Looking towards AttadalePhoto by by PeterPeter Teago AN CARRANNACH The General Interest Magazine of Lochcarron, Shieldaig, Applecross, Kishorn, Torridon & Kinlochewe Districts NO: 367 August 2018 £1.00 “Walking to the Island” and other poems. by Alan MacGillivray "Walking to the Island” is a collection of poems which, in the author’s own words, is “A poetic evocation of boyhood summer holidays in the Wester Ross village of Lochcarron in the years during and just after the second world war.” This modest description, found on the back cover of the book, is accurate enough to whet the appetite of anyone who might casually pick it up for inspection, but fails to do justice to the scope and range of the work found within its covers. “Walking to the Island” is itself a sequence of poems and prose poetry, by turns nostalgic, celebratory, descriptive and elegiac, the totality of which is considerably more than the sum of any of its constituent parts. These are poems, which, like a good malt “uisge beatha”, which in a way they resemble, need to be savoured slowly and appreciatively. Their memories, observation, humour, wit and wisdom a complex and heady distillation of experience matured over time, and served up here in verse, which has style and variety sufficient to maintain the reader’s interest over the course of the “journey”, a journey both back in time, but also into the heart and soul of a community and culture. There is the occasional flash of anger, and overall a sense of sadness entirely in keeping with the book’s dedication to the author’s late brother James MacGillivray of affectionate memory in these parts. James MacGillivray and his younger brother, Alan, come from a long-established MacKenzie family in the area. Their grandfather, John MacKenzie, or ‘Seonaidh Kenaidh’, was born in Bruaich in Slumbay, and settled in Dail a’Chladaich in the 1890s. He operated a carpenter and builders business from his workshop at the foot of the old Kishorn Road, now disappeared. Over his career, he built many buildings in the Lochcarron area, including churches and the old manse beside the West Church. His grandson, Jim MacGillivray, settled in Dail a’Chladaich after his retirement as Procurator Fiscal in Lochaber and died there at the end of 2016. “Insular poems” are what the name suggests, five poems not immediately part of that journey but related to its central theme, the Island of the Title. The poems are themselves illustrated with a number of mostly old photographs, each one evocative of a lost, though not forgotten era, or of those Carrannach who most of all, made it what it was. (Continued on page 2) 1 (Continued from page 1) WEATHER RECORD - SLUMBAY This is a book which will be appreciated not only JUNE 2018 – though particularly – by the true successors of the worthies whose lives are celebrated within its pages, but by anyone who loves poetry, or who has been caught by that special “magic” which Max Temp Min Temp Rainfall in Lochcarron, and the Gaelic west inspires. Date: in oC in oC inches 1 24.60 11.80 ----- Copies, priced £5, can be obtained from the Spar bookshop, or from Carron Pottery, proceeds from 2 26.20 12.00 0.05 the sale are being generously donated to the work 3 22.30 11.00 ----- of the Howard Doris centre. 4 21.30 9.00 ----- Francis Minay 5 22.60 8.30 ----- An T’Alltan Fial 6 23.50 9.30 ----- 7 22.60 10.80 ----- I found the following short descriptive piece of writing among my Grandfather, John Mackenzie’s 8 21.70 10.20 ----- papers and journals. Seonaidh Kenaidh as he was 9 21.00 12.30 0.03 known was born in Bruaich Cottage, in Slumbay, in 1864. I assume the little burn he describes was on 10 18.50 11.60 ------ the croft attached to the house but am open to 11 19.10 8.10 ----- correction on this. Does it still exist? He suggests it had changed considerably over the sixty years he 12 16.50 6.40 ----- looked back on it, late in his life. 13 15.10 10.50 0.93 Janie Minay 14 12.80 9.30 0.48 15 15.60 7.90 0.16 “ An T’Alltan Fial, the kindly little burn, is a small stream flowing diagonally across the croft and 16 14.90 6.40 0.34 cutting it into two parts, the upper and the lower 17 15.00 9.30 0.03 parts. The source of this stream is a spring rising out of the hill face near the summit. It is grey during the 18 14.40 8.20 0.25 cold months, but green in the early summer and yellowish in this ripening sunshine of September. 19 15.10 7.80 0.23 After a hurried rush down the slope it enters into a 20 14.80 6.30 0.39 little flat of short heather and coarse heath grass and right through the talc mines where the women of a 21 14.70 8.20 ----- former generation dug out talc with which to 22 14.50 9.70 ----- whitewash their inside walls and partitions. Now they use it for their faces and their arms instead of 23 13.50 9.90 0.03 their walls. The Alltan Fial receives many springs 24 17.30 5.80 ----- before it comes down to the level of the croft through which it noisily pursues its way. The bed is 25 19.60 7.20 ----- rather deeper than it was sixty years ago, and the 26 22.10 10.60 ----- timber growing on its banks is taller and heavier. There are trees of willow and birch and alder and 27 29.30 12.50 ----- rowan, growing close together, shading over the 28 29.10 12.60 ----- pools and the falls as if finding it good to grow, and finding it good to have their roots in the good, cool 29 26.60 11.70 ----- and clean water of the Alltan Fial. 30 28.40 12.20 ----- Just sixty years ago my boyhood came to an end. I left the croft to go and see the places beyond the ridges and the summits that surrounded the home about which I dreamed and enquired and wondered. TOTAL JUNE 2018 2.92 Now I am back trying to recall the voices and the faces and the animals and the scenery of those far RUNNING TOTAL 2018 27.48 away times. TOTAL JUNE 2017 5,60 John Mackenzie RUNNING TOTAL 2017 31.97 2 AN CARRANNACH Published by An Carrannach Society, Lochcarron. Chairperson: Joanna Macpherson Deputy Chair Roger Cundiff Editorial Content Material for publication must be emailed to Michelle Teago at [email protected] or a phone call to 01520 722688 Sub Editor Joanna Macpherson Area Representatives: Applecross: Lenore Small 01520 744 337 Kishorn: Carol Cocks 01520 733 213 Shieldaig: Lucy Kerr 01520 755 368 Torridon: Features: A Word from the Church/On Reflection Gardening – To be confirmed Nature Notes – Hatty Arthur – 01520 722 551 Email: [email protected] Advertising: [email protected] Local Rate: Entertainments, Sales, Services, Trade Whole Page £28, Half page £18, Quarter page £10 Out of Area Rate: Please email us for prices Mailing: Hilary “Post” Rooke Distribution: Anthea Zell Treasurer: Alec Cormack Mackays Cottage Strathcarron IV54 8YX 01520 722603 [email protected] Insertions: Births, marriages, deaths, acknowledgements. Congratulations, thanks notices – No charge Subscriptions: 11 issues post paid, U.K. £25.00 : Australia £66.00 Canada and USA £60.00 Contact [email protected] Material intended for publication must include your name and address. Please note we can now accept copy in any format.. CLOSING DATE FOR THE SEPTEMBER 2018 ISSUE MATERIAL MUST BE RECEIVED BY NO LATER THAN 15TH AUGUST PLEASE Errors and omissions excepted. The An Carrannach Society does not accept responsibility for the content/accuracy of reports, articles and advertisements received. The views expressed by contributors are NOT necessarily those of the Society. 3 CHURCH OF SCOTLAND APPLECROSS, LOCHCARRON & TORRIDON Charity No: SCO32334 Times and Places of Worship for August 2018 5th August Lochcarron 10.30am Torridon Community Hall 1.00pm 12th August Lochcarron 10.30am Shieldaig 1.00pm Applecross 1.00pm 19th August Lochcarron 10.30am Kinlochewe 1.00pm 26th August Lochcarron 10.30am Applecross 1.00pm Shieldaig 1.00pm Minister Rev. Anita Stutter Tel. 01520 722783 Email [email protected] ALL ARE WELCOME FREE CHURCH LOCHCARRON & Are you looking for occasional APPLECROSS Sunday Worship? You are welcome at our services Lochcarron Church Street IV54 8YP All Saints Scottish Episcopal Mission Sunday 11am and 6 pm (Part of the Anglican Communion) meets in Kinlochewe (Church of (Crèche and Sunday school) Scotland Building) Midweek Wednesdays 7.30pm on the first Sunday each month at 2.30pm Celebrant and Preacher: Applecross Camusterrach IV54 8LU Revd Pam Shinkins 3 pm every Sunday Services: Sunday 5th August 2018 Other events as intimated. and Sunday 2nd September 2018 Scottish Charity SC038169 Everyone welcome Rev M. Florit 01520 722999 Tel: (01445) 781346 (Scottish Charity Number SCO4655) [email protected] (Spotted on a church notice board: www.freechurch.org “Faithbook: You have one new friend request from Jesus!) 4 find it difficult ever to trust again. But in these times of telephone scams and computer fraud, ON of false news and misleading propaganda, of reports of historic wrong doing, disenchantment and scepticism often creep in REFLECTION and make it difficult to keep alive the ability to trust. It is easy to identify those attitudes or behaviours that cause distrust: dishonesty, aggressiveness, arrogance, self-centredness, I was asked recently to write an appreciation acquisitiveness, unfaithfulness.