page 24
Lucy Ashton: Clyde built in 1888, the paddle steamer would remain in service until the end of the 1940s.
Chapter 4
page 28
John L Kinloch: the old campaigner was soon to become editor of the nationalist Scots Independent, drawing to Kilcreggan a new generation of young visitors (the Renfrew writer Iain Hamilton describes his own encounter with Kinloch in Scotland the Brave, Michael Joseph, 1957).
Barra land raids: the first Highland Land League led the bitter struggle which won crofters security of tenure in the wake of the Clearances with the 1885 Crofters’ Act. The organisation’s revival in the early 20th century followed the tradition of ‘land raids’ (high-profile occupations of landowners’ property). Both groups shared interests with the growing socialist movement, thrived on public protest and campaigned for parliament – which is to say, they were among the main reasons the ‘Highland problem’ was a matter for public consideration at all. The latter League’s first secretary was AMD’s future mentor Tom Johnston.
page 30
wen: growth on the body
Highland Mary: Mary Campbell and her untimely death in 1786 inspired Robert Burns to at least two songs and a famous poem of love and loss. Erected on Castle Hill on the centenary of Burns’ death, her statue overlooks Dunoon’s Victorian pier – one of the busiest destinations for the Glasgow crowds heading ‘doon the watter’ on holiday.
pannikin: tin pan
Orphan Homes of Scotland: from the 1870s and for more than a hundred years William Quarrier’s philanthropic project saved tens of thousands of children from destitution. Up to 1936 many of them were emigrated to Canada for a new start and ‘a life … of usefulness and honour.’
breeks: trousers
page 32
pease: pea meal
‘took the bus to Dunoon’: only when they saw the newspapers here did the canoeists realise the previous day’s weather had been bad enough to force the cancellation of a full-scale regatta on the Clyde.
Maryhill: a burgh in the north of Glasgow
page 34
gurly: blustery and threatening
page 36
TT riders: celebrating its centenary in 2007, the Isle of Man Tourist Trophy is among the world’s great motorcycle races.
three-quarter line: the standard formation of backs in rugby
page 37
pech: gasp for breath
Chapter 5
page 39
wale: abundance
steep-to rocks: a near-perpendicular shore
fathom: two yards
page 41
ganzies: thick Guernsey-style jumpers
page 43
cuddies: young saithe (coley or pollack)
John Splendid: predating Para Handy by some years, Inveraray-born Neil Munro’s first novel follows the sack of Inveraray and the devastation of Argyll by Montrose in 1645, making satirical comment on the clansmen’s love of butchery. Its conclusion is dark; having observed his chief’s timid attempts to instigate more peaceful ways, the swaggering adventurer for whom the book is named chooses the bloody life of the mercenary. In 1944 the shores of Loch Fyne were the training ground for over half-a-million troops in preparation for the D-Day landings.
‘a legend of my childhood’: born in 1891, Duncan Campbell MacTavish was related to AMD through his mother’s tight-knit Loch Fyneside family. After surviving the stigma of Conscientious Objector status during the 1914–18 war, he rose through the ranks in the Argyll county offices, finding there a rich source of historical material as well as scope for administrative reform. In the year of the canoe boys’ visit he had edited and introduced a new edition of the Psalms in Gaelic. His next book (The Commons of Argyll, 1935) centred on a list of the rebels recruited by the Earl of Argyll to fight Charles II; MacTavish had unearthed the 1685 document among the records of Inveraray Sheriff Court. He contributed to the Oban Times (collected as Inveraray Papers, 1939) but did not live to see the publication of the second volume of his reframing of the 17th-century Presbyterian administration of the Highlands (Minutes of the Synod of Argyll 1639–1651 and 1652–1661), which was prefaced by a quotation from Neil Munro: …of a country that is dear to us in every rock and valley, of a people we know whose blood is ours. He died of a stroke in Castleton cottage in 1943.
page 44
‘foreseeing gift which she and many of her people possess’: AMD’s Gaelic-speaking mother was tight-lipped about her own glimpses of the supernatural, but her mother had been known to envisage funerals for the not-yet-dead and other grim premonitions.
page 49
lochan: small loch
‘There was not a barrow in the place, or at least, not one which would come out on Sunday…’: the Sabbatarianism of rigidly Presbyterian parts of the Highlands and particularly the islands has resulted in phenomena like the Sunday chaining of children’s swings. In 2006 the introduction of the first Sunday ferry service to Harris was opposed by the majority of the island’s population.
page 51
Dunadd: for several hundred years the distinctive rocky outcrop here was the capital of the kingdom of the Scots (until the growing Kingdom of Alba moved to Scone under King Kenneth MacAlpin in the mid-ninth century).
Islandadd: next to the bridge which spans the river Add the canal is crossed by a cast-iron swing bridge which has to be cranked open by hand.
Bellanoch Bay: almost entirely sheltered from the open Atlantic beyond, the bay is an unusually tranquil lagoon.
Corryvreckan: an infamous and deadly tidal cauldron between the islands of Jura and Scarba – the largest whirlpool in Europe – whose roar in spate can be heard as far as ten miles away. It was used by AMD’s great friend Michael Powell as the setting for the climax of his film I Know Where I’m Going (1945).
Chapter 6
page 54
jauping: rippling, quivering
popple: bubbling liquid, like boiling water
page 57
coulter: blade
Chapter 7
page 65
Alexander II: the Scottish king died of a fever in Kerrera in 1249 while on his way to dissuade the Western Isles from their traditional loyalty to Norway.
Short Sunderland: during the WW II the depth charge-equipped Sunderland flying boat (manufactured by Short Brothers) was a key weapon in the Battle of the Atlantic, sinking many of the German U-boats which were disrupting vital supply convoys from North America.
page 68
tashed: beaten up bens: mountains
page 70
plowtering: dabbling, splashing aimlessly with the hands
blashing: wet battering
bannock: scone of oatmeal or flour, traditionally baked on a griddle
William Black: the Glasgow-born journalist’s gothic romances were immensely popular (and critically preferred to Anthony Trollope’s) though he is now little remembered. The fancifully castellated 30-foot tower of the Duart Point light was built in 1900, two years after his death, and is still operational today.
page 71
skelped: smacked
Chapter 8
page 73
John MacGregor: the influential A Thousand Miles in the Rob Roy Canoe (1866) has been frequently reprinted and is available online: in walking you are bounded by every sea and river, and in a common sailing-boat you are bounded by every shallow and shore; whereas … a canoe [can] be paddled or sailed, or hauled, or carried over land or water. Robert Louis Stevenson was among the many who fell under the spell, describing his own Rob Roy trip in An Inland Voyage (1878). Twenty-five years later, John Marshall had made his first canoe trips in a Rob Roy before developing his own design.
Slocum: Nova Scotia-born Joshua Slocum was a shipwright and adventurer who made the first solo voyage round the world in the last years of the 19th century. His Sailing Alone Around the World (1899) aroused strong feelings; Arthur Ransome wrote ‘boys who do not like this book should be drowned at once�
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Uffa Fox: ‘The King of the planing hull’ (1898–1972) designed many race-winning sailing dinghies and canoes in his native Isle of Wight, often testing them on intrepid voyages. Among his more colourful inventions was an ‘airborne lifeboat’ which saved the lives of many wartime airmen.
page 75
Shorter Catechism: from Question 1 (What is the chief end of man?) to Question 107 (What doth the conclusion of the Lord’s Prayer teach us?) the Westminster Shorter Catechism of 1647 has long been a source of doctrine for Presbyterian churches (including the Church of Scotland, where alphabet and multiplication tables were appended to the back of the volume as an aid to education of a more mundane kind).
page 76
Lord Kelvin:William Thomson (1824–1907) came up with many practical innovations (among them instruments for accurately measuring and predicting the tides) while struggling towards a unifying theory of physics as Professor of Natural Philosophy at Glasgow University. The Kelvin scale of absolute temperature is named after him.
page 77
‘with a box kite…’: 75 years later the boom in kite-surfing gave the notion new impetus: On Kalama’s maiden voyage the canoe kite combo went off without a hitch. ‘We got going pretty fast, around 20 knots, going downwind,’ he says. ‘Going over waves we’d get some air, with the nose up eight or 10 feet.’ (‘Paddlers Take to the Sky’, Paddler Magazine Nov/Dec 2000)
page 80
dwam: daze
wersh: insipid
fushionless: lacking fibre
page 82
kent: familiar
Chapter 9
page 83
kelpie: water spirit in the form of a horse
trig: smart
Mrs McFlannel: some 20 years after the canoe trip, comedic soap opera The McFlannels would become one of the most popular shows on the ‘wireless’ (also among the cast was comic Rikki Fulton as Reverend McCrepe, at the start of a lifetime of characterising funny ministers). Meg Buchanan can be seen in the Scottish films The Maggie and Laxdale Hall.
page 85
navvymaster: labourers’ gang-master
page 86
‘minister of Anstruther’: James Melville (1535–1617) also recorded the preaching of John Knox and one of the first instances of golf at St Andrews.
silly: pitiable
trauchled: bedraggled
barque: three-masted ship
fluke: the triangular blade at the end of the anchor’s arms
The Spanish galleon in Tobermory Bay inspired Robert Louis Stevenson’s story The Merry Men, and continues to be a subject of (often contradictory) legend.
page 87
The Lord of the Isles: ‘a wild tale of Albyn’s warrior day’, the narrative poem (1815) follows Robert Bruce’s progress from Hebridean fugitive to victor at the battle of Bannockburn. The Norse/Gaelic Lords of the Isles were at one time among the most powerful rulers in Britain, controlling the islands and much of the western coast of Scotland (as well as Bruce’s reputed retreat on Rathlin island in Antrim) with fleets of galleys.
page 89
run-rig: the corrugated furrow-and-ridge method of cultivation which was prevalent in the Highlands before the Clearances
the ‘Forty-Five’: the second Jacobite Rising
deaving: deafening
page 90
‘the seamen who took him on his Western Isles trip’: prior to writing The Lord of the Isles, Scott had accepted an invitation to join the Commissioners for the Northern Lighthouse Service on a voyage of inspection around the Scottish coast.
furze: gorse, burned in winter to improve the ground for grazing and game
‘a frieze of onlookers’: the Daily Express reported one old woman’s amazement – ‘Co tha sin Eskimos? [Who are these Eskimos?]’
‘The Canoe Boys! … It’s the Canoe Boys!’: 60 years later, revisiting the island, Seumas would overhear one local in a Tobermory shop telling another: ‘And one of the Canoe Boys is on Calve!’
page 92
‘hydroelectric scheme’: now administered by Scottish and Southern Energy and refurbished in 2003, the Tobermory turbines are still turning.
Chapter 10
page 97
wont: custom
page 100
glamoured to: casting a spell over
page 102
midden: dunghill the
back end: the tail of the season
stooking: setting up to dry in stooks, or bundles
essay: try-out
drills: the shallow furrows in which the potatoes are planted
coal hawkers: peddlers of coal from a cart
tattie-howking: potato picking
steadings: farm outbuildings
‘it was not a joke which would have been made’: in Lochaber, homeland of the Cameron clan, Locheil – though in one sense simply a geographical epithet – would be considered the chief’s title alone.
paling stob: fence post
guising: trick-or-treating
page 104
the Minch: the stormy 15 to 45-mile wide strait between the Inner and Outer Hebrides
haycock: heap of hay ready for carting
page 105
Fingalian: according to myth the cathedral-like vault of Fingal’s Cave on the Inner Hebridean isle of Staffa, like the steps of the Giant’s Causeway a few miles away across the Irish Sea, are evidence of the legendary warrior king’s stature.
thwarts: the crosspieces which form the rowers’ seats
horn gramophone: wind-up record player with a cone to amplify the sound
page 106
job price: discount rate
page 107
punctilio: attention to formal detail
page 109
false-face: mask
dooking: ducking face-first in a bowl of water
page 110
dowager: elderly upper-crust widow
kist: chest parlour: living room
page 111
favours: small gifts
displenish: sell off (as in the effects of a farm)
Chapter 11
page 113
furth: beyond home
tinkers: itinerant pedlar people, often of gypsy or dispossessed Highland stock
page 114
‘a Scottish monarch’: James IV occupied Mingary in 1493 and 1495 during his campaign to subdue the MacDonald Lords of the Isles.
breenge: rushing drive
page 116
the ben end: the inner part
‘some cables’ length’: a cable measures 200 yards.
burn: stream
lowe: flicker
ingle: the fire on the hearth
page 117
demesne: domain, territory
page 118
gurnet – grey gurnard, a small coastal fish which inhabits the seabed
page 119
skailed: broke up, went their separate ways after school
page 120
sheep-fank: dry-stone enclosure
page 121
gant: gape of the mouth for breath
page 122
‘Fleetwood trawler’: large steam trawlers from Fleetwood in Lancashire were once a common sight, fishing for Hake and overnighting in Tobermory harbour.
page 123
dyked: walled
page 124
‘the group of four inhabited Small Isles’: much has changed here in the intervening years (see note to Chapter 1 p.137).
Chapter 12
page 126
‘Rhum’ postmark: the original spelling of the island’s name has since been reclaimed, rejecting the Bullough family’s pseudo-Gaelic insertion of an ‘h’.
page 128
stacher: stagger, totter
page 130
glebe: cultivated land
fell: cruel
‘blaescones’: blae: bruised, scarred
page 131
harbour bar: sea wall
page 133
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br /> dowered: endowed
page 137
gillies: hunting guides
page 138
‘there was nothing else to be done here’: there has been progress in the Small Isles. Rum was bought from Lady Monica Bullough in 1957 by Scottish Natural Heritage, who work hard to supplement the island’s population of around 30 with visitors; there are guided tours of crumbling Kinloch Castle, where once alligators and tropical turtles swam in heated pools. In 1997 Eigg became the subject of one of Scotland’s first and highest-profile community buyouts, and is now owned by the 60 islanders in partnership with the Scottish Wildlife Trust and Highland Council. Still run as one large farm, Muck today offers hotel, bed & breakfast, camping and self-catering accommodation. Canna’s owner John Lorne Campbell gifted his island to the National Trust for Scotland in 1981.
page 141
haled: hauled in (as a fishing net)
Chapter 13
page 143
Albyn: Gaelic Scotland
leal: honest
Samuel Johnson: A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland, 1775
page 144
‘to stagger England to the vitals’: London was in panic by the time the Jacobite army (125 miles away at Derby) decided to carry its invasion no further.
A Hundred Years In The Highlands: Osgood Hanbury Mackenzie (1842–1922) spent his lifetime transforming a treeless rocky promontory into the botanical gardens at Inverewe. His book describes a harsher history, including the earlier struggles of his family and their Wester Ross tenants during the great famine of 1846–48.
page 145
plenishing: equipping
page 146
doles: handouts
page 150
‘the same period of history’: Lark Rise to Candleford describes life in a poor Oxfordshire village in the late 1800s; Norman Maclean named his reminiscence of contemporaneous Skye and Raasay after Solomon’s biblical interrogation of the claim ‘the former days were better than these.’
page 152
‘facilities are still being freely offered to emigrant recruiting agents from overseas’: an Australian government office on Edinburgh’s Princes Street was offering £10 ‘assisted passage’ to would-be emigrants well into the 1970s; much of the subsidy was paid by the UK Treasury.
stump the country: tour the country making speeches
The Canoe Boys Page 24
