by David Yeadon
“But it looks like you’ve settled down now…it says on your brochure that you’ve been here for twelve years.”
“Yeah, that’s about right. We came up from Newcastle for a vacation and never left!”
“And got yourself one of these expensive double-wide looms.”
“Yes—and they are expensive. Price of a small car! That’s when Derick made himself a bit unpopular too…trying to get weavers to invest in these things. Many considered it to be the death knell of the traditional weaver—said that the ‘new’ tweed didn’t have that ‘old tickle,’ and ‘famous fearsome hairiness.’ Also, they often had to rebuild their loom sheds to get it inside! Bit of a difficult time…for everyone, ’specially as the industry declined from around two thousand workers and weavers and over seven million yards of tweed a year to less than five hundred and barely a million yards nowadays.”
“So—what’s the future? Will tweed just become a quaint craft hobby for a few older weavers?” I asked.
Robert gave a hearty belly laugh. “Well, no, not if Donald John MacKay has anything to say about it!”
“Who?”
“Donald John. Of Luskentyre. And his wife, Maureen. Y’mean no one’s told you about Donald? He’s our tweed hero! Should get a knighthood or something for everything he’s trying to do to keep the weaving alive…ah, y’must go and see him. He’ll put a smile on y’face. Obviously Derick didn’t, so why don’t you visit Donald instead!”
I was reluctantly leaving Robert’s shop, still eyeing his kilt kits and beautiful tailored tweed jackets, when I was struck by a spontaneous urge.
“Darlin’, I’ve decided what I’d like for my birthday present. It’s time for me to do my bit for the Harris Tweed industry.”
And so I walked away from the shop in a beautifully cut gray-blue and olive-green herringbone tweed jacket, which indeed possessed just a touch of the “old tickle.”
Robert called out a farewell—and a blessing. “May you enjoy it, wear it, and live until you find it in shreds and tatters”—the implication being, I assumed, that as my jacket would never wear out, neither would I.
Then came Donald John MacKay.
“Aye, come in, come in—close the door. There’s a nasty blast off the sound today. C’mon here and stand by mi’heater. I’ll turn the radio off, otherwise I’ll not be hearin’ a word you’re saying.”
So far we hadn’t said anything except a brief hello as we peeped our heads into Donald John’s workshop at the side of his bungalow-home overlooking the magnificent sweep of the Luskentyre sands. At first we thought we’d stopped at the wrong place. Despite a small sign confirming that this was indeed the location of the Luskentyre Harris Tweed Company, Donald John’s well-loved and well-respected business, we expected to see something a little more impressive than your standard minute metal-walled loom shed.
“Maybe there’s another building at the back of the house,” whispered Anne as we walked up the muddy, rock-strewn path.
There wasn’t.
This was all there was to the great Donald John and Maureen MacKay empire.
“Aye, it’s cozy, isn’t it,” said Donald John, his elfish face and mischievous eyes gleaming, and his handshake, viselike in strength (hardly surprising, with fingers as tough and grained as the keys on a Wild West honky-tonk). He spoke in rapid staccato sentences, his mind apparently whizzing along faster than his voice could keep up. “Well now, what would you like…oh, some tea, would you like a cup…ah, no, no, Maureen’s out isn’t she and I’m hopeless in the kit—Anyway, so this is my loom and over there…you’ll have to go in the other door if y’want to see all my different tweeds. Is that what you…shame about the tea…I like to have tea with visitors when…so where are y’from…are you stayin’ on island or…?”
Finally his zip-zap monologue ceased and he sat grinning at us, waiting for some kind of response.
We described our ongoing odyssey through the island world of the “tweed people” and he listened, still grinning, as we explained that from what we had learned so far, it appeared he was going to be the only one with anything positive to say about the future of this poor beleaguered cottage industry.
He nodded understandingly and spoke now a little more slowly.
“Well, yes, yes, it’s a difficult time indeed. And poor Derick. He’s in a real bind. Been trying for years to get more trade for us all. But you know, there’s only so much one man can do…”
“Well, according to some, you’re now that man!” I said.
Donald John gave a kind of spluttery chuckle of bashful modesty. “Me. Is that what they’re sayin’ now? Well—I must admit it’s not been a bad year or two for us. Some nice orders from the Japanese and whatnot. But it’s not really what y’could call a ‘revival.’ No, I don’t think so yet. And if Maureen was here she’d possibly put it a lot more bluntly too!”
“Does she work with you? On this loom?” asked Anne, pointing to one of the most well-used, fluff-flecked, greasy-looking Hattersley foot-pedal looms we’d seen so far on the island.
This time Donald John gave a real belly laugh. “Maureen!? On this thing? Oh no—no—you’d never see her on this. Have y’ever tried one of these things? I should let y’have a go. It’s a killer on the legs. These foot pedals need a lot o’ push to keep ’em working right. No, I don’t think my Maureen would enjoy it very much at all. But! But she’s a wonder at the computer! That’s what she does and she does it very, very well. In fact, if there’s any reason I’m still here after all these years, it’s because of her gettin’ on the Web and the e-mail and all that stuff and somehow gettin’ the world to come over and visit us and—if we’re lucky—place orders with us. And we’ve been pretty lucky. Some good orders from Norway, Taiwan, Kathmandu, Germany—and even a bunch of cowboy types in Tehachapi, California. They ordered a whole lot to make special waistcoats for themselves! Oh, and also, we got some from some of the big fashion names too—y’know, people like Donna Karan, John Galliano, Valentino, and Jimmy Choo. Not huge orders, but they like my patterns and the fact that I still work as close to tradition as y’can these days. Not the dyein’ and the spinnin’ and things like that of course, but the weavin’ itself. I think they respect that. And I think they respect the fact that I won’t—I can’t—compromise. I won’t mess around mixing in these new yarns and crazy colors. That’s not the Harris—that’s some other kind of mix—others can do that off-island. I won’t.”
Donald John MacKay—At the Loom
Donald John paused as if a little surprised by his own spirited outburst. “Y’see I was born here in Leverburgh into a weaving family, very strict principles, and very hard work. I remember m’dad used to tell me when I didn’t feel like fillin’ the bobbins for him: ‘No bobbins—no brose and no bannock cakes!’ That was a good way to remind you of principles—and I’m still proud to keep ’em…”
He paused again for a moment and his face became a little forlorn. “But…y’know what I think is saddest…most of all…I get visitors here from all over the world and I’ve had lots of school groups from Ireland, Italy, Norway, and other parts of Scotland and Britain, but—well, y’can hardly credit it really can ye—I’ve yet to see any of our own children from the local schools here come and visit and watch what we do…what hundreds of us used to do. Proudly…”
There was silence for a while and then Anne asked, “Can we watch what you do?”
Donald John’s face lit up with undisguised pleasure.
“A’ thought you’d never ask! I’ll show you what this old thing can do, all right—she’s over thirty years old and still good for another thirty. Forget y’double-wides, I’m sticking with this beauty. An’ I’ll tell y’another thing too. Don’t be writin’ off our Harris Tweed yet. Not by a long way. We’ve had our bad patches before and we’re in a bit of a sticky mess at the moment but…well, if Maureen and me have anything to do about it, we’ll find something to kick-start all the looms again. I promise you—it won’
t be long before you’ll be hearing this sound again all over the island.”
And with a straight back and proud shoulders, Donald John sat down at his tweed-covered bench (actually, just a plank of wood). Within seconds his old loom creaked and groaned into action. And the rhythmic, almost railroadlike clickety-clack, clickety-clack of the gears and wheels and bobbins began, and the weft yarn scuttled backward and forward between the warp threads as he worked the sturdy iron foot pedals, and his body swayed slowly from side to side with the noise of the wheels and the smell of the yarn wool and the beautiful, smooth, blue-gray her-ringbone-patterned tweed cloth emerging on the loom, inch by magical inch…
And we hoped—we even began to believe—that he was right and those sounds and smells and the birthing of fresh tweed would soon become a daily part of the warp and weft of Harris life—once again…
3
Clisham Keel Gleanings
YOU LEARN YOUR HISTORY FAST here. You have to. The locals assume all outsiders are fully familiar with the intricacies of Highland traumas and, to one extent or another, might even possibly be responsible for them.
And one of the most notorious places for such crash courses in island historical intricacies is the Clisham Keel Bar at the MacLeod Motel just across from the ferry terminal in Tarbert.
Anne usually preferred the more refined ambience (relatively speaking, of course) of the nearby Harris Hotel, a sturdy haven of hospitality built around 1865. But from the very first day I strolled into the Keel—and come to think of it, it actually was on my very first day—I sensed that this was the kind of place in which I’d find the Hearaich spirit alive, well, and fully primed on generous measures of the malt washed down with frothy pints of Tennent’s and McEwan’s ale.
The Clisham Keel is not a pretty place by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, it has the distinctly battered, smoky, warped, and worn appearance of a pub fully accustomed to the antics of local youths, raucous rock and ceilidh bands, occasional beery brawls, and the bawdy brouhahas of the older “salts” who invariably occupy key positions along the small, brightly lit serving bar. Younger imbibers tend to choose the random scattering of Formica tables and the scratched and knife-slashed red Naugahyde benches around the edge of this small, but kind of cozy, watering hole.
And I shall long remember my first encounter here with the scrum of older patrons huddled in a corner by the beer pumps—a tight (in more ways than one) coterie of geriatric alcoholic alpha males. I had only planned to pop in, sample a half-pint to see what hoppy delights might await me on future occasions, sit quietly for a few minutes observing the pace and mood, and then return to our cottage to be debriefed by Anne on my discoveries. However, that’s not quite what happened.
“So—what’s y’tek on the Jacobean rebellion then, y’damn Sassunach…or m’be worse, d’y’ken.”
I quickly “kenned” that the dumpy bull of a man at the bar with a red face, bright as a beer sign, was out to make an instant fool of this neophyte “incomer” (although not a “white settler,” which is a definite term of derision in these parts) who had just walked through the door. But I had to smile too. Despite his bulk, his purple-veined face set in a wild tundra of cheeks and jowls, and aggressive “don’t you eyeball me, laddie, or I’ll decorate mi sporran wi’ y’guts” look of ripe antagonism, the top of his balding head barely reached my shoulder and his huge walrus mustache, totally out of scale with the rest of his face, made him appear like Danny DeVito in dire dotage.
“Sorry…what are you talking about…?”
“Culloden, y’great ignoramus. The greatest battle ever fought on Scottish soil!”
“Which—and please correct me if I’m wrong—I believe the Scottish lost. Rather badly, I think. Which led to the end of all your clans and your Bonnie Prince Charlie and—”
“Y’d not be insultin’our bonnie prince, now—the Great Pretender!”
“Pretender! I never understood that name. But I guess that’s just about what he must have been…”
I knew I’d already pushed this mild bit of sportive repartee a little too far. And, quite frankly, I’d forgotten just about all my British history. But, as a Yorkshireman, I felt I had to do a little pretending of my own and fudge my way through this unexpected foray. After all, we lads south of the Hadrian’s Wall border of Roman times had to put up with an awful lot of cattle rustling and wife stealing and daughter deflowering from these kilted and bearded Scots, and at Culloden (odd how flickers of historical trivia return from the mysterious recesses of our memory banks), we finally kicked ass and paid the hairy tartan-clad hordes back for all their centuries of pillaging and plundering.
The little man was showing distinct signs of terminal apoplexy and I decided it was time to calm things down a bit: “Listen—can I buy you a drink?”
That stopped him cold just as he was about to rustle up a posse of locals leaning on the bar and pound me into the pavement outside for daring to malign his beloved prince.
“A dram, are y’askin’?”
“Yes. I see you’re drinking the Macallan—a fine single malt. Let me buy you another one.”
“No!” he said loudly, mustache quivering with bruised pride. “I will not, d’y’ken.”
“Oh. Okay. I just thought…” My personality now seemed to be developing distinctly limp-shrimp characteristics.
“A stranger is a guest here in Harris. Y’must drink the first dram on me. In fact, y’look like a drinkin’ man, so y’ll be havin’a double…Dierdre, a double o’ the malt f’ t’ man ’ere…and y’might as well splash one f’me too.”
“Well—that’s very kind of you” (limp-shrimp becoming less limp now).
He dismissed my thanks with a florid wave of his fat, horny-skinned fist, and the storm of confrontation seemed to pass as he smiled and we clinked glasses.
“Slainte!” he said.
“Slainte!” I replied in my best pretend-to-be-Scottish accent. And I thought, I can’t remember the last time a stranger offered to buy me a drink in a British pub. And come to think of it, I can’t remember when I’ve seen so many mature gentlemen so looped in a pub before. In England, pub drinking is more of a social occasion. But here on Harris, apparently, even at eight-thirty in the evening, it’s a serious form of mutual decimation.
“Competitive drinking is Scotland’s scourge,” I’d read in a north-of-the-border newspaper, warning of the chaos normally experienced on days like Mad Friday, just before Christmas, and the whole of the holiday season. There didn’t seem to be much in the way of competition here, though. They were all winners. They were all drunk. But still talking and cheerfully confirming that old adage, “Lots of truth in a full bottle of whisky, lots of lies in an empty one.”
All in all, from what I can remember, the evening ended amicably enough. My initial antagonist introduced me to all his old friends around the bar and shared with me a very long, and possibly overly intimate, story of his checkered life (hardly what you’d call an eloquent avant-garde monologue but certainly very colorfully vibrant). And I rolled home, somewhat later than I’d intended, to share with Anne the details of the evening or whatever I could remember—which, if I remember rightly, wasn’t much…
A WEEK OR SO LATER there was yet another emotive exchange of ideas at the Keel. Most of the time things were pretty quiet here. Even boring on occasion. But I found the bar a pleasant place to while away an hour or so, catching up with my newspaper reading and generally enjoying the slow, rhythmic routines of island life.
But not on this particular occasion—which I can only liken to a “quiz,” a popular evening pastime in British pubs. Only this one was a little different from most of the others I’d experienced…
“Like what?! Like what has Scotland done for England or for the rest of the world?!” This was a young man speaking rather pompously and aggressively—in flurries of narcissistic fury. He was tall, lean-faced, lardy-skinned, dandyishly dressed in what seemed to be a brand-new Harris Tweed
jacket. He possessed one of those rather irritating “plummy” voices, reminiscent a little of Prince Charles in one of his more arrogant of moods. “Other, that is, than inventing porridge, haggis…what else…cock a’ leekie soup…and kippers? No, not kippers. They’re from Yorkshire. Whitby. Oh, and Scotch—right. Scotch whisky. And kilts—but no one wears those anymore—in fact they were never really traditional anyway. And…what else…oh, of course, bagpipes. And thank you so much for those. They sound like a bucket of screaming cats.”
“And that’s it, is it? That’s all you can come up with?” This came from an elderly man with whisky-reddened cheeks, a broad brow furrowed like a freshly cut peat bed, and a huge mat of Santa Claus–white hair. He seemed to take the young man’s outburst lightly, smilingly, but I sensed that traps and lures might be awaiting this strident outsider.
“Well, Scotland’s only a tiny part of the world, isn’t it? Can’t expect too much, can you…”
“Weel now,” the elderly gentleman said in a slow, laconic tone, thick with brogue, “how would y’feel if I told you just about every part of y’daily life has something to do with a Scotsman. Every single part. Now would that be worth a dram or two?”
That’s an intriguing idea, I thought. I was sitting by the window, pretending to be reading my Stornoway Gazette, but actually wondering if the elderly man—so ready to wave the banner of Scottish pride in front of the sniggery face of this rather impudent young Englishman—could back up his extravagant claim.
“For example,” he began, “what wa’ that y’were wearin’ when y’came in an’ sat down ’ere?”
The Englishman was nonplused at first and then realized the old man must be referring to his raincoat. “Er…a raincoat. So?”
“And what’s another name f’y’raincoat, d’y’think?”
