pest, varroa mite. So far, local colonies are free of the mites, but North West Sutherland is now the last place on the UK mainland to be completely avoiding infestation. More

Images from Durness Highland Gathering Friday, July 30 2010
A selection of our photos from the day
The games results will be posted here when we get them. More

Nature’s call
by Andy Summers
August can be a difficult month for wildlife watchers. The vegetation has grown very dense. The foliage in the trees is thick and almost impenetrable. In the bird world there are lots of grey and brown youngsters about that are hard to identify and many of the adults are moulting, losing their distinctive colour patterns. However, on the plus side, there is more wildlife now than any other month of the year. It is all a question of knowing where to go and look for it. More

Some other reports and features from this month’s print edition

Green lig for new tree planting
by Mandy Haggith
Substantial new woodland projects on community-owned land in Assynt were discussed by community landowners and other interested groups at a Forest Forum early this week.

The Inner Man
by Chris Duckham
I read with interest recently that bottled seawater is to be offered commercially to restaurant kitchens to cook with. Collected and filtered off the shores of Berneray it is apparently then sent by tanker to a bottling facility near Edinburgh, there to be packaged into wine-box type containers and sold at a price of no less than £4.95 per 3-litre carton. The entrepreneur behind this venture believes that there is definitely a market for it, as a “must have” ingredient for high-end dining at the nation’s finest tables.

Portskerra couple’s early days fondly remembered
by Catriona MacLeod
Donnie and Elizabeth Mackay, Mo Dhachaidh, have been married for fifty-four years and lived in Portskerra all their lives. They first got to know each other attending Portskerra primary school, which once stood where the present school’s football pitch is today. “When I was going to school in Portskerra,there were three teachers and ninety children were going to it."

July 2010

Lairg’s cultural events a success
by Donald MacLeod
Lairg, once the transport hub of Sutherland county, can lay fair claim to be considered the cultural hub of the district after hosting both the Sutherland & Caithness Provincial Mod and the Lairg Music Festival last month. More

A brief history of time (in the Mackay household)
by Willie D Mackay
My mother, Jessie, never used Greenwich Mean Time, yet I never knew a more punctual person. Being the postmistress in Coldbackie for over thirty years, it was essential for her to keep an eye on the clock. She had a phobia about good timekeeping, and to achieve this, and unknown to us, she had the infuriating habit of always having the clock set half an hour fast. More

History file
by Malcolm Bangor-Jones
Ardvar was one of a handful of moderately sized sheep farms which had emerged in Assynt after 1812. Following the death of the tenant, Captain William Scobie, by drowning in 1831, a lease had eventually been granted to his widow at a rent of £220. At her death in 1842 the sheep stock, along with the household cows and horses, was valued at £1,475 and the farm came under the management of trustees acting for the benefit of her four daughters. More

Some other reports and features from this month’s print edition

Tenant at odds with trust over house sites purchase
A director of the Assynt Crofters Trust, who is also a serving area commissioner of the Crofters Commission, has resigned from the trust board, accusing the trust of being a “fickle and vindictive landlord”.

Fiona Burnett talks to John Campbell, Durness
John Campbell, “Brivard”, Durness, recently shared some of his memories with me, reminiscing about his working life from the time he left school until his retirement. He started out as a farm labourer at Balnakeil Estate, Durness, then spent thirty-seven years working for Richard Mackay & Son of Durness where he drove lorries, transporting all kinds of goods from livestock, hay, corn and fish to general supplies, up and down the country, while also working his croft.

Bookends
by Kevin Crowe
“The Grey Wolves of Eriboll” by David M. Hird. Whittles Publishing, 2010. £16.99.
This is the second work of history David Hird has written about NW Sutherland, the first being his excellent account of Cape Wrath – “A Light in the Wilderness”. Once again he has demonstrated both his abilities as a researcher and his fine eye for detail, whilst at the same time presenting a highly readable narrative.

Porridge bread’s on the menu at Melness bakery
by Fiona Burnett
German born, Gert Steinbrueck, a resident of Talmine, Melness, is no stranger to rising early. Since he recently created "Cornhill Artisan Bakery" most days he is in his kitchen — from five in the morning — making bread and rolls which he currently supplies to the local post office and shop. More

Former seaman’s mission to retain nautical influences
A sea-life centre with lobster nursery and related seafaring archive are some of the attractions likely to be on offer when the refurbished Royal National Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen building in Lochinver opens its doors under new ownership, probably in May of next year. More

History file
by Malcolm Bangor-Jones
The combination of the potato disease, the low price of cattle and stagnation in the her ring trade brought considerable hardship. By the early 1850s, the Duke of Sutherland considered that the situation on the west coast appeared to be very similar to parts of Skye and the Western Isles. More

Some other reports and features from this month’s print edition

Nursing the north
by Iona MacLean
I started writing an article about my Mum, Jean Maclean, Borgie, and her retirement from district nursing on the north-west coast. It contained lots of good facts and statistics, like the fact she started thirty-one years ago, she manages a team of nine nurses and over the years has worked in Melness, Tongue, Bettyhill and Melvich. But when I spoke to some of her work colleagues I realised that a few facts and figures just wouldn’t do her work justice or convey how much she will be missed in the local community. So I’m going to start again, here goes.

Pam Mackay
An appreciation
A very sad but beautiful funeral took place in Melness on May 11. Pam Mackay passed away peacefully on Saturday, the 8th of May, at home and surrounded by her loving family as she had wanted. All her many friends and large family gathered at “Cias”, Talmine to say goodbye to Pam and to celebrate a life lived to the full.

View from the croft gate
by John MacDonald
The lambing is finally over for another year and the dire prediction of a bad lambing did not materialise, not in our area anyway. The weather was pretty cold but mainly dry and there was only one nasty cold wet night when we had to set to and get the recent-born into some sort of shelter. We seem to have been left with two pets, which is a bit of a nuisance.

Local fishermen all take over Tongue’s Ben Loyal Hotel
As we went to press, two local businessmen, Charlie Mackay, Scullomie, and Graeme Gunn from Melness, were finalising contracts to become the new proprietors of the Ben Loyal Hotel in Tongue. Offers of 500,000 pounds sterling had been invited for the business. More

JD Williams’ catalogue
by Willie D Mackay
I remember it well — how could anyone forget — the night Peter the post delivered the new edition of THE CATALOGUE. Its arrival had been anticipated for weeks and each night went by with only the delivery of a few papers from the Board of Agriculture or a demand for a payment to “His Majesty”. More

Nature’s call
by Andy Summers
It was raining at the time. There was a cold breeze blowing through the bare birch twigs. There was a faint green wash on the winter worn grass showing that winter was almost over. A brave solitary primrose had popped its head out to see if there were any pollinators around. A dunnock sang valiantly from the middle of a gorse bush. An empty Easter egg box lay in the garden. More

Some other reports and features from this month’s print edition

Harnessing the surge of the sea
‘Comments wholly unhelpful’ — Pelamis Wave Power
Criticism of the company behind the recently announced development of the Armadale Wave Farm off Bettyhill has been rebuffed by the man in charge of the project.

From Bolton to bumblebees
by Fiona Burnett
Recently I got a real buzz when I met up with countryside ranger Paul Castle from Scarfskerry, Caithness. Paul writes a regular column for Am Bratach, sharing his outdoor experiences. This month he shares with me the trials and tribulations of living down south, how he and his family escaped the rat race for a slower pace of life in the Highlands and how he owes his wife Carolyn “a debt of gratitude” for allowing him the opportunity of achieving his dream, finally securing a job he loves and is passionate about and a tranquil place to live, which he loves and appreciates too.

View from the croft gate
by John MacDonald
The spell of dry and settled weather that came in for early April was most welcome. It was a treat to walk up to the cattle ring feeder and not sink into a wellie sucking glaur. The geese moving north was another welcome sign. It has been a strange year, a prolonged winter and suddenly it’s summer. We seem to have missed out on the spring bit, but perhaps I better be quiet in case winter comes back.

Pared down Assynt Centre likely after council leaves
If you listen to leading politicians, hungry for re-election, government assaults on front-line services are a no-go area, but in Lochinver people learned differently at a packed public meeting held on March 18 to discuss the future of the village's Highland Council community care unit, The Assynt Centre. More

Historic photograph turns up
This hitherto unpublished photograph, recently discovered in our archives, was taken minutes after Allan MacRae, chairman of the Assynt Crofters Trust, announced at a special meeting held in Stoer Primary School on December 8 1992 that the trust had had their bid to buy the North Assynt Estate accepted. More

Bookends
by Kevin Crowe
“In Praise of the Garrulous” by Allan Cameron. Vagabond Press, 2009. £8.00.
For many years, languages have been disappearing at an alarming rate and increasingly more and more discourse — whether written or oral — is being conducted in a small number of mainly European languages. More

Some other reports and features from this month’s print edition

Tenacious Talmine teen takes to sea!
What do our wellies say about us? asks Fiona Burnett. Most of us own a pair. Years ago I owned a red pair which were as comfortable as slippers.

Recession doesn’t daunt Barbara
Contemporary jewellery designer and maker Barbara MacLeod from Strathan, near Lochinver, who is taking her collection to the British Craft Trade Fair at Harrogate this month, is not in the least daunted by having set up her first business in a recession. “No, no, not at all. I mean, if cash does get a bit tight, it’s just a case of picking up a part-time job for a wee while, and I don’t have a problem with that.

History file
by Malcolm Bangor-Jones
As Ian Grimble describes in his book, Chief of Mackay, Lord Reay returned north in 1632 in difficult financial circumstances. Granting wadsets or mortgages to raise funds or satisfy debts was inevitable. However, he also looked to borrow on the strength of the produce of the estate.

Assynt Centre: care or don’t care?
In Sutherland the number of pensioners is increasing and at the same time the total population is decreasing, writes a correspondent. The falling numbers of young people and families mean that the normal demographic pyramid of an economically viable population has been turned on its head. This problem is particularly acute in remote and rural areas as younger people drift away. So, who will care for older adults? More

Progress on Gaelic
Lisa MacDonald (pictured) has written an article (below) about Gaelic, the advantages it brings and what’s going on around Sutherland in Gaelic. Mrs MacDonald, who regards her home country to be Southend in Argyll, is married with a young family (aged 3 years and 1 year), and has lived in Scourie for nearly five years. She studied Gaelic at university level. “I got the chance to take Gaelic as an arts subject while studying divinity, and loved it so much I changed to Single Honours Celtic Studies, and it has all snowballed from there. More

View from the croft
by John Macdonald
As I write, it is still early February and still the snow is not too far away. We have had two falls and two thaws and now seem to be enjoying a bit respite while the snow continues to cause its usual chaos around the southern extremity of the country. More

Some other reports and features from this month’s print edition

Obituary
David Bowes, Skerray
The tragic death of David Bowes at the age 46, which occurred on the morning of February 2, when his pick-up left the road and broke through a barrier into the sea at the Kyle of Tongue, left people stunned. Death had dealt a cruel blow to the family and friends of a man in the prime of life, admired and respected for his many fine qualities.

21st century head believes church guilty over Wm Ross
by Fiona Burnett
Since we spoke to Durness headteacher Graham Bruce in September 2009 about his sabbatical year, which involves digging out the history of the old parish school at Loch Croispol, which first opened in 1765, he has been to the National Archives in Edinburgh and even been interviewed about his investigations into the remarkable career of his predecessor, William Ross, on a Canadian radio station. The interviewer suggested that the present-day Durness headmaster should ask for the same contract as Ross!

Bookends
by Kevin Crowe
Roger McGough “That Awkward Age”, Viking, 2009, £12.99.
In 1967, one of the best selling poetry collections of all time was published. Called “The Mersey Sound”, it featured the work of three Liverpool poets: Adrian Henri, Roger McGough and Brian Patten. Believing that poetry should be entertaining and fun, they helped sweep away the constraining cobwebs of the academic approach to poetry.

Stoer in line for two 5kW wind turbines
The Assynt Crofters Trust and Stoer Hall Committee are planning to build two small-scale wind turbines in Stoer. And, fortunately, the trust’s crofter-only membershop is unlikely to be an obstacle to gaining grants for their turbine, as it has been sometimes in the past. More

A response to the recently published Crofting Reform (Scotland) Bill and associated commentaries
by Iain and Netta MacKenzie
The crofting system we now have emerged from a serious of legislative impositions. Some, like the Act of 1886, were intended to stabilise a very fraught law and order situation which had occurred as a result of economic pressures and landlordism run riot. Gladstone`s great contribution in 1886 was the curbing of untrammelled plutocratic power. More

Hello sailor!
Fiona Burnett hears about 19-year-old Donald Morrison’s adventures in the Merchant Navy
Choosing a career in life is never plain sailing. Much depends on exam results, although nowadays even if you qualify for the job of your dreams the job you want isn’t always out there and students have to alter their career paths. It’s a stressful time in a youngster’s life. How do you really know what you want when you leave school? More

Some other reports and features from this month’s print edition

Did this road really need to be in this state a month after the snow arrived?
Although Highland Council was hardly slow to congratulate itself for clearing snow and treating ice on Highland roads this winter — a press statement entitled “Praise for Council staff in combating winter weather” was released on January 5 — a different version of events was being played out if you were struggling to go about your daily business eighty-odd miles north of Inverness — in Strathnaver.

Retired doctor and busy activist dies
The death occured at her home at Fuines, Torrisdale, Skerray, on Wednesday, January 27, of Elizabeth Taylor Mackenzie after a short illness.

History File
by Malcolm Bangor-Jones
Shepherds were critical to the Australian wool industry. Most had been convicts but after the end of transportation in the late 1840s quite a few shepherds from the Highlands decided to emigrate. For a while, shepherding tended to be the first employment for many new arrivals who had neither capital nor a trade.

Forest group irons out voting troubles after Strathnaver and Altnaharra boob
The long-standing voting district of Strathnaver and Altnaharra was overlooked by promoters of a land buyout attempting to test public opinion in the run-up to a programme of land purchase in the upper reaches of Halladale and Strathnaver. More

Results of the New Year races
by Donald S Murray
Of all the sporting activities in our district when I was growing up, there was no doubt that the ones held on New Year’s Day drew the greatest number of spectators. In terms of its appeal, it attracted greater numbers within the locality than a Scotland-England football match, Celtic v Inter Milan in the European Cup Final and the Olympics combined. It seemed to spark the interest of everyone in the entire community. Even the most unathletic and rheumatic spinsters in the village were not immune to its charms. More

View from the croft gate
by John Macdonald
I notice a fair degree of comment in the press at the moment as the Crofting Reform Bill goes through another stage of its torturous journey — well, not the press in general, for who wins a talent contest, or who can make the bigger spectacle of themselves, is much more newsworthy than anything to do with the mundane life of the crofter, unless of course, Prince Charles drops by to give a hand with the tatties. More

Some other reports and features from this month’s print edition

Fiona Burnett talks to George Fulton, Droman
Snow to a child is magical. From building a snowman to snow ball fights and sledging, most children love playing in the snow. And, of course, when conditions get too bad they rub their hands in glee because sometimes a heavy snowfall means a day off school!

Hugh Mackay
July 1936 — December 2009
Born in Newlands, Bettyhill, on July 4, 1936, Hugh Mackay was the third eldest of a family of seven of James Mackay, Bettyhill, and his wife, Elizabeth (née Macdonald), a native of Scourie. From an early age he acquired the nickname Teed. His formative years were spent in Bettyhill, where his father, James (“The Old Crow”), an expert ghillie on the Naver, encouraged in him a lifelong interest in the art of fishing.

History File
by Malcolm Bangor-Jones
Unmarried women falling pregnant two hundred years ago faced an awful predicament: many tried hard to conceal their condition. Their babies were sometimes found dead. This led to women regularly appearing in court charged with concealment of pregnancy and child murder.

Catriona MacLeod talks to Lily Byron, Rosehall
Murdo Mackenzie trained as a blacksmith in Tain where he married and had one child. Then, in 1881, he moved to take up a post as estate blacksmith at Rosehall where the remaining thirteen children were born in an estate house where his granddaughter, Lily, now lives. More

Catherine Mackay
An appreciation
The communities of Skerray, Tongue, Strathnaver and Bettyhill were saddened to hear of the sudden unexpected death of Catherine (“Lal”) Mackay in the early hours of Tuesday, November 17, 2009. More

History file
by Malcolm Bangor-Jones
In April 1856 the Rev David Williamson, minister of the Established Church of Assynt, produced a report on the examination of the schools in the parish which had taken place the previous month. The examination included seven schools including the parish school and all of the charity schools. The three Free Church schools were excluded. More

Some other reports and features from this month’s print edition

Court tends to decroft, if planning permission given
Although reading through recently published responses to the Draft Crofting Reform (Scotand) Bill suggests that many crofters believe the Crofters Commission enjoys sufficient powers to moderate the excesses caused by decrofting for financial gain, the head of the Crofters Commission sees it rather differently.

Bettyhill star recalls Norwegian hero in special Glasgow event
The life of a Norwegian hero who graduated as a musical instrument maker before risking his life in the Second World War is to be commemorated at the Celtic Connections festival next month in a show headlined by Bettyhill’s best known musician, Jenna Reid.

Free Press is exception to rule
Only two local newspapers in Britain are worth saving from extinction according to one to the country’s most eminent journalists. Writing in the Guardian, George Monbiot stated: “I can think of only two local newspapers that consistently hold power to account: the West Highland Free Press and the Salford Star.

Woodland croft purchase suffers setback
The people of Assynt have failed to achieve sufficient local support to buy Ledmore Forest to create woodland crofts. The 1,038 hectare forest is owned by the Forestry Commission Scotland, which wants to sell it as part of its repositioning programme. More

John McKay McInlay, Fisherman, Achtoty, Skerray, 1810-1883
by Margaret McKay
There are no photographs of John McKay McInlay to give us a picture of him and there are no family papers. His land in Achtoty and what remains of his house are now part of the neighbouring croft but his life, however obscure and distant it now seems, is part of his descendants’ inheritance and greatly valued by them. More

Nature’s call
by Andy Summers
Whatever turns you on, I suppose. “Look over there. He is near the back, beside the grey stone. He is scratching his head just now. No not that one! He is slightly smaller than the rest and he has dark legs. Oh look he has just stretched. Can’t you see?” More

Some other reports and features from this month’s print edition

The neglect of crofting I see is at the hand of government
A Radical solution to croft speculation ran the headline! The latest lifeline thrown to Ms Cunningham’s Draft Crofting Bill must be a good one, given the amount of ink expended on the very bold type. Having read the earth-shattering proposal which revolves round a further restriction on the tenant crofter’s right to assign, I looked out of the window counting the number of crofts which are still owned or tenanted by those whose families were in them in 1912, a date, about which I have accurate information, and the words of the poet came to mind, “in vacant or in pensive mood...”

Catriona MacLeod talks to Elliot Rudie, Bettyhill
Earlier this year, Elliot Rudie found himself travelling to Paris, to be present at a conference celebrating fifty years since publication of William S Burrough’s controversial book, “Naked Lunch”. Also at the Festin Nu@50 was documentary arts film director, Allan Govenar, filming for his current project, “The Beat Hotel”. The film is centred around Harold Chapman’s stunning black and white photos of the residents of the aforementioned hotel in Paris, one of whom was Burroughs and another, Elliot Rudie, who had also been recording life in “The Beat” through his sketches, drawings and letters home.

Former Caithness solicitor has murder firmly in mind
Last month Wick resident Jean McLennan saw the toils of her labour come to fruition when her book “Blood in the Glens” was published, writes Fiona Burnett. The book, a collection of eleven true crime stories from the Highlands and Islands over the last sixty years, looks into the background of each crime, the motives of those involved, the crimes themselves, and their repercussions.

Numbers up at Invercharron
The gods looked down kindly on the considerable turnout, as a slight drizzle at the time of the official opening caused people to pause and count their blessings as the rain clouds blew away, leaving a fine day. More

Councillor calls for committee upgrade
George Farlow, SNP councillor for North West and Central Sutherland, has called on The Highland Council again for recognition of the Gaelic Committee equal to that of other strategic committees rather than hanging on the coattails of the education culture and sport service. The Gaelic committee of the Highland Committee met in Ullapool last Friday (September 25). More

Studying medicine in the north
by Daniel Racey
I am in my fifth and final year at the Peninsula Medical School based in Plymouth. We are given the freedom to choose a block of study at the beginning of our final year. The purpose of this elective part of the course is to broaden our experience of medicine. Many students choose to go abroad to Africa or India or the Caribbean. More

Some other reports and features from this month’s print edition

Catriona MacLeod talks to Cathel Kerr Mackay, Melness
Wisecracking musician and former coalman Cathel Kerr Mackay was born in Helmsdale a while back, in the Pope maternity hospital. They closed it shortly afterwards.

Life of World War I hero remembered
He had been an adopted child who was brought up by a brother and sister in the parish of Eddrachillis, yet thousands attended his funeral in a far distant land. Robert McBeath VC was only twenty-four when he died.

Nature’s call
by Paul Castle
I would like to start this particular article with a heartfelt thank you to Mary Legg the senior countryside ranger in Caithness who retired at the end of September. Mary has amassed a huge amount of knowledge and has worked tirelessly within the ranger service in Caithness for many years. Mary’s knowledge, enthusiasm and love of her work have resulted in countless successful projects and initiatives.

September 2009

‘Sea eagles took half my lambs’ — Rhiconich crofter
Although pleased with the price he received for his lambs in August, crofter David Forbes says he has lost between forty and fifty per cent of this year's lamb crop to sea eagles, birds protected in law. More

Mandy wins award with her first novel
Author and environmental campaigner, Mandy Haggith from Achmelvich, near Lochinver, was last week announced as the winner of the inaugural Robin Jenkins Literary Award for her first novel, The Last Bear. More

History file
by Malcolm Bangor-Jones
The introduction of the poor law in 1845 brought a major change to the way the poor were assisted. The management of the new system was entrusted to parochial boards who were empowered to raise money by levying an assessment on the rents, draw up a poor roll, appoint inspectors and build poorhouses. A central Board of Supervision in Edinburgh provided guidance and exercised control where appropriate. More

Some other reports and features from this month’s print edition

Forest group content with Forsinain, Dyke and Rosal
The purchase of 16,500 acres of mainly afforested Forestry Commission land in Farr and Kildonan by North Sutherland Community Forest Trust is no longer an option, following the district valuer’s price tag of £5.4m.

On a mission to save the mission
The people of Assynt are once again on the community ownership campaign trail — only this time it is not land they are trying to buy, but a building. The Lochinver Fishermen’s Mission closed earlier this year, and following an enthusiastic public meeting last month the Assynt Community Association formed a steering group to find a way to reopen it and run it for the benefit of the whole local community.

View from the croft gate
by John Macdonald
While up on our hill ground gathering the lamb sale one of the first things I spotted was a fine sprig of white heather. It seemed a good omen and so it proved to be. It is a long time since I have gone to a sale and seen such a dramatic increase in stock prices and a buzz of relief amongst the sellers that at last prices start to come more into line with the price of everything we purchase to keep our agricultural enterprises going.

August 2009

Durness Highland Gathering 2009
“I really enjoyed the walk from the square to the park, with all the chieftains,” said Lachlan Ross from Kinlochbervie, chieftian of the 2009 Durness Highland Gathering, as he spoke to the assembled company on what started out as a very wet day. More

Backcoaster’s Diary
Nae velar fricative noo
We ask, with not a little regret, if the Guid Scots Tongue is undergoing terminal decline. More

View from the croft gate
by John MacDonald
What a contrast of weather since I wrote last month. For a start, hot and dry weather as is rarely seen in these parts, followed by a northerly chill and as I write, very unsettled weather and back to a pattern with which we are more familiar. More

Some other reports and features from this month’s print edition

After 15 years crofters’ trust has £100,000 in the bank
Uncertain times for crofters and hill farmers they most certainly are, but Assynt’s crofter-owned estate is very much in the black after fifteen years of steady progress. “At the AGM there we had £100,000 in the bank and we made about — well on paper we made about — £18,000 profit last year,” says chairman, Allan MacRae. “That’s on paper, but the trust is doing quite well. We have no debts.” 1,220 words.

Catriona Macleod talks to Christian Goskirk, Lairg
At the age of seventeen, having finished her schooling at Golspie High, Christian Goskirk decided that the bright lights of Scotland’s big cities weren’t enough of a change from her home village of Lairg and instead headed off across the sea for a year at senior school in America. It wasn’t that long ago, but even in the late eighties Gap Years weren’t commonplace and it was usually after university or college life that students ventured abroad for a taste of the wider world. 960 words.

The best of company
Roger Leitch in conversation with Tommy Ross, a native of Tumore, Loch Assynt, and resident of Inverness
From the archives of the School of Scottish Studies, Edinburgh University
RL: Can I ask first of all, Mr Ross, when you were born?
TR: August the 6th, 1929.
Now, was this in Tumore?
In Tumore house by Loch Assynt, in Sutherland.
And how long were you in fact there?
Well, up until the time — I would be about eight years old when my father decided — there was a change in the estate then, and it was off to Argyllshire at Dalmally — that Sir Douglas Hall and Lady Hall, as she was then, decided to go and wanted my father to go with them. 3,194 words.

July 2009

Postbox
SNP seemed to draft bill with a ‘degree of militancy’
We are not only in the “silly season” but living in “strange times”, when on the one hand the Scottish government produces a “Shucksmith crofting bill” in bold defiance of crofter opposition to the Shucksmith Report last summer, but then the Northern Times keeps out of harm’s way by failing to report the more than lively meetings at Lairg and Durness, on June 9 and 10 respectively, when the consultation road-show reached the Raggie’s patch. More

Nature’s call
by Paul Castle
Several times in the past I have stood with folk on a guided sea watch at Strathy Point and struggled to see any cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises) or just had a quick glimpse of a fin and that’s it. On a recent sea watch we saw four species in just two hours. Minke whales, common dolphins, harbour porpoise and Risso’s Dolphins were all recorded, with the Risso’s Dolphin’s right in alongside us. I wish every sea watch was like that. More

Crofting ‘reform’ as I see it
by Iain MacKenzie
“Vassals: in a feudal relationship with landlord, their feudal superior.” That is the description the well respected, late DJ MacCuish, crofting law expert, used to describe tenant crofters in a paper delivered in 1968. More

Some other reports and features from this month’s print edition

Contractor for Glencanisp to be appointed this week
Recent Observer article criticised
The Assynt Foundation is expected to appoint the main contractor for the £1.3million redevelopment of Glencanisp Lodge tomorrow (Friday, July 3) and work on site should be underway in a matter of weeks.

Fiona Burnett talks to Angus John McEwan, Inverkirkaig
Born to Scottish parents, Angus John McEwan’s evacuation from London to Scotland during World War II was “influential”. He spent his earlier days with family in Tain, going to school there, interspersed with holidays in Lochinver where he also had family, later returning to continue his education in London, when the war ended. His education “was much establishment”, his college having an army and a corps where he was sergeant major, where he marched once a year in uniform across London Bridge to St Paul’s Cathedral, playing the drums as he went.

New edition of Bettyhill guide out
A new edition of Kevin O’Reilly and Ashley Crockford’s indispensable 2005 “What to see around Bettyhill” has been published.
The A5 39-page booklet fits in the pocket and contains an impressive amount of information for the visitor or local, covering the history, archaeology and geology from Loch mo Naire in lower Strathnaver to the holy island of Eilean Neave off Skerray to the west, to the remains of the medieval stronghold of the Clan Mackay, Borve Castle, near Kirtomy, which was destroyed by the Earl of Sutherland in 1555.

June 2009

New commission may charge crofters for essential services
Crofting Reform (Scotland) Bill, published by the Scottish Government on May 19, may be different in a some respects from that controversially advocated by Professor Mark Shucksmith’s Committee Inquiry on Crofting, but initial reactions suggest it could face a rough ride before it reaches the statute book. More

Have you seen this bee?
by Bob Dawson
In the photo above is the wonderful Great Yellow Bumblebee, mentioned in these pages before (see Paul Castle’s column from April). Once widespread on the UK mainland, it is now only found along the northern coasts of Sutherland and Caithness. More

Bookends
by Kevin Crowe
“One Light Burning (CD)”, Dave Whyte & Donny O’Rourke, 2008; “Blame Yesterday”, Donny O’Rourke, 2009. Both from Bonny Day Books.
Two years ago, I reviewed poet Donny O’Rourke’s and artist Harry Magee’s collaboration on “One Light Burning”. I wrote that the poems could be put to music. O’Rourke had the same idea, and asked Dave Whyte to write the music. The result of their collaboration is this excellent CD, which follows the same running order as the book. More

Some other reports and features from this month’s print edition

‘Delinquent’ Glen to the rescue!
by Fiona Burnett
When, last month, residents of Scullomie, Tongue, witnessed an impressive mock water rescue demonstration put on by Karen Wyatt from Thurso and her 1-year-old black Newfoundland dog, Glen, they would never have guessed that until a short time before, Glen had caused his owner and her family endless heartache and distress. It was in fact the first time they had been in the water together.

History file
by Malcolm Bangor-Jones
The importance of the Caithness herring fishery in the nineteenth century has tended to overshadow the local fishery. Despite the often erratic appearance of the herring, problems accessing salt and barrels, and the challenges of finding a market, the west coast fishing was not insignificant.

View from the croft gate
by John MacDonald
Friday. Cuckoo time and I am just about going cuckoo myself with this Blue Tongue vaccinations lark. We struck early when the scheme had just started: sheep and cows, the lot were done, being the start of the winter.

May 2009

Mackays turn out in force for Global Gathering
As this article is being written, the ground floor area of Strathnaver Museum, Bettyhill, is full to overflowing with Mackays. The contingents of this Mackay body are, while waiting to be photographed, being entertained by the highly accomplished members of the Feis movement and enjoying baking supplied by members of the community who would apparently give Mr Kipling a run for his money. More

Fanagmore headmaster’s son dies at 89
On February 18 this year, John WR Junner died in a residential care home at the age of 89. He had been headmaster of Strachan Primary School in Aberdeenshire from 1966 until he retired in 1985. Immediately before that he had been headmaster at Strathy Primary, since closed. More

Nature’s call
by Andy summers
Open wide! It won’t hurt”. When you are trying to take a mouth swab sample from a Golden Eagle it pays to be polite if you want to keep your fingers. When you see the remains of a badger’s skull, a tawny owl’s wing and a bit of antler from a stag lying in the nest, you know this is a top predator, which has some dangerous bits of kit. More

Some other reports and features from this month’s print edition

Disparity in condition of roads unexplained — so far
After considerable time spent fishing for information, we have been unable, so far, to persuade Highland Council to explain to our satisfaction why the condition of two single track roads across what appears to be very similar terrain differs to such a degree that they could well be in different countries.

Postbox
Merit of tenancies
Labour MSPs propose that the Scottish Parliament shelves legislative proposals regarding crofting and that the Parliament’s time would be better spent combating the effects of the recession.

History file
by Malcolm Bangor-Jones
The settlement of the Island of Handa in the spring of 1828 proceeded according to plan. Ralph Reed, who was in charge of the operation on behalf of the landlord, Lord Reay, had pointed out the stances for the tenants’ houses. Not all of the applicants were content and one of them, Kenneth MacLeod, was anxious to give up his holding. There were, however, two or three others willing to take it. It was given to Eric Mackenzie who had gone with MacLeod to the factor at Tongue.

April 2009

Postbox
Wind turbines already rejected
I am surprised at Assynt Foundation development manager, Mark Lazerri, citing wind turbines as a possible source of income (“Foundation considers forest purchase as lodge works go on”, Am Bratach, March 2009.) More

The touch of a master
Hector MacAndrew: Legend of the Scots Fiddle. Greentrax Recordings Ltd, Cockenzie Business Centre, Edinburgh Road, Cockenzie, East Lothian EH32 0XL. £11.85.
As a boy I was familar with the fiddle playing of Hector MacAndrew (1903-1980), thanks to my father, writes DONALD MACLEOD. A player himself, my father was horrified when a neighbour called in while a MacAndrew broadcast was playing over the air waves exclaiming: "You're just as good yourself!" More

History file
by Malcolm Bangor-Jones
Handa Island was one of the few inhabited islands off the northern mainland. According to an account of 1726, it was inhabited by “one or two familys”. Later, however, it was cleared and given over to sheep, possibly in the early 1800s. By 1818 it was part of Badnabay sheep farm tenanted by William Munro of Achany and Ralph Reed at Scourie and inhabited by one of their shepherds, Donald Morrison. More

Some other reports and features from this month’s print edition

Morrison family brings home the plight of AIDS-struck South Africa
‘From the minute they can walk they are singing and dancing’
Four Zulus — three men and a woman — will sing of their people’s heart-rending experiences at a free concert to be held in Durness hall this coming Saturday (April 4). The brainchild of Sangobeg-born Colin Morrison and his wife, Karen, artistes from the Gaelic tradition, like locally-born singing brothers, David and Willie Morrison, and piper James Mather, will also take part.

HIE in the spotlight
Does the government straitjacket that Highlands and Islands Enterprise appears to operate under mean it is forced to follow the latest whims of the politicians and even repeat the mistakes of the past? In this interview, we hope some light is shed on this and other questions of topical interest.

Postbus service
Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross MP, John Thurso, has written to the Royal Mail Group and Highland Council urging both parties to re-engage in discussions about the future of the postbuses that provide services between Tongue and Thurso. The council grant-aids the passenger element.

View from the croft
by John Macdonald
As I sit writing this article the showers are driving past the window frequent and heavy, as they say, not a day to lie behind a dyke, although I suppose that if the choice was between lying out on an exposed hillside or in the lea of a dyke I would opt for the latter.

March 2009

Robin Hood in reverse
Highland Council is apparently hell-bent on reducing the wages of its poorest paid employees whilst increasing the pay of thousands of better off staff — under cover of a “job evaluation” exercise. More

Backcoaster’s Diary
Stranger than fiction
We read in an Edinburgh broadsheet that six unnamed “historians and intellectuals” have been asked to provide information about the history and culture of Caithness, apparently with a view to demonstrating to councillors of that northern fastness that they have nothing in common with anything or anybody south of the Arctic Circle. More

Bookends
by Kevin Crowe
Fasachadh An-Iochdmhor Ratharsair (The Cruel Clearance of Raasay) by Calum Macleoid. 2007, Clo Arnais. £7.99.
The name Calum Macleod will be known to all interested in Highland affairs: he was the Raasay crofter who between 1962 and 1976 built the road that ever since has borne his name, having failed to get the relevant authorities to provide one. More

Postbox
Letter to minister
Through your columns I would like to thank all those who supported my petition to the Scottish Parliament, calling on the Government not to accept the main recommendations of the Shucksmith report on crofting. More

Some other reports and features from this month’s print edition

Foundation considers forest purchase as lodge works go on
£1.52m Glencanisp project to start
You might think they had plenty on their plate with a million plus renovation programme for Glencanisp Lodge about to begin, but the Assynt Foundation, the parish’s newest public landowners, are hoping to extend their 44,400-acre holding of mountain, loch and hill with around 2,471 acres of Forestry Commission land at Ledmore. 1,123 words.

Darwin inspires Kerracher gardeners
A magical garden located in one of the loveliest parts of Assynt, and accessible only by sea, is to become even more magical this year when husband and wife, Peter and Trish Kohn, open an extension to the garden which the “Independent” has included in a list of the “10 best gardens to visit in summer”. Boat trips from Kylesku are available three times a week in the season time. 487 words.

History file
by Malcolm Bangor-Jones
In November 1850 the recently established Inverness Advertiser contained an article on the Highland Clearances which drew attention to events at “Abirscross, in Sutherlandshire, where the people lived in comfort, and paid their rents regularly; but, on a foreign migrant coveting their lands for a sheep walk, were ordered immediately to remove.” 714 words.

‘Positive feelings’ for forest trust becoming landowners
Group left ‘high and dry’ over log cabin
The North Sutherland Community Forest Trust, which we reported in December as expressing interest in purchasing up to 16,500 acres of mainly-afforested Forestry Commission land in Farr and Kildonan, is delighted with the public’s response to their proposals, but feel they still have some way to go in explaining what they are about. More

Foundation rebuked over MacKenzie petition
The petition to the Scottish Parliament by Netta MacKenzie from Elphin calling on the parliament to urge the Scottish Government not to adopt the main recommendations of the Shucksmith report on crofting is being closed on the grounds that communities will have a further opportunity to make their views known when the draft Bill is published and that the issues raised by the petitioner could also be considered as part of the Parliament’s scrutiny of the Bill and amended as necessary. More

Litir bhon ’a Cheathramh
le Alasdair MacMhaoirn
Aig àm na Nollaig seo chaidh bha mi ann an Ontario, Canada, agus fhuair mi cothrom tadhal air sgoil Mnjikaning Kendaasawin a chaidh a chur air chois leis an treubh Ojibwe. ’S e sgoil sònraichte a th’ ann, on a chaidh curriculum a dhealbhadh a bheireadh a-steach mòran dhen dualchas aca fhèin. Abair ceum mòr a th’ ann, air sàillibh eachdraidh dòrainneach is cruaidh cas a bh’ ann nuair a bh’ aca ri dèiligeadh ris an Riaghaltas. (Bilingual) More

Some other reports and features from this month’s print edition

Fiona Burnett talks to Joni Gray, Tongue
Having enjoyed her childhood growing up in Tongue, the sixteen year old teenager headed for the bright lights of London staying for four years, enjoying a whirlwind romance when she met her husband-to-be and became engaged after just three weeks of meeting him, becoming his wife four months later.

Postbox
Gulf Stream not taken into account
It’s a strange argument against global warming to suggest (Am Bratach January 2009), on the evidence of US scientists, that no forest plantings should be done north of 50 degrees N, i.e. north of The Lizard in Cornwall.

An Appreciation
The late Winnie Mackay
Now all we have are our memories, memories that will stay in our souls, treasured forever, for Winnie Mackay was what the real people of Sutherland will know as a true daughter of that county, beautiful, honest and brimming with kindness, so capable and with such a sense of humour she could disarm the Devil, and she called a spade a spade.

Crofters Commission in hot water as some crofters' views overlooked
Crofters in Ullapool and Coigach were disappointed to discover in last month's Bratach that their views on the Scottish Rural Development Programme and the Shucksmith report, the subject matter of a Crofters Commssion meeting held in Ullapool on July 1 of last year, were not recorded. More

Obituary
Gordon Rutherford DL
March 29 1925 - November 16 2008
Gordon Rutherford, who died on November 16 aged 83 was a legend in his lifetime. His family came from Kildonan and a touch of gold was always about him — in his speech, in his humour, in his gift for friendship with all and sundry, in his glamour and his earthiness. More

Bookends
by Kevin Crowe
“The Beatles in Scotland” by Ken McNab, Polygon, 2008. £20.
I was twelve when the Beatles had their first big hit, and the band — along with Bob Dylan — provided the soundtrack to my teenage years. Each record was bought as it came out. The singles and EPs have long since gone, and the LPs replaced by CDs, but I still regularly listen to their music. This beautifully written and illustrated book will be a welcome addition to the shelves of all Beatles’ fans. More

Some other reports and features from this month’s print edition

The guga hunters
It takes a feat of imagination for those tied to the land and a more sheltered existence to understand what it is like to live in close proximity to howling gales, jagged rocks and the cruel sea. And even if we do have a smattering of understanding, it is easy to relegate such lifestyles — especially in their more extreme manifestations — to times gone by.

Postbox
Purity of race too difficult a concept
Imagine the fear which the headline “I`m an endangered species” struck into the heart of a male of a certain age. After realising John Macleod, son of the eminent principal of the Free Church College, and friend of crofters, was the author of the Daily Mail article I thought I could relax.

History File
by Malcolm Bangor-Jones
David Hird’s excellent book, A Light in the Wilderness, tells the story of the building of the lighthouse at Cape Wrath and includes a full transcript of the very detailed specification and the contract signed with John Gibb from Aberdeen in the summer of 1827.

Local group set sights on Forestry Commission land
As the Scottish Government consults on what has been claimed to be the part-privatisation of the Forestry Commission in Scotland, a charitable company with members in the parishes of Durness, Tongue and Farr has expressed interest in acquiring up to 16,500 acres of commission-owned land, most but not all of it planted, in the parishes of Kildonan and Farr. More

Postbox
Government listens to crackpots
I have been a crofter for forty-four years, ever since my father gave me the croft when I was sixteen. My people have been fighting all kinds of weird policies proposed by strange-thinking academics who wanted to change crofting to a fairy world, but the Shucksmith recommendations take the ticket. More

Fiona Burnett talks to Hamish Campbell, Durness
Shepherding is in his blood. Perhaps not surprising given that his great great grandfather was the first shepherd at Arnaboll, Hope, where his father and grandmother were born. He has sold his hardy breed of Lairg type North Country Cheviot tups as far south as Cornwall and as far north as Shetland. More

Some other reports and features from this month’s print edition

No plans to cull deer on Little Assynt says chairman
The Assynt Crofters Trust raised fears at a recent meeting in the parish that the neighbouring estate of Little Assynt, owned by the Culag Community Woodland Trust since 2000, is planning to plant trees on the open hill with damaging financial consequences for their own operation.

What the commission heard
We can reveal that crofting and environment minister, Mike Russell MSP, did not request public meetings held in the summer about the Shuckmith report and the new Scotland Rural Development Programme (SRDP).

History File
by Malcolm Bangor-Jones
In the mid 1820s the Reay estate management made strenuous efforts to end the illicit distilling of whisky by the small tenants, a practice often referred to as “smuggling”. On January 11 1827, John Horsburgh, Lord Reay’s factor based at the House of Tongue, issued instructions to Hugh MacIntosh, the ground officer for the parish of Eddrachillis, to collect all the copper still pots.

November 2008

Real test of crofter opinion came with recommendations
Evidence not so rigorous and compelling as Shucksmith says
Speaking at the Scottish Crofting Foundation's annual gathering in early October, Professor Mark Shucksmith took the opportunity to hit back at critics of his recent report and its recommendations for the future of crofting, writes a correspondent. More

Gone but not forgotten
November 11 is a special day in the calendar, known by various names, in particular Remembrance Day, Poppy Day and Armistice Day. More

Postbox
Mailbus journeys with a difference
It was lovely to read about “Donnie the Mails” in last month’s Bratach. It brought back many happy memories. More

Some other reports and features from this month’s print edition

Postbox
Too much advice
“Who dug the crofts out of the hill?” enquired an exasperated crofter from Stoer towards the end of a long presentation on the merits of the Shucksmith report, which he did not seem to agree with.

The man with the cow
John Macdonald, author and compiler of “Rogart: The Story of a Sutherland Crofting Parish”, looks back on the life of the man whose photo appears on the cover of his book
Since launching the reprint and second edition of our book on Rogart parish I am often asked the question “who is the man with the cow”?

Shucksmith report: a response to David Forbes
‘Stirring stuff, but none of it is true’
by Alistair MacIver
If you focus on the substance of David Forbes' criticism of the Shucksmith Report in his "personal view" article (Am Bratach, August 2008), you'll be struck by how similar some of his views are to those of the Scottish Crofting Foundation.

October 2008

Invercharron games roundup
“If I never attend another Highland games, I’ll remember this one,” says Invercharron Traditional Highland Games president, Morag Chalmers, of last month’s event. “I thoroughly enjoyed the day. More

Postbox
Voters ignored
Rob Gibson’s letter in last month’s Bratach is worrying and disturbing. More

Bookends
by Kevin Crowe
“Scotland and the Union 1707-2007”. Edited by TM Devine. Edinburgh University Press, 2008. £14.95.
It is an irony of history that, 300 years after the Union of Scotland with England, a Nationalist administration is in power at Holyrood. More

Some other reports and features from this month’s print edition

‘Not Shucksmith’ report goes to crofting Minister
As we went to press, the Scottish Government confirmed that Mike Russell MSP, the environment (and crofting) Minister, was due to announce precisely at 2.35pm on Wednesday, October 1, his government’s long-awaited response to the Shucksmith report on the future of crofting.

Fiona Burnett talks to Donald Mackay, Scourie
By the time Lochinver-born Donald Mackay from Scourie came into the world, his father, also Donald, was reported to have consumed forty-seven cups of tea!

Lady Elizabeth recalls life during the last war
During the World War II, women from all walks of life came together in the form of the Women’s Land Army, a non-military organisation, where thousands of women all across the country threw themselves into men’s boots, working the land to provide the country with much needed food.

September 2008

Foundation meets MacRae as Shucksmith suffers delay
A sense of emergency at the Scottish Crofting Foundation may have prompted a meeting between their leaders and one of the principal critics of the Shucksmith report on crofting, and of the organisation’s surprising reaction to it. More

Hats that are not for wearing!
by Andrew Marshall
Since the Bratach has a much wider circulation than in its own postcode no doubt some readers shop at a Sainsbury branch. More

Postbox
English was never big in Caithness until Dounreay
I just want to thank you for publishing Dr Stiubhart’s article on the history of Gaelic as spoken in Caithness. More

History file
by Malcolm Bangor-Jones
The economic depression which followed the Napoleonic Wars hit the Highlands hard. More

Some other reports and features from this month’s print edition

Postbox
Seeing the bright side of Shucksmith
“Sort out the Crofters Commission”, was the main message agreed by over 120 crofters and crofting representatives at a meeting in Broadford last summer, according to the Free Press and The Crofter.

Obituary
Jessie Rooney, 1923-2008
Jessie Rooney was born at Riverside Cottage, Hope, on August 15 1923, third eldest of nine children born to Isa and Jessan Gow

The Assynt Highland Games in words and pictures
It was a day of record smashing in the heavy division at this year’s Assynt Highland Gathering, held in the Culag Park on Friday, August 8.

Durness Games: place of reunion
At the opening ceremony, this year’s chieftain, Cate Jackson, said she had never missed a Durness Highland Gathering since 1970, despite living away all her adult years. More

Bernd’s KLB swim marks his 50th visit
Bernd Retzlaff, a high school teacher in Berlin, first visited the Oldshore-Kinlochbervie area in 1973, writes Andrew Marshall. More

Postbox
Oran a’ Phetition
Over one hundred years ago Màiri Mhòr nan Oran remarked that her people had become so strange that sorrow was wheat to them. More

View from the croft gate
by John Macdonald
Haymaking is the task of the moment and, of course, the weather has decided to play up. More

Some other reports and features from this month’s print edition

Assynt trust unhappy with Shucksmith crofting report
Skye-born advocate issues warning
In a letter sent to the Scottish Government minister for the environment, the Assynt Crofters Trust has become what is believed to be the first established crofters’ organisation to publicly criticise recommendations contained in the report of the Committee of Inquiry into Crofting.

The Shucksmith report — a personal view
‘Shucksmith claims a croft is a public asset, like a municipal park’
The Shucksmith report or crofting enquiry is a modern-day “consultation” for the new Scottish Government, writes David Forbes.

Downtown crofting on the up
When I wrote that July article about incomers boostng land usage I hoped to get some reaction, writes Andrew Marshall.

July 2008

Wedding in a romantic setting
by Fiona Burnett
Castle Varrich, the ruined castle overlooking the village and Kyle of Tongue, believed by some to have been a stopping off place for the bishop of Caithness on his visits to Durness in the late Middle Ages, was a centre of attraction on Saturday, June 21 — Midsummer’s Day — at three o’clock when family and friends gathered to witness local painter and decorator Scott Coghill and German-born Silke Plass exchanged marriage vows. More

Sisters make dash for charity
Strathnaver sisters, Marsaili (left) and Catriona MacLeod, raised £450 for Cancer Research UK when they took part in the charity’s “Race for life” in Aberdeen on June 2. More

Bookends
by Kevin Crowe
Mandy Haggith “The Last Bear”, Two Ravens Press, 2008. £8.99.
This story, set in North West Scotland over a thousand years ago, pits two groups against each other: the Vikings from Scandinavia who at the time the novel is set have settled to a mainly peaceful life and the Celts who earlier arrived in Scotland from across what is now known as the Irish Sea. More

The Inner Man
by Chris Duckham
At the restaurant we love to use the freshest local fish, and one of my personal favourites is sea trout. More

Some other reports and features from this month’s print edition

Shucksmith report receives poor reception at North West meetings
You would not guess by listening to crofters in North West Sutherland that the “authentic voice of Scottish crofters” is conveyed in the Shucksmith report on the future of crofting.

New life is being breathed into Kinlochbervie crofting
A woman in Harrogate phoning a friend in Kinlochbervie said: “I’m fed up with the rising cost of food; I’m going to grow my own."

Fiona Burnett talks to Douglas Pearson, Skerray
Douglas Pearson, Achtoty, Skerray, has experienced life from a great height.

Lairg Music Festival: a matter of teamwork
At the 2008 Lairg Music Festival the usual array of musical talent drawn from all round the country was on display.

June 2008

‘Dangerous’ Shucksmith raises crofter temperatures
The Shucksmith report on crofting, published last month, has been described to us as a "dangerous" document offering "Eastern block" solutions to the challenges facing today's crofter. More

Gallaibh nan Gàidheal ’s nan Gall (Caithness of the Gael and the Lowlander)
by Domhnall Uilleam Stiùbhart
Recently we’ve all been hearing and reading rather a lot of opinions, not all of them particularly well-informed, about the question of Caithness’s Gaelic heritage. More

Backcoaster’s diary
It seems that conservation plans reported in these columns a month ago, plans designed to save the River Naver from anglers, are not going according to plan. More

Nature’s call
by Andy Summers
I was feeling a bit sore this morning. More

History file
by Malcolm Bangor-Jones
In July 1765 the factor for the estate of Coigach in the parish of Lochbroom reported that several of the tenants had lost cows, horses, sheep and goats during the previous winter. More

May 2008

Scotland-wide rural scheme ‘discriminates’ says MacRae
Crofters’ leader, Allan MacRae of 83 Torbreck, Lochinver, describes aspects of the Scottish government’s flagship Scottish Rural Development Programme, which received EU approval in January, as “hugely disappointing”. More

Skye parents aim for Gaelic school
by Arthur Cormack
Ninety-nine children currently attend Gaelic-medium in Portree, while 136 attend the “mainstream” school. More

Nostalgic reunion for Lovat Scouts
by Willie Morrison
Three Lovat Scout veterans of World War II relived the dangers, fears and excitement of more than sixty years ago when they met again this week for lunch at Achness House Hotel, near Rosehall. More

Litir bhon ’a Cheathramh
le Alasdair MacMhaoirn
Taighean Geala agus smachd sòisealta. Thàinig an smaoin seo a-steach orm bho chionn ghoirid nuair a fhuair mi brath bho charaid mu colbh a bh’ anns The Herald (12/4/08). (Billingual) More

Bookends
by Kevin Crowe
Review: The Thistle and the Crescent” by Bashir Maan. Argyll Publishing 2008. £12.99. More

Rhiconich crofter favours right to buy
In evidence submitted to the Scottish government’s Committee of Crofting Inquiry, a North West Sutherland crofter, who for a number of years was a prominent member of the Scottish Crofters Union North West Sutherland Area, illustrates the advantages of both the tenant’s right to buy and of the tenancy system itself. More

Council ploughs on with ‘cluster’ head at primaries
Opposition by Tongue parents to the joint headship of Tongue, Farr and Melvich primary schools, revealed in Am Bratach last month, has not deterred Highland Council from pressing ahead with the appointment of a single teacher to supervise the three schools. More

Local lads set up building business in Tongue area
A brand new building business, Kyle of Tongue Construction, has been set up by Graeme Gunn, Melness, and Richard Mackay from Tongue. More

St Kilda — the edge of the world
by Jaqqi Carney
It is no easy feat getting your feet on St Kilda. More

Nature’s call
by Paul Castle
The early part of the year is a relatively quiet period for us countryside rangers before the mad, head-down rush of spring and summer really begins. More

Parent council was ignored over ‘cluster’ appointment
Education bosses performed a climbdown of sorts the day after we questioned the local authority’s procedures for appointing a new joint head teacher to Tongue, Farr and Melvich primary schools. More

Writers and artists explore Strathbrora
Thumbing through this booklet, some will ask why it has been published by a heritage society when the first impressions are of a work not obviously concerned with the past. More

Litir bhon ’a Cheathramh
by Alasdair MacMhaoirn
Deagh naidheachd ann an Inbhir Theòrsa! (Billingual.) More

History file
by Malcolm Bangor-Jones
In 1818 Dugald Gilchrist took over the sheep-farm of Shinness: some of the large population of sub tenants were not permitted to remain or chose not to. More

Planner’s dream
After examining evidence garnered from seventeen public meetings held in June and August of last year...More

Broadband on the blink for two days
by Fiona Burnett
Broadband users in Strathnaver, Altnaharra and Kinbrace, left without a connection for two days late last month, were told their computers were to blame. More

Ùrachadh success at Celtic Connections
Taigh na Gàidhlig Mhealanais project, Ùrachadh, was well received at Celtic Connections, where the multimedia show made its festival debut at the Tron Theatre on Burns Night, reports secretary, Catriona MacLeod. More

View from the croft gate
by John MacDonald
I see that regulation about the double tagging of sheep is kicking in about now. More

History file
by Malcolm Bangor-Jones
The new sheep farm of Shinness was let to the Matheson family in 1808. Ten years later it was taken over by Dugald Gilchrist of Ospisdale, sheep farmer, road contractor and minor landlord. More

Gaelic accounts not acceptable
A small Skye-based company has challenged the notion that the Gaelic language has no place in official documentation by submitting its annual report and accounts for 2006-2007 to Companies House, Edinburgh, in Gaelic alone. More

Blas Festival latest invite for minstrels
Ùrachadh, the group of Caithness and Sutherland Gaelic singers and musicians — presently preparing for their first appearance at Celtic Connections on January 25 — have further dates to add to their diary, following an approach from the Blas Festival. More

Rob Donn descendant gives talk at Farr ceilidh
American Ellen Beard, a former labour lawyer turned student of Gaelic at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, who has the distinction of been descended from the Mackay bard, Rob Donn (1714-1778), spoke of his poetry and of her family connection to the illustrious poet at a special ceilidh organised by George Gunn, writer-in-residence at Strathnaver Museum, Elliot Rudie and their associates at the museum. It was held in the Farr Bay Inn, Bettyhill, just over a month ago. More

Fiona Burnett talks to
Cathie Barbara Mackay, Tongue
An interest in people and surroundings began early in life for Cathie Barbara Mackay, a former Tongue councillor, and district nurse respectively, who, at the age of ten found her voice. More

Backcoaster’s Diary
In the month of the year when people all over the world celebrate the birthday of Scotland’s most famous poet, it is worth remembering Robert Burns’s talent for extemporaneous composition. More

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 Links to featured, high quality web sites 

best of the bratach An attractive site showing to some of the most interesting and enjoyable stories that have been published by Am Bratach in the past

nwscca North West Sutherland Council for Community Action, publishers of Am Bratach and this web site

urachadh.org.uk Site of a well known Gaelic group's showcase project