A Dickensian Stornoway at Christmas Time

Christmas is just around the corner (unless you’re an FP). If you watch a lot of telly you’ll have noticed the quaint Dickensian themes of winter pervading every single bleedin’ advert; snowy cobblestones, candle lit shop windows with frosted glass, roast chestnuts and barefoot urchins. Much of this imagery is associated with A Christmas Carol, one of Dickens best known works. Many people believe that this imagery came from London, but it actually stemmed from Dickens fond memories of Stornoway.

Charles Dickens spent many Christmas’s in Stornoway when he was a young man. His auntie came from Bayhead Street and the young Dickens used to go on his holidays there.  His auntie ran a Religious Bookshop known locally as ‘The Old ‘Coorie’ Gossipy Shop’. This was the place to catch up on all the latest Church gossip and scandal.  It was in snowy Stornoway, with its quaint little bay-windowed Cromwell St shops with the frosted panes of glass, that he got the idea for writing A Christmas Carol. Back then, for two months of winter, the snow was always deep (and crisp and even) because the Gulf Stream had yet to locate the Hebrides.

Often, in the snowy streets of the town, the Young Dickens would watch the rich gentlemen in their top hats and fine winter clothing browsing the goods in the windows of  ’Murdo MacLean’s Gifte Shoppe’ and ‘Ye Olde Events At Christmas’.  With the help of his mate Artair ‘Dodger’ MacAulay (from Carishader) , Dickens soon learned to pick the pockets of the rich Goathill Road gents and make off with the ill-gotten gains. Often the two boys would sell their stolen goods on to a local Wagon Contractor who had a yard on Perceval Road.

These childhood memories stood Dickens in good stead when he started writing. It’s easy to see where the inspiration for many of his first drafts came from. If it wasn’t for his publisher trying to widen his appeal, we may have seen titles such as ‘The Adventures of Olivers Brae’ (where the young protagonist memorably goes to the cattleshed at Knockgarry Farm and asks  ’Can I have some todhar?’,  for his fathers roses) and ‘David Plasterfield’ (about the young David helping the destitute Mr MicKinnon, who runs the Plasterfield bakery). Another well-known book ‘Great Expectations’ was also originally going to be about the struggle of a poor resident of Garrabost trying to order new bits for his fireplace from Lewis Crofters. Each morning the man would waken early and stand at the end of his croft looking for the deliveryman, so he could light his fire. The original title was of course going to be ‘Grate Expectations’.

The Fall of the Braigh Wall

It’s hard to believe that 20 years have passed since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of Communism in the Eastern Europe. Many events have taken place to commemorate this occasion and the worlds media have focused on the various concerts, speeches and Coffee Mornings taking place throughout the former Soviet territories.

It’s sad that a little known local event connected with the fall of communism has been overlooked by the worlds media. Even Isles FM has hardly commented on it and Bono never mentioned it once in his 10 hour-long ‘in between song’ speech in Berlin.

Very few people remember about the ‘Fall of the Braigh Wall’ , which took place in 1975, and set the scene for the reunification of Point with the rest of Lewis.

Following the cessation of hostilities at the end of the Second World War, the whole of Europe was divided up between the  Allies. Russia was quick to stake a claim on the majority of Eastern Europe and to set up a series of puppet states . However, due to a bureaucratic oversight in the Allied Headquarters, the Point district of Lewis was unexpectedly allocated to the Eastern Bloc.

It was thought this was due to the traditional high levels of socialist Rudhachs voting Labour in General Elections and the in-bred ‘Bolshie’ tendencies displayed by most inhabitants of the Eye Peninsula.

So it came to pass that late in 1945, under secret orders from the Kremlin, the Peoples Democratic Republic of Point (PDRP) was established and all diplomatic ties with the rest of Lewis were cut off. A Soviet style political structure was created and a communist way of life was imposed on everyone, even the sheep. Huge collective crofts were established across the district and bronze Stalinist statues started to appear in every village. People were forbidden to go into Stornoway for the messages and songs by Calum Kennedy were outlawed. (The Lochies were still permissible).

To reinforce this new Soviet ideal, and to keep Communism pure in Point, a huge wall was constructed across the Braigh isthmus,  effectively leaving Point isolated and alone. (A situation which suited most people in Stornoway and the rest of Lewis).

The imposing Braigh Wall was located more or less where the car park and toilets are now located and if you look closely enough you can see the last remaining piece of the wall just behind where the toilet portacabin is.

The Wall was patrolled 24/7 (except on Sundays) by armed guards, supported by a series of watch towers with search lights and machine guns. There was only one ‘official’ crossing place on the Wall, called ‘Check Point Chrissie’, where it was occasionally possible to cross over into the Eastern Bloc – if you had the correct permits or were doing a delivery from Hughie Matheson’s Bakery.

It was Check Point Chrissy which came to symbolise the conflict between East and West. The barriers and barbed wire, coupled with the spy scandals and intrigue,  lent an air of mystery to the border post and the secretive Soviet state of Point.

The power of this Soviet style state was reinforced by the infamous Secret Police. Based on the East German ‘Staszi’, the Secret Police was chosen from the membership of the various Grazing’s Committees  (the most secretive and terrifying organisations known in Point) and were known as the ‘Grazzi’. The Grazzi were all-powerful and kept files on almost everybody. Nothing was overlooked and no-one was above suspicion of being a ‘Capitalist Spy’. Annual sheep subsidy claims were recorded in great detail and even how much people put in the Church collection plate.

A number of imposing Soviet style buildings were constructed in Point including Bayble School and the Point Orthodox Free Church building in Garrabost.

All of the villages were renamed to reflect the new regime, such as  Garrabostograd, Shulistalin and Chernknockle. All tractors had to be Trabant Tractors imported by visiting Klondikers from East Germany, and all school children had to learn Russian (however, Point Gaelic is so hard to decipher, visiting officials from the USSR were none the wiser that it wasn’t Russian being spoken).

Every year, on the first of May, the Point Politburo declared that there had to be a May Day Parade, going through the streets of Garrabostograd, to show off the might of the Point military. However, as this was traditionally the day everyone in Point took the peats home, these parades were usually sparsely attended. Many people recall the year Leonid Brezhnev was invited to Point to take the salute of the Rudhach Guard and ended up helping load a trailer of peats instead.  This was marginally better than the previous year, when the Point Politburo had mistakenly invited Leonard Nimoy from Star Trek.

It was only in 1975 when Local Government reorganisation was taking place that the British Government realised that Point was part of the Eastern Bloc and a member of the Warsaw Pact. As this could have caused immense embarrassment to NATO, it was thought prudent to try and resolve the situation as quickly and quietly as possibly. Local Government reorganisation in Scotland was chosen as the most effective way to save face all round.

As the new Comhairle Nan Eilean took control of the islands, representations were made to the Russian Embassy in Garrabostograd (which still exists to this day) to release Point from the shackles of Communism. The Russians were only too glad to get shot of the truculent Rudhachs and gave orders for the Point Politburo to stand down.

As the news spread of the collapse of Communism, and as the dreaded Grazzi disappeared into the night, the people of Point made their way to the Braigh and amidst scenes of rejoicing started tearing down the Wall. Many of the bricks in the wall were snaffled by Rudhachs eager to build new houses, as they now had access to the Crofter Housing Grant Scheme.

Within days, no trace was left of the Wall. Statues of Stalin and Grazings Committee Chairmen were swiftly toppled over and sign posts were hastily altered. Soviet ID cards were torn up and Grazzi surveillance records were soon going up in smoke at a big bonfire on Bayble Hill.

The event that came to symbolise the fall of Point Communism was the image of the first Point bus to leave Stornoway at 11.30pm on  Saturday night for almost 30 years, making its way unhindered across the Braigh, carrying a cargo of drunk Rudhachs, chicken suppers and half bottles.

The Goat Island Centre

The fuss and controversy about where the St Kilda Centre should be located has seen the normally polite diplomatic relations between Uig, Harris and Uist tested to breaking point. (And the Faroes putting in a bid hasn’t helped things very much either).

It brings to mind a similar situation which arose in the late 1930’s when the Stornoway Town Council decided to build an interpretive centre to honour the last residents of Goat Island*. Goat Island had been evacuated in 1930 following a particularly bad goat harvest the year before. The destitute islanders who lived on this remote Stornowegian outpost gathered together for a meeting of the Goat Island Parliament and weighed up the options. There were no longer any young folk on the island, all of them having left for the bright light of Stornoway; the islands only source of income was a goat – plus the goat kept escaping the island and swimming away to the ‘mainland’.

The islanders had no option but to write to Stornoway Town Council asking to be evacuated. The Goat Island ‘Mail Boat’ , a hollowed out plank of wood (just big enough for a letter or the football pools) with an old sheep’s bladder for buoyancy, was solemnly launched from the Goat Island foreshore. As the Mailboat drifted away on the evening tide, the inhabitants climbed to the highest point on Goat Island to watch for rescue and to gaze into the distance where the street lights of Stornoway glimmered tantalizingly.

The ‘Mailboat’ was carried on the tide across the Newton Basin and under Number Two Pier. Some wee coves on the King Steps of Number One Pier chucked some ollacs at it as it drifted past and almost sank it. However, the swell of a passing fishing boat caught it and it was sent further up the Inner Harbour, eventually coming to rest on the muddy bit beside the YM Bridge.

As chance would have it, the Mailboat was discovered by one of the Goat Island residents who happened to be on the ‘mainland’ to try and catch the goat, (who had jumped off the side of the island and was now heading towards Goathill Farm to visit its relations).

The resourceful Goat Islander, (only stopping for a dram in the Lewis), immediately took the message and popped it in the letter box of the Provost, before continuing his hunt for the goat.

The Stornoway Town Council sprang into action almost at once and arranged for a rowing boat to go out to Goat Island at the weekend to assist the Goat Islanders.

It was a sad sight to see, as the rowing boat tied up at Number Two Pier, and the four Goat Islanders disembarked with their few worldly possessions (the goat already having jumped overboard and swum up the Bayhead River). The Town Council gave the islanders a council flat on Seaforth Road and thus ended another chapter in the annals of Goat Island.

Goat Island was to lie uninhabited for many years. The National Trust for Scotland took over the island, because of its rare goat droppings and the local Territorial Army built a wee target on it so they could practice their shooting.

In 1937 the Town Council decided to honour the island and its hardy islanders by building an Interpretive Visitors Centre. A firm of consultants was hired to find the best location for the Centre and a number of places submitted bids to host the Centre. Newton Street had a very strong bid as it was but a stones throw from the island. Goathill Road also submitted a bid because of the strong historical ties with the islands goats. But in the end Mangersta won.

*Goat Island is a small island located in Stornoway Harbour

One For Halloween.

At this time of year, as the nights draw in and the end of October approaches, it is common for thought to turn to ‘All Hallows Eve’. This was traditionally the time of year when the witches of Tolsta were allowed into Stornoway to collect their pensions and buy new pointy hats from Murdo MacLean’s shop.

Scary stories also come to mind and it is a little known fact that some of the worlds best loved horror stories had their roots in Stornoway culture.

Mary Shelly’s ‘Frankenstein’, for instance,  was of course written by the young Mary based on her experiences of staying at Seaforth Lodge (where Lews Castle now stands) whilst visiting her auntie. Her mad uncle-in-law, Lord Seaforth, had set up a laboratory in the basement of Seaforth Lodge to try and develop a strain of ’supercrofter’ to increase the yields of his vast estates. Seaforth was convinced that he could take the brain of a Stornoway cove and match it with the brawn of a maw to make a super-intelligent, yet super strong being.

Seaforth gave his manservant Ivor instructions to depart for the rural parts of Lewis to find a suitable candidate. However, it was raining and Ivor couldn’t be bothered going all the way into the wilds of Lewis. Instead, a midnight excursion to nearby Steinish** armed only with a heavy cosh and a large Hessian sack resulted in Ivor bringing home a suitably deceased maw* . The poor unfortunate maw had been busy at work at the sheepfank and had impressed the lurking Ivor with his ability to carry two sheep under each arm.

After removing the brain and preserving the rest of the body in a special solution (basically he paid three herring girls to gut the unfortunate maw and shove him in an old herring barrel), Seaforth had now to find a suitably smart brain from somewhere in the town.

A furtive expedition to peer in the back window of the local Doctors surgery revealed a recently deceased school teacher lying on a mortuary slab. Seaforth felt this would be the ideal brain to add to his brawny, recently deceased, ex-crofter. Ivor was once again dispatched under cover of darkness to fetch the brain. However, one of the town drunks had just passed away after a bottle of Four Crown too many and had replaced the dead teacher on the slab. Poor Ivor was not to know and went ahead and extracted the brain as neatly as possible with only a blunted tarasgeir at his disposal.

Needless to say, Seaforth’s creature did not come off the production line as imagined. The monster for a start did not like the heavy Arnish Boots the Earl had fitted him with, and kicked down the laboratory door and disappeared into the night, heading back to his fank in Steinish.

After the usual slaying of villagers, decimation of flocks and refusing to go to church on Sunday, the monster created by Seaforth started to get on the townsfolk’ s nerves. They marched en-masse to Seaforth Lodge armed with pitchforks and flaming brands and burnt the mansion to the ground putting an end to his experiments.

The young Mary Shelly, of course, watched all this with great interest and soon had her novel written. It was originally called ‘The Fank In Steinish Monster’, but a typo in the final draft saw it published as ‘Frankenstein’.

The poor monster himself went on to become Provost of Stornoway on two occasions.

*landowners could do this sort of thing in the early 1800’s. The legal right to kill tenants only ceased in 1987

** there is much debate whether Steinish is actually officially ‘beyond the cattle grid’ or nothing more than a ‘tame’ country village with too many posh notions to truly count as rural.

The Street Names Of Stornoway (Part 4 of many)

Cannery Road

There is a much misguided view that Stornoway’s Cannery Road was named after the large factory built by Lord Leverhulme to process and ‘can’ the fish caught for his ‘MacFisheries’ empire.

The name of this street actually comes from much further back in time and was coined in honour of the old Burlesque theatre that used to stand there. Cannery Road was originally known as ‘Can-Can’ Road, after the popular dance featuring blones in frilly dresses doing high kicks and flashing their drarsh.

The theatre, known as ‘Maw-lin Ruadach’ was build in 1885 by a consortium of local businessmen keen on introducing the cultural elite of Stornoway to the latest dances and fashions from Paris. But because of the risqué nature of the acts who performed there, the businessmen had a great deal of trouble finding a suitable plot of ground in the town centre on which to build the theatre and had to resort instead to a barren strip of land in what was then the outskirts of Stornoway. Because of the vast amount of naked flesh on display in the theatre, this areas of town was nicknamed ‘The Butt-ery’ and was off-limits for all decent and upstanding citizens.

Many of Stornoway’s most famous artists (including “Two Ewes” Lautrec, well-known colourist and shepard with a very small flock) made the burlesque house their ‘local’ and could be seen there most nights drinking Absinthe, being poor and insulting each others ‘inferior’ work (much like any normal evening in present-day An Lanntair).

The Maw-lin Ruadhach survived until well in to the 1930’s, until an unfortunate incident involving the entire Church Session of a local FP Church on a ‘fact finding’ visit came to light in the Stornoway Gazette.

Newton Street

Originally named in honour of Sir Issac Newton the famous scientist, whose granny came from Stornoway. Young Newton used to come to Stornoway on his holidays and it was here that he first described his ‘three laws of motion sickness’, following an impressively bad bout of vomiting on the ferry. Newton also discovered his Law of Gravir-tation whilst visiting an auntie in South Lochs. Newton fell asleep under the only tree in the village and was awoken by a guga (which had been hung out to dry) falling on his head. And the rest was history, apart from an unfortunate Gazette sub-editors mistake of swapping ‘guga’ for ‘apple’, as he had run out of the letter ‘u’.

Dr Who

Fans of the popular tv series Dr Who will be surprised to learn of the close connections that the Time Lord has with the Isle of Lewis. William Hartnell, the first Dr Who, was a keen fisherman and spent many years tramping the moors of Lewis in search of trout and salmon. He was also regularly up in front of the Sheriff for partaking in nocturnal poaching activities.

When the second series of Dr Who was in production, Hartnell demanded that some of the filming should take place on Lewis to allow him to partake in his favourite pastime. As most Dr Who episodes requiring outdoor shots were filmed in old sandpits and quarries, the producers, in an effort to keep their star happy, were willing to search Lewis for a suitable quarry. Consequently, many episodes of Dr Who were shot in the Marybank Quarry throughout the sixties and seventies. The village of Garyvard also doubled as an alien planet on several occasions as it didn’t require any special effects whatsoever to recreate a hostile environment.

A number of mid sixties episodes of Dr Who filmed on Lewis fell foul of the BBC ‘clear out the cupboards’ policy. Among those episodes lost were ‘Attack of the Gugamen’. This was filmed entirely on location on Sulasgeir. The storyline revolved around the second Dr and his companions landing by Tardis on a barren island and been attacked by a fierce tribe of savages who worship a strange seabird/rat deity. The BBC film crew and actors accompanied the Neisochs out to Sulasgeir and spent a fortnight plucking guga in between filming location shots. The actual Tardis used on location for these episodes is still on Sulasgeir, as the Neissochs refused to take it back on the fishing boat as it would limit the number of guga they could take back to Lewis. The Tardis is now used as a lighthouse run entirely on guga oil.

Another episode filmed on Lewis and now lost/destroyed was ‘Exodus of the Daleks’. This was from the Jon Pertwee era and was the first Dr Who episode to feature the prototype K-9, the Dr’s robotic dog. The storyline revolved around the Daleks being cleared from their crofts by an unscrupulous landlord and forced to emigrate to America. These episodes featured the Daleks draped in tartan and talking in a robotic form of Gaelic. ‘Tha mi exterminate’ as they said. The prototype K-9 was also a metallic sheep dog who came to an unfortunate end when he fell into a sheep-dip and rusted.

The Arnish Folk

There used to be a little known religious sect which thrived on Lewis for several decades. The sect grew up around a small farm on the headland that embraces the southern side of Stornoway Harbour.

The sect was a Christian religious denomination known for its adherent’s simple living, plain dress and avoidance of modern technology. They were known as the Arnish People.

This small community grew up around the farm on Arnish Point (where the present day Lewis Offshore Oil Fabrication Yard now stands) and was made up of the farm labourers, fishermen and sheep rustlers that made a living from the Arnish Moor.

There are a number of schools of thought as to how the Arnish People came to be. One makes reference to a 1768 schism within the Free Presbyterian Church over the use of ‘modern’ Bibles in book form versus the traditional papyrus scrolls. Another line of argument points to the 1817 row over FP Ministers wearing new fangled cotton jackets, when the hardliners in the Church felt that scratchy tweed was more appropriate.

However, the most plausible reason is that the folk from Arnish couldn’t be bothered walking across the Arnish Moor to church on wet Sunday and so decided to set up their own Sect much closer to home. In fact, in the barn at Arnish Farm.

The Arnish Peoples did not mix very much with ‘outside’ folk and so were only occasionally spotted in Stornoway. On these occasions they could be seen driving along the Lochs Road in pony and traps, the men-folk in their black frugal clothing and the women-folk in their homespun dresses. They would only stop at Hughie Matheson’s bakery to buy rolls and Murdo Macleans to buy dreary coloured cloth for their ‘Sunday best’.

Occasionally a young person from the Sect would hanker after a taste of the ‘modern’ world and would leave the community. The young folk would move to a house on Springfield Rd and experience underage drinking of Trawler Rum, going to the Galaxy and fighting at ‘Johhny Oaks’ bridge. This was known to the Arnish People as ‘Rumspringfield Road’ which was by coincidence similar to the Amish Peoples (no relation) of America’s ‘rumspringa’ phenomena.

The Sect eventually dwindled away in 1910 when the good folk of Arnish Point discovered that electricity existed. It turned out that the whole town of Stornoway was involved in playing a massive practical joke on the Arnish People, by turning off all gas and electric lights whenever one of the Arnish folk went past, so that they were literally kept in the dark as to its existence for nearly 30 years.

The Arnish People had the last laugh however. It was them who discovered the scientific formula for ‘Arnish Boots’ and went on to become the founders of a multi national conglomerate of industrial footwear for the oil industry, as sold by Smiths Shoe Shop.

Stornoway’s Opera House

Even among old SYs who should know better, there is a common misconception that the town’s Opera House on South Beach was named ironically, and that it was actually a decrepit and malodorous public toilet frequented by local worthies seeking a sheltered spot in which to drink 4-Crown and Eldorado and murder a few Gaelic songs.

In fact, the magnificent harbourside venue enjoyed an international reputation in its day, rivalling Milan’s La Scala, drawing top divas and divos from across the world and – ultimately – providing the model for Sydney’s less successful copy.

The Opera House was opened in 1774 by the powerful Habostburg Emperor Calum Dan III. Calum Dan was keen to showcase the talents of his protégé, the young Parkend composer Wolfgang Amadaneus Murdozart, and in the early years, Murdozart’s productions such as Don Giovannsahovano and The Marriage of Fidigarry established the Opera House’s prestige worldwide.

Through the 19th and early 20th centuries, the leading lights of grand were drawn to the building’s unique acoustics. It is said that Wagner was inspired to write “Ride of the Valkyries” by the terrifying reverberations of an irate Ch*rsty Al*n* outside, shouting for B*gie to bring out a bottle of QC in which she had a half share. In the mid 20th century, top performers such as Maria Callanish, Enrico Carishaderuso and the great Mario Lacasaidh would arrive on the Loch Seaforth, be wuyined and duyined in the Lido café, smoke a couple of woodbines and then play to capacity audiences of 4 and sometimes 5.

In the late 1960s slim Rubhach opera star Luciano Paibleotti first visited Stornoway to deliver a bravura season of Puccini’s La Blonehemme. During his residency he developed a fondness for white marags and duff, leading to an enormous weight gain and the figure for which he subsequently became famous.

In the 1980s the Opera House staged a highly avante-garde improvised production of Amadan & Guga’s “Nixon in (Vitreous) China”, lasting 8 years and featuring a “found” cast – B*gie as Nixon and D*ggum Da as Chairman Mao – with a quarter bottle of Trawler Rum representing Taiwan and a row of Piper Export cans as the Great Wall. It was the challenging realism of this production – 3 years into Act 2 – that led the Opera House to be mistakenly identified as a failed public toilet and demolished by the Comhairle.

Subsequent abortive attempts to stage operas in the Superloos failed because cast, orchestra and audience kept getting flushed out automatically every 15 minutes. Thus ended Stornoway’s days as a world centre for the operatic arts.

Historical Note: Students of theatrical architecture will be aware that the designer of Sydney Opera House fell out with the project managers part way through construction and never saw his vision completed as he would have wanted it. True experts in the field will also know that what the cove had specified was an exact copy of Stornoway’s harbourside masterpiece – but scaled up. The Aussies would have gone along with too, had the plans not required 400-foot high urinals, A bag of empty 40-foot long Piper Export cans blocking a 200-foot high lavvy pan, and 600-foot tall animatronic B*gie, Sn**lie and D*gg*m Das singing “An Teid Thu Leam a’ Mhairi” on loop.

Ye Zounds In Ye Groundes

The ‘Sounds in the Grounds’ Festival in Stornoway has a long and distinguished history and has been responsible for bringing the finest musical talents to island audiences for centuries.

The first recorded evidence of Sounds In The Grounds dates back to Viking times, when the Stjornoway Gazette, the local news parchment, carried an article on the performance of local Norse minstrels ‘Our Longship Activities’ who had headlined the very first Festival.

The Norse influenced period of Sounds in the Grounds continued for several years until the organisers had to give up due to the huge expense involved in replacing burnt and pillaged tents each year. This followed the tradition of the headline act setting fire to the stage and setting it adrift in the harbour. The organiser, a shaggy Viking named Ijnnes The Tent Post, was however, instrumental in starting the movement to bring popular musical culture to the Hebrides.

Fast forwarding to the Georgian period saw an attempt by Lord Seaforth, the owner of Lewis, to try and raise the cultural profile of his subjects, by bringing a number of famous classical composers to play at ‘Ye Foundf in the Groundf’.

Johan Sebastian Bach was invited to headline in 1725 where he premiered his famous ‘Buntatta and Fugue in D minor’. His performance went down so well with the crowds that Lord Seaforth declared that the village of Boke, down in Broadbay, would be renamed Bach in his honour, Unfortunately, the Comhairle workmen took the name down wrong and the sign that went up was spelt ‘Back’ by mistake.

Ludwig van Beethoven was asked to perform at the 1800 festival, but unfortunately it was here that the famous composer went deaf after having his ear pecked by an angry guga.

In 1940 Glenn Millar was the main draw to the festival. To an audience made up of locals and servicemen, Millar and his jazz band performed his favourites ‘In The Moor’ and ‘Little Brown Trout’.

Another notable Sounds in the Grounds took place in 1968 during the heyday of ‘Hippydom’, when Jefferson Tractor and The Graap-full Dead (featuring Jerry Garsiarach) held a four day ‘Piece Festival’ where everyone exchanged recipes for sandwiches. (marag dubh and marmalade was a firm favourite with the festival crowds).

Rabbie Burns in Storn o’way

Rabbie Burns

As many of you will be aware, Rabbie Burns worked as a Customs and Excise Man for several years before finding fame and fortune as a National Bard.

As part of his training for the Customs job, he was dispatched to various parts of Scotland, to gain experience of the varied and many types of smuggler he may come across.

The young Burns found himself posted to Stornoway in 1779 for a six month period, armed with only his quill and inkpot. He worked from the old Custom House on the pier (where the present day Custom House now stands) as part of a counter-smuggling squad. The squad would spend the day sailing up and down the Minch catching guga smugglers and ensuring that the excise Duty on Uig chessmen sets was being paid.

During his time off, Burns explored the island of Lewis and must have gained inspiration from the Hebrides (and from its womenfolk) for many of his most famous poems and songs. It is understood that Burns composed many of his early drafts whilst living in his digs on Kenneth Street, where his mews drew on the many characters and events that the town of Stornoway had to offer. These first drafts formed the basis for Burns more famous poems and songs which gradually saw the light of day as his fame grew.

His early drafts included:,

Address to a Marag

Tam O’Shader

A Coves a cove for a’that

The Rigs o’ Charlie Barley

The Twa Sheep Dogs

Tam O’Shader (Barvas)

When all the Siarochs leave the street
And go to Charlie Barleys for some meat
As all the shops are closing down
And maws begin to leave the town
While we sit boozing in the Star
And getting drunk after many’s a jar
We think not on the long Barvas Road
The moor and bog with heavy load
That lies between us and our home
Where sits our grumpy, frumpy, blone
Gathering her wool from her flocks
Busy knitting bobban socks