Wednesday 24 November

Well, winter is slowly encroaching upon us once more. A heavy shower has just left a coating of hailstones on walls and pavements, and the hail shows no signs of being in a hurry to melt. In the northeast of mainland Scotland, a heavy fall of snow has caused disruption to road travel, with many roads blocked or only passable with extreme caution.

I was deeply saddened to hear that a second explosion has ripped through the coalmine in New Zealand, where 29 miners were trapped since a first blast last weekend. There is now no hope that they will come out alive. It comes as a bitter disappointment to the relatives, who had hoped for a repeat of the Chilean miracle. The mine's owners have pledged to make every effort to retrieve the remains of the dead.

I would just like to link to the story of the couple who won a reality-TV contest with their island-based wedding.

Just to close this post, an image of a nice parhelion that appeared for 5 minutes just before 11 o'clock this morning.

Tuesday 23 November

A wet morning, with occasional heavy showers. The date for the royal wedding between William Wales and Kate Middleton has been fixed for Friday 29th April 2011.

This was the day in 1945 that Adolf Hitler got married to Eva Braun. They committed suicide within 48 hours of their marriage. April 30th is the eve of Beltane, the start of the light half of the year. April 30th is Walpurgis Night, the date on the pagan calendar on which the evil spirits of the winter half year would be exorcised. Probably unknown to Adolf Hitler, who was brought to his wit's end by the collapse of his 12 year reign of terror. April 30th is also the date in Holland on which the Queen celebrates her birthday; Queen Beatrix will be 73 this year. I don't know if she will attend the wedding in London; she'd have to hare back to Holland pretty sharply in order to attend the celebrations there.

More later.

Monday 22 November

A bright day, with not much change in conditions. We are under warning for much colder weather by the end of the week, with daytime maximum temps barely above freezing. Those that are reading this in the Pacific Northwest of the USA will probably chuckle as they have now dived below freezing and are having falls of snow.

The Irish Republic is having a cashflow crisis, and requiring a £90bn bail-out from various international money suppliers. Other EU member states, Greece, Spain and Portugal, are in equally dire straits. I am told that Ireland is peppered with unfinished housing schemes which were started, but never finished. Plugging one hole with another do tends to collapse on you at some stage, and that's what has happened here. I remember Ireland being hailed as the Celtic Tiger. I also remember the Arc of Prosperity, Iceland, Ireland and Scotland. Well, we all know what happened in Iceland, Ireland is following suit, and Scotland would have been leader in the pack if the UK government had not bailed out the Bank of Scotland and Royal Bank of Scotland a year or so ago.

More tomorrow.

Sunday pics

Sunday 21 November

Autumn is now two thirds gone, and it is getting cold. Overnight low was at freezing. Although the sun did manage to jack the mercury to 8C before lunchtime, cloud came in and we had some rain in the afternoon. Before midday, went for a walk on the Braighe beach, about 3-4 miles east of Stornoway. Visibility was extremely good, and we paid for the privilege with an outbreak of rain in the afternoon.

Spent said afternoon transcribing more tributes from 1917 onto my WW1 tribute site, and also watching some or another film on TV. Typical Sunday, not much doing at all.

Did I say there is also nothing doing on the hurricane front? The Atlantic season is drawing to a close on Tuesday of next week, and the southern hemisphere season has yet to fire up. The only area I am keeping an eye on is located in the middle of the Arabian Sea  - but even the Joint Typhoon Warning Center is not actively monitoring 92A.

Saturday 20 November

Bright and sunny day after a chilly start. A light overnight frost (-1C) left a layer of rime on the grass. But hardly a cloud in the sky, and only by sunset time (4pm) was there some more cloud. We managed to reach 9C, but the mercury is falling rapidly, and an overnight low of -3C is anticipated.

Went to the library this morning to collect more tribute articles from the 1917 Stornoway Gazette. I now have most of them, with the exception of the months of November and December. There are one or two queries resulting from this lot, so that will keep me busy for a little while.

Following the Chilean miners triumphant reemergence from their mine a few weeks ago, the same outcome is hoped for in New Zealand. However, the 26 miners missing from a mine in the South Island were working in a coalmine, and an accumulation of methane gas has increased fears of a further explosion, after they were cut off after an initial blast. Sight, sound nor signal has been heard from the miners.

Friday 19 November

Not too bad a day, with the odd light shower and a moderate breeze. The ferry is playing catch-up, making three crossings today, rather than the scheduled two. As I type, it is coming into port for the second time today. Its final sailing will be at 9.15pm tonight.

At 11 this morning, I attended the Registry Office here in the Town Hall to request information regarding one of the WW1 casualties from Lewis: Daniel Maciver. I was unable to locate his birth record - because he had changed his name from Donald to Daniel. He was born on 4 February 1878 at lot 10, Coll, to Kenneth and Mary. He was the fourth of (in the end) 12 children. The family emigrated to what was to become Saskatchewan Province. I have printed the rest of his story on the Pentland Road blog. The significance of this information is that Daniel is not mentioned on any of the island war memorials.

Tragedy struck a family in Northern Ireland last Sunday, after their 13-year old daughter was found dead. She had inhaled helium gas - which people do to make their voice sound squeaky. Helium causes muscles to contract in the throat, which gives rise to the "Donald Duck" effect. The gas is mixed in with compressed air, used by divers, to counteract the sleepiness, caused by the nitrogen (which makes up 78% of the air we breathe). However, everything taken in excess can be dangerous, and this tragic accident has highlighted the hazards of playing with helium.

Thursday 18 November

On the surface, quite a nice day. A bit of a breeze, no rain, decent amounts of brightness, if not overt sunshine. Why on earth, you might ask, have we not seen anything of the ferry since it left our shores yesterday morning at 7 am?

Well, there is this force 7 wind blowing out of the east, which will have churned up the waters of the Minch to such an extent that it is not safe for a ferry to sail. A few years ago, someone told me a story of a crossing in a force 9, which broke all the crockery in the pantry and smashed the wee bookshop. I have sailed the Minch in a force 7, which was accompanied by the sound of breaking crocks. And a fair amount of green smoke, wafting behind the ferry boat as it manfully tackled the swell. The image at the bottom of this post is from that day.

Tomorrow, we should see the good ole Isle of Lewis returning at around 7.45 am, and make a total of three return crossings during the day, to catch up with traffic. Other routes are similarly affected by the weather, although the alternative to Ullapool - Stornoway, the Uig - Tarbert crossing, is running as normal. More information on Hebrides News.

Wednesday 17 November

A windy day, which has seen our ferry cancelled after it sailed to Ullapool in the morning. We have a steady force 7 going from the southeast. The temperature, 10C, may sound decent for mid-November, but is not all that great in the strong wind.

I have spent the day building a new blog, called Pentland Road. It holds the collection of blogposts from the past 6 years, related to local (or regional) history. To quote the "About" section: The Pentland Road is a single-track road that runs between Stornoway and the villages of Breasclete and Carloway. It is a historical roadway, and I hope to make this blog a conduit for what I have found out about this island's history. 

The idea for this new site was inspired by the activities of blogger Direcleit, whose blog contains a wealth of information about the history of the Long Island (Lewis & Harris). My focus is a lot narrower - World War I and the Napier Commission Report.

On a totally different subject, I was amazed to learn that scientists had managed to create and maintain 38 antimatter hydrogen atoms for a few tenths of a second. When 'normal' matter and antimatter meet, they are both destroyed, releasing energy. That is what lies behind Einstein's famous E = mc² (E=energy, m=mass, c=speed of light). We are all bundles of energy... I probably lost the lot of you by now.

Tuesday 16 November

Although it is dry today, there is a strengthening southerly wind, and the ferry company Calmac has already warned us to expect disruptions on the ferries. Just as well I ain't going on one. Spent an enjoyable morning helping someone track down the location of two disused schools in Harris, and consequently prompting someone else on a trip down memory lane in the general vicinity of Maraig, some 6 miles north of Tarbert.

I have just completed looking up which U-boats sank which British ships during WW1. Some strange tales there, but mostly rather sad. The fact that Remembrance Sunday is over does not mean we should stop paying attention to what happened in those war years, nearly 100 years ago.

The big news of the day is that Prince William (eldest son of the Prince of Wales) has announced a date for his marriage to Kate Middleton, whom he has been seeing for a couple of years. As Prince Charles put it in his characteristically blunt fashion: they've been practicing enough. In other words, we're going to be bored out of our wits over the next couple of months. Yes, I know I'm cynical. I just hope it doesn't end in tears, like the previous royal weddings of 1981 and 1986.


Maraig, 6 September 2009

Donald Trump and his Golf Course

American multi-millionaire Donald Trump has worked over the past 5 years to get a "world class" golf course constructed just north of Aberdeen. It involves a £1bn investment, 900 homes, 500 chalets and a hotel. The location is the Menie Estate, 6 miles north of the city, which is the location of a protected wildlife habitat. And the location of the homes of several people, who have no desire to shift.

Mr Trump has, through means fair and foul, acquired planning permission. He gave out the line that anybody who would dare to oppose his development would be seen to be closing the door on big business in Aberdeenshire. So when the planning permission was denied on the casting vote of the commission chairman, he was vilified (mildly put) in the local press. The planning application was called in by the Scottish Government and approved.

The residents who do not want to sell up are under threat of a compulsory purchase order, but whether that will actually be exercised remains to be seen.

Mr Trump is a businessman with a capital B (which I refuse to use in this blogpost), who only, and exclusively, thinks of money. That is fair enough. He trumpets (sic) his Scottish heritage ad nauseam, but then does not realise that people in Scotland do not have this pre-occupation with dollars (or pounds) that he has. Which completely negates the morality behind his claim to be Scottish. Yes, his mother was Scottish, and came from a small village a few miles north of Stornoway. Donald Trump comprehensively fails to understand that land is sacred to the rural Scot. I have been boring readers on this blog over the past few weeks with accounts of the Clearances in the Highlands and Islands - and here we have another Clearance looming, in the year 2010. OK, I am overstating my case, I mean, what are half a dozen people, scattered across a croft, a farmhouse and a converted coastguard station? But it's the principle that's at stake.

The principle is that in Scotland, money is not the leading light. It is important, for sure. But people are more important, and there is legislation in place to protect people from overdue pressure by big money. Mr Trump is completely within his rights to express a desire to build something on the coast of Aberdeenshire, and I respect him for being a successful businessman. But I hold no respect for a man in his position who rides roughshod over the little man, in his own pursuit of even more money.

Monday 15 November

No post yesterday, as I was spending my time recovering from a streaming cold on Saturday. Back on form today, and it was a cold day. A band of rain passed over at lunchtime, after which the sun returned. It did not do much to lift temperatures: mid forties Fahrenheit (around 6C) is the best we managed.

Thirteen months after being captured off the Seychelles, Paul and Rachel Chandler were released from Somalia yesterday. They were not treated very well, and the couple looked gaunt and haggard, although happy, on television. The British government has denied that it contributed towards the ransome money, paid towards the pirates. To said pirates, the Chandlers were just a commodity, which would, given time, yield millions of dollars. Somalia has no effective government and has been torn apart by two decades of civil war.

Today, it is 6 years ago since I first arrived in Lewis. I link to the entry on my Northern Trip blog.

Lochmaddy (July 1994)


Berneray (July 2009)


Leverburgh (July 2009)


Scaladale, North Harris (October 2007)


Balallan at dusk (January 2008)

November days

The month of November is full of anniversaries, most of them sad. This week I have already referred to the Reichskristallnacht on November 9th and Armistice Day on Thursday.

That day, November 11th, is also Martinmas, the nameday of St Martin, patron saint of travellers and children. He is credited with handing his cloak to a beggar, when the latter had nothing (see tag below). Up until recently, children in Holland, Flanders and Germany would go round the streets in the evening of 11th November, carrying paper lanterns.


Today, I am informed, Sinterklaas (St Nicholas) has made his formal entry in the Netherlands. His nameday is December 6th, but that in itself is not observed. It is rather the eve of his nameday, 5th December, which is sees a lot of festivities in Holland, Flanders and Germany.

St Nicholas was bishop of Myra (present-day Smyrna in Turkey). After his death, his bones were interred in Myra, but when the Muslims conquered Turkey, Nicholas's bones were spirited across the Mediterranean to Spain.

It is from there (the legend goes) that he sails north in November in a steamship with a possy of Black Peters as his helpers. Black Peter, a reference to the Moors [North Africans] that once ruled Spain, is a bogeyman figure, as children are threatened that he will take them back to Spain if they misbehave. And all their misdemeanours are entered in St Nicholas's big book. The saint rides the streets of Holland on his white charger, with the Black Peters throwing sweeties around. At night, he rides the rooftops and throws presents down the chimneys. At the bottom of said chimneys, the children will have put out a shoe with a carrot for the horse; which will be substituted by a present from St Nicholas in the morning.

By the age of 8, children are usually told the truth of St Nicholas, and the set-up changes. Lots are drawn in families for presents to be bought for one other family members. This is then wrapped in a surprise wrapper. Our family tradition of hiding the presents and leaving instructions to the hiding place was abandoned, as the giver of one present forgot where they had hidden their present - and it is still in that forgotten location, more than 35 years later...

I would like to point out that Sinterklaas or St Nicholas has been corrupted to Santa Klaus in the Anglo-Saxon world (of UK and USA). The notion of Father Christmas is held with derision in Holland, although he has been embraced by the commercially minded. I shudder to remember the unedifying spectacle of Father Christmas and Sinterklaas coming to blows in the centre of one Dutch city, some years ago.

Saturday 13 November

A slightly sniffly morning (where's me hankies), otherwise not too bad in terms of sunshine and clouds. I've just been going through my list of blogs I follow through Blogger, and had to remove about a third of them: because they had been deleted or been made private. I am now following 118 blogs. I don't normally use Blogger for checking on journals; I have a number of you on Feedblitz, which emails me every day on any updates; and the vast majority on Google Reader. Nonetheless, over the past two years, a lot of bloggers have quit blogging: and by that I primarily mean ex-AOL bloggers.

Some two hours ago, the Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi was released from another spell of house arrest, amidst rapturous acclaim by her supporters. Ms Suu Kyi will make another appearnace tomorrow at midday local time. She is aged 65, and has been under house arrest for 15 out of the past 20 years. The ruling military junta in Rangoon has kept a tight control over her, and used the merest of pretexts for imposing house arrest. The last episode, 18 months ago, was sparked by an American admirer swimming across the lake behind her house, not by Ms Suu Kyi's request.

Friday 12 November

A quiet Friday, with the odd shower and some spectacular rainbows. The sun set more than an hour ago, and although the moon is out, I'm not expected any "moonbows". Last night, there was allegedly some aurora borealis, but I did not see any of it. Neither did I feel like traipsing out to Mossend for a clear view of the northern horizon.

The storms that battered the north of England last night have claimed one life. A lady, who was a passenger in a car, died after the vehicle was struck by a falling tree. A limb pierced the windscreen and the woman was impaled on it. She succumbed to her injuries in hospital; the driver is seriously injured. Winds in north Wales reached in excess of 90 mph in gusts, and caused extensive travel disruption. The gales are abating, and the clear-up can commence.

I'm transcribing tributes from the Stornoway Gazette for WW1 victims, and the result of one of these is shown in my previous post.

Not remembered

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission has put the details of Evander Macleod, who drowned in the torpedoing of HMS Otway in July 1917, neatly on its website. Following the heavy loss of Lewis sailors in that sinking, the Stornoway Gazette also made mention of their names. Evander has since slipped under the radar. The Roll of Honour, published in 1921, does not refer to his death; the Lewis War Memorial does not mention him, and neither does the Point War Memorial at Garrabost, only a few miles from his former home at 34 Lower Bayble.

The loss of life during WW1 was, proportionately, heavy in the Isle of Lewis, and it is only to be expected that a few unfortunates will be missed in transcription. I trust that in time for Remembrance Sunday, Evander will be given the proper place amongst the ranks of island men who made the supreme sacrifice during the Great War.

Thursday evening

Today was a typical November day, fairly cold, breezy and showery. On the weather front, the most noteable feature was the barometric pressure: we went down to 954 mbar at one stage, and Barra (120 miles south of here) to 948 mbar. This basically means that a deep depression crossed over the Outer Hebrides. It also meant that we had relatively calm conditions, much in contrast to west Wales, which is seeing sustained winds in excess of 60 mph, gusting to 76 mph. The north of England is reporting atrocious weather this evening - like we had on Sunday night. At the moment, it is quite calm with northwesterly winds of 9 mph.

The broadband went off for about 6 hours this evening, but I had set up an account with a dial-up company just in case. Well, 32 kbps is nothing in comparison to the 2 Mbps I get on broadband. Websites take many minutes to load, if at all, and I just cannot imagine how we ever managed on dial-up. However, websites have become very heavy features to load, and it's not until you are reduced to snail-pace connection speeds that you come to realise that. Fortunately, at around 9.30pm, service was returned to normal.

Here in the Isle of Lewis, the electricity company SSE has announced it is deferring a decision on building a subsea cable to the Scottish mainland. This is required to transport the electricity output from the island's proposed renewable energy projects (windfarms) to the mainland; the existing link does not have sufficient capacity. This means that more than a dozen windfarms are in the doldrums, and their construction has had to be put on hold. I have always been quite vociferous in my opposition to these projects, and will not be so hypocritical as to deplore SSE's decision. The local council is furious, saying it will deprive the local economy of £2.5m per annum. A tidy sum, but in the grand scheme of things - a tiny sum. Should the projects ever come on-line, then the revenue for the likes of SSE will be a factor 1000 bigger.

Thursday 11 November

Today is the 92nd anniversary of the Armistice of 1918, when the guns fell silent after four years, three months and seven days of carnage. November 11th has since been adopted as a national day of remembrance for the UK and many other countries, who were actively involved in the First World War. The dead of the Second World War and other conflicts since are similarly commemorated on that day. Remembrance Sunday, which will be observed next Sunday (14 November) is the formal occasion of Remembrance.

Regular readers of this blog will be familiar with my research into the war dead of the Isle of Lewis, who number 1300 for the First World War. This number, when viewed in the proper perspective, is quite appalling.

Total population of Lewis in 1911: about 30,000
Total male population: about 15,000
Total number who were in active service, including the Merchant Navy: about 6,000
Total number killed between August 1914 and November 1918: about 1100
Total number drowned in the sinking of HMY Iolaire on 1 January 1919: about 200

Cruel clearances in Caithness

This triple alliteration is not attempt at levity. The county of Caithness, the far northeastern corner of mainland Scotland, saw some of the worst abuses encountered by the Napier Commission. My transcriptions took me to the coastal town of Lybster. Historically, the Commission could have done with more than just one session in Caithness, as several written statements were handed in, without people being interrogated on their content.

James Waters, a representative for Dunnet, the northernmost point on the British mainland, recounts an instance of heartrending cruelty.

An aged couple, who had brought up four sons and seven daughters on the said farm, fell a little in arrears to the landlord. The factor having unlimited power, hypothecated his subjects, and as soon as law would allow it was sold by auction for ready money; I was an eye-witness to this. The mother of this large family had been an invalid for years. The factor was looking on when all was sold off but the blankets; they were ordered to be carried out—I know not whether they were taken off the sick woman's bed or not; the people felt so disgusted no one would offer a shilling for them; had any one done so they would have got them. The factor ordered them to be carried away as they were to somewhere about the south end of the Dunnet sands. It was seen next year the factor's reason for such cruelty to this man. There were five families; he was the centre one; they were all turned out next year, and their farms made an outrun to a large farm. There has not been a plough in since; it has now become a barren waste. Another case of cruelty, two aged persons—man and wife —who had brought up a family respectably, were turned out of their home and their furniture together. They had no way to go; these two aged Christians lay six weeks beside a dyke amongst bits of furniture. At last the aged man became delirious, and wandered off through the hills; the neighbours went in search, and found him wandering with his Bible under his arm, saying he was seeking his father, who had been dead nearly thirty years. He then was allowed to put up a house in the bottom of an old quarry, and I understand is still living there.

Landing on your four feet

The pastor had a kitten that climbed up a tree in his backyard and then was afraid to come down. The pastor coaxed, offered warm milk, etc. The kitty would not come down. The tree was not sturdy enough to climb, so the pastor decided that if he tied a rope to his car and pulled it until the tree bent down, he could then reach up and get the kitten.

That's what he did, all the while checking his progress in the car. He then figured if he went just a little bit further, the tree would be bent sufficiently for him to reach the kitten. But as he moved the car a little further forward, the rope broke. The tree went 'boing!' and the kitten instantly sailed through the air - out of sight.

The pastor felt terrible. He walked all over the neighborhood asking people if they'd seen a little kitten. No. Nobody had seen a stray kitten. So he prayed, 'Lord, I just commit this kitten to your keeping,' and went on about his business.

A few days later he was at the grocery store, and met one of his church members. He happened to look into her shopping cart and was amazed to see cat food. This woman was a cat hater and everyone knew it, so he asked her, 'Why are you buying cat food when you hate cats so much?' She replied, 'You won't believe this,' and then told him how her little girl had been begging her for a cat, but she kept refusing. Then a few days before, the child had begged again, so the Mom finally told her little girl, 'Well, if God gives you a cat, I'll let you keep it.' She told the pastor, 'I watched my child go out in the yard, get on her knees, and ask God for a cat. And really, Pastor, you won't believe this, but I saw it with my own eyes. A kitten suddenly came flying out of the blue sky, with its paws outspread, and landed right in front of her.'