Calum Maclean on
the 22nd of July 1948 began to record Angus MacMillan’s life story. Essentially it is a
chronological autobiography (with some flashbacks) that begins with a sketch of Angus MacMillan’s
antecedents, continues with his schooling, his adolescence and his adventures
and working life and stops at the then present day (23rd of August 1948), some six years before the narrator’s
death in 1954 at the age of eighty.
The process of
taking down MacMillan’s life story took several weeks as the narrator would
dictate his biographical material into an Ediphone – a wax cylinder recorder –
which would then be erased as an economic measure after Maclean had transcribed
the material. The original manuscripts are now housed in the National Folklore Collection (formerly the Irish Folklore
Commission) at University College Dublin (NFC 1180: 301–548). The biographical
narrative may be divided into eleven distinct parts of varying lengths: Family
History; Calum MacMillan; School Days; After School; Isle of Rum; Mallaig;
Militia; Stories of Poaching and Other Things; A Trip to Lochmaddy; Marriage;
and Stories.
Maclean recorded
two other biographies, one of which was from Duncan MacDonald (1882–1954),
styled Donnchadh mac Dhòmhnaill ’ic
Dhonnchaidh and the other from Angus MacLellan. The latter was
unfortunately never completed due to his untimely death in 1950.
The following
summary can only do but scant justice to Angus MacMillan’s narrative which is
speckled with lively dialogue in good vernacular Gaelic. It is hoped,
nevertheless, that it gives a flavour of the life of an “ordinary” crofter who
was also an “extraordinary” storyteller with an amazing repertoire of tales and
anecdotes. What, perhaps, makes MacMillan’s autobiography so interesting is
that his life spanned the years when the communities of South Uist and
Benbecula underwent great social changes, beginning at the time when
crofters gained security of tenure because of the Crofters’ Act in 1886,
through two world wars, and finally with the emergence of the Cold War that
resulted in the controversial militarisation of the Southern Outer Hebrides.
Angus MacMillan
explains that his paternal grandfather came from Barra and his maternal
grandfather came from Heisker in North Uist. His father [Calum MacMillan, Calum
Barrach] came of a family of four boys and four girls. As a young lad he came
to Uist and worked as a herds boy, employed by a MacLellan of Ormaclete. His
mother, a milkmaid, who also worked for MacLellan, met his father and they
married.
Eventually his
father, aged around forty-one, got land in Benbecula at Cnoc Fhraochaig. They
had seven children all of whom died apart from the youngest, Angus MacMillan,
and the third youngest, Mary Anna. They lost an infant boy when
he was only two years old who was also called Angus; Peggy was the oldest daughter,
and passed away in America, and there was Mary, Donald and Lachlann; and then
there was Mary Anna, Jean and Angus MacMillan. Peggy, Donald, Lachlann and Mary
all emigrated to America. Angus MacMillan was born at Cnoc Fhraochaig on 3 July
1874. His maternal grandfather, Lachlann Donald MacDonald, belonged to
Benbecula.
Angus MacMillan described
his father as being five feet ten inches tall. He was a crofter. At the time of his death he was eighty-eight
years of age and without any impairment to his memory or hearing. He had a
good, strong voice and a prodigious memory for he only needed to hear a story
twice before he had it committed to memory. He received no formal education and
had never spent a day at school. He had three brothers, two of whom were in
Kintyre and the other was over in Canada. None of them are living now [1948].
He left Barra when he was twelve years of age and he was the only one who came
north. There was one in Bruarnish in Barra called Mòr an Tàilleir and she was his father’s sister.
Angus MacMillan then
explains that his father got a great deal of his repertoire from an itinerant
dance master who belonged to Morar named Ewen MacLachlan, styled An
Dannsair Ciotach [due to a shrivelled hand], who stayed with his father
when he over-wintered at his house. Angus tells that his father used to have a
full house in which he would tell stories.
One such story was a translation from Jules Verne’s Six Weeks in a Baloon. The story was told in English by James
MacDonald, a tailor from Gearradh Bheag.
Angus MacMillan first went
to school before he was five years of age. His first teacher was a Miss Laing.
MacMillan admits that he did not enjoy school and it was made even worse when
an Aberdonian arrived by the name of Fyfe. One winter’s day MacMillan and his
friend, a policeman’s son, kept all the rest of the children playing outside
sliding on the ice. The schoolmaster demanded to know why they had not returned
when the bell had rang. It was a rhetorical question for he later blamed
MacMillan and his friend. He was going to give them the strap when MacMillan
and the other boy decided that they would give him a beating. MacMillan never
returned to school after that though the policeman’s son did.
On leaving school, Angus
MacMillan worked for his father on the croft. A while afterwards he decided to
join the Militia. He was seventeen years of age at the time. He spent ten weeks
in Inverness before returning home. He was going to enlist again but could not
as there was no one else around to help out with the croft work. He spent all
day cutting peat for six shillings. Afterwards he got a job in Nunton working on
a tack for eighteen pennies a day. He also did scythe work for which he was
paid two schillings a day.
An Aberdonian by the name of
Bain owned Creagorry Inn in Benbecula and asked Angus MacMillan’s father for permission
to see if he would work on building roads in the Isle of Rum. Bain had won a
contract for the work. MacMillan’s father gave his permission and Angus set out
in a fishing boat from Creagorry to the Isle of Rum. MacMillan along with the
rest of the workmen worked on the roads for two schillings a day. A year passed
at this work and his father asked him to return home. MacMillan also complained
that all the hard labour had made his hands sore. The foreman persuaded him to stay
by offering him light work as a post man. MacMillan only had to work three
hours a day. For the next period MacMillan worked at delivering goods on
horseback from Kinloch to where the work worked. MacMillan carried out this
work for some time and his hand by now had completely healed. For entertainment
the men used to drink whisky (delivered by MacMillan) and they also used to
hold roups [auctions]. MacMillan interestingly mentions that the workforce
consisted of Lowlanders and Gaels and they kept their own company and never
really mixed.
MacMillan’s next period of
employment was working on the West Highland railway line between Fort William
and Mallaig. MacMillan spent three years working on the line. Various men from
the islands such as Skye and Harris worked along with the locals and Irish.
There was tension between the groups of workmen especially when drink was
involved. MacMillan gives a graphic description of a fight that took place one
night when the islanders and the Irish fought one another. A while afterwards
MacMillan got a job as a carter on the railway line and describes this in a
fair amount of detail. After breaking his fingers in an accident, MacMillan
left the job after receiving compensation.
After recuperating at home,
MacMillan was called up to the Militia during the Boer War. MacMillan lied
about this age on the advice of the recruiting sergeant so that he would receive
higher pay. For training, MacMillan travelled to Aldershot and thence to
Ireland. MacMillan describes in a fair amount of detail his journey from Uist
to the mainland, including a disturbance that took place on the ferry when he
was making his way home. MacMillan then gives an account of his courting days.
He then describes an incident with a travelling woman. An anecdote about a
particularly religious Harrisman then follows. MacMillan then relates his experience
of storytelling to a Sergeant-Major. MacMillan notes that he got the
opportunity to go to Africa but he unfortunately caught measles. On his
recovery, MacMillan went back on home on leave but by accident overstayed. He
eventually went back to the Militia without consequence and then took part in
two tours of Ireland. MacMillan was then bought out of the army as his father
was ailing. Overall, MacMillan reckoned that he spent fifteen years in the
Militia.
MacMillan used to poach
salmon using a net on a river near Griminish and relates an episode when he was
nearly caught by the bailiff. On another occasion, MacMillan tells of a time he
was poaching wild-fowl (geese) by using traps. This was one of his most
successful poaching expeditions. He came under suspicion from the local
gamekeeper and they fell out over this despite having previously been on good
terms. On another poaching expedition, MacMillan caught many wild-ducks.
MacMillan also relates an occasion when he went out to the loch to get some
nets and found swan eggs. When meeting his sister who was coming home,
MacMillan went to Lochmaddy, North Uist. MacMillan borrowed a gig from the
priest in order to travel to Lochmaddy. He was entrusted by a policeman to take
a letter to the Fiscal in Lochmaddy. Whilst in the company of the Fiscal,
MacMillan relates a poaching tale. MacMillan then relates the events of travelling
back down to Benbecula and then to South Uist. MacMillan then relates an
anecdote of a missing wild duck that he found but hid from the gamekeeper.
MacMillan volunteered to
take the township’s bull for sale to Lochmaddy. He rode all the way there and
describes his adventures in doing so. Many folk came out to view such an unusual
scene as he rode the bull. On his approach to Lochmaddy a car stopped at his
rear and passengers got out and took photographs of him riding the bull.
MacMillan stayed overnight and reckons that it was one of his best trips. On
another occasion, MacMillan accompanied a priest to Lochmaddy and he relates
their trip and the dangerous crossing of the ford when they were both very
nearly drowned. Around this time MacMillan was nearly killed by a rampaging
bull but for the fact that he struck it on his horns whereby the bull did not
regain consciousness for a few hours. On a fishing trip on the east side of
Benbecula, a whale was spotted and on going out to investigate the crew were
very nearly drowned. MacMillan then relates a story of his courtship days when
he visited his sweetheart who eventually became his wife. Another anecdote
follows where MacMillan describes a time when he in the company of other
children climbed upon the chapel roof.
MacMillan relates the
background of how he came to marry his wife. The local priest persuaded him to
marry his sweetheart before she had an opportunity to leave the island.
MacMillan says that he greatly appreciated the advice that the priest gave him
and that it had been a good decision to marry his sweetheart. MacMillan
explained that she was also a MacMillan, Peigi
nighean Aonghais Mhòir. They moved into MacMillan’s parents’ house.
MacMillan relates that his own mother was a MacDonald who was from Benbecula
and she died at seventy-five. MacMillan says that she was a good singer and had
scores of old songs. His father belonged to Barra folk and never left Uist once
he moved there. He died at the age of eighty-eight.
MacMillan relates that on
helping give birth to a cow he told to story, a very long one. MacMillan kept
on telling the story until around six o’clock in the morning. On another
occasion, MacMillan began relating a story to a group of women but by the time
five o’clock in the morning had gone he was not finished. In a week’s time he
asked them if they wished him to continue and they all said that they didn’t
wish for him to keep going as they had been lambasted for being so late on the
previous occasion. On yet another occasion, MacMillan began telling a story to
group of folk; the story lasted all night and by the time the story was
finished the sun had risen. MacMillan says that he told stories in many places
and if he was in a hurry he would shorten them. On another storytelling
occasion, MacMillan began telling a story by a wall to the local blacksmith who
was very keen to hear tales and as he continued around fifty people had crowded
around him to listen. By nightfall he had not finished telling the story. Then
MacMillan tells of a lad [Calum Òg] that he and his wife adopted. He reckons it
was the best thing that he had ever done. He later went on to marry a woman
from Barra [Anne MacLean]. MacMillan ends his biography by saying that he is
growing progressively weaker but also wishing to bless anyone who listens to his
tale.
Calum
Maclean notes the following at the end of the transcription of Angus’s
autobiography: “Angus finished telling his life story on this very day
(23/8/1950). I first met Angus in March, 1947. Ever since then I have been
transcribing anecdotes and stories from him. He is mentioned in my notebook
diaries since March 1947. I will be working with him for a good while yet, I
hope.”
Reference:
NFC 1180: 301–548 [Transcription of Angus MacMillan’s
autobiography]
Image:
Angus
MacMillan, c. 1930s, Griminish, Benbecula.
