Black House Into White

A radio play entitled Black House Into White was first broadcast by the BBC on its Third Programme and serialised on 14th and 16th of March and on 4th April, 1949. The script came about through the co-operation of David Thomson, Dr Werner Kissling and Calum Maclean.

The three-hour long programme had a cast which featured Alex MacKenzie, who would later star as the skipper in the comedy The Maggie (1954), along with Rhona Sykes, Angus MacDonald, Duncan MacIntyre, Archie Henry, Morven Cameron, Effie Morrison and Neil Brown together with minor parts played by Joan Fitzpatrick, Pat Vicary and Tom Smith. Musical accompaniment by way of Gaelic song was supplied by John MacLeod, John MacInnes, Kate Buchanan and Calum Johnston.

The opening announcement from the radio script ably sets the scene:

1.    ANNOUNCER: “BLACK HOUSE INTO WHITE” – We present the story of the passing of a traditional way of life in the Outer Hebrides.

The script then goes on to describe stormy Hebridean weather and then a typical dwelling-place at the turn of the twentieth century. The influence of Dr Werner Kissling, an expert on blackhouses, is easily discernible:

3.    NARRATOR: To this day in the treeless, rocky islands of the Outer Hebrides, the rain and the gales of the Atlantic and a ferocious sea, have made the ordinary daily work of man into a trial strength. Thirty or forty years ago most of the people lived in houses which had thick double walls of stone and earth, stout enough to withstand the onslaught of the winds and to provide calm and shelter from the violence outside. Granite stones, of suitable shapes and sizes, were collected and built into walls, with earth and turf instead of mortar. The rounded corners of these houses (some even had rounded end-walls), the small roof and rounded roof ends, seemed to link them in origin with the ancient beehive hut, and with their low solid walls they hugged the ground against the wind. They had no windows, but where the roof joined the wall there was at least one small hole through the thatch to let in the light and to let out some of the smoke from the peat fire which burned on the middle of the floor. Most of the smoke had to find its way out through the thatch; indeed it was not intended to escape until it had lingered there and saturated the roof with peat tar. When the thatch was so sticky and sooty that no smoke could find its way through, it was stripped from the rafters and used as manure. But meantime the inside of the house was thick with peatsmoke, night and day and glistening, pitchy pendicles of black soot fringed the rafters. It was indeed a Black House, and in character it had not changed for more than a thousand years.

It will be clear from the stories to be told in this programme – stories, by the way which were noted down probably for the first time only a few weeks ago – that the oral literature of the people lived in these Black Houses had remained unchanged in character for more than a thousand years. But so had the climate of the Atlantic coast. The Hebridean leant towards the ideal, he concentrated on the past, and except where extreme necessity drove him, the desire to improve the material conditions of his life was more or less latent. But while the chance of satisfying that desire was just as remote as, let us say, his wish to tame the wind and the sea, he could ill have dispensed with his heritage of memories and with the ideals which gave him a motive in living. Not that material conditions are improving, now that the small boys of the island will discuss among themselves the merits of a jet-propelled plane and the young men and women are interested in written literature, they must somehow discover a new force to bind their communities together. They have escaped the worst evils of our industrial age. Perhaps they will be able to show us how to glean the good things from it. For their independence of mind and their strength have not changed – and the wind and the sea and the rain which govern the work they do – these have not changed.

As the narrator moves away from a graphic description of the dwelling-house to that which was then the way of life in the Hebrides, the influence of Calum Maclean can be seen. The progamme then turns to a typical ceilidh scene:

1.    RONALD: Then the man of the house would start to tell one of his stories and all the people in the house would be silent. I learnt many such stories from my father – some would take four or five evenings to tell, but the shorter ones would last perhaps an hour.

Our language, as you know, is Gaelic – my mother and my father had no English at all, and the little children had no English (no more have they nowadays) but my brother and sisters and I had learnt English at school. So now when we let you hard hi story, as he told it sitting by the fire, spinning heather ropes maybe, or making horse’s harness of seabent, Ian here will put it shortly for you in English. Much of the wonder and glory will be lost to you in English, so I will ask you first to listen to the sound of the Gaelic and the style it was spoken in that held our ears bound to the story of a hero.

There then follows an English translation of the tale known as The Son of the King of Lochlan. The tale was recorded by Maclean from Duncan MacDonald, one of the very best storytellers that Maclean had the privilege to encounter when collecting in South Uist. The translation is clearly the work of Maclean. After the story has been narrated, all the characters then discuss some points of the story and raise questions or make observations of what they had heard. Thomson doubtless had discussed with Maclean all that he had picked up about traditional ceilidhs and used his knowledge to good effect in creating an authentic atmosphere for the radio play.

The rest of the play continues in a similar vein in that it reproduces a ceilidh scene of yesteryear including more Gaelic song and stories. Yet it also contains contemporary material with mention made of the Second World War and also local issues. Such a brief summary can hardly do justice to the vitality and fullness of the original script never mind the actual performance of the actors involved in the production of the radio programme. The broadcast received some outstanding reviews: (Evening News, 23/3/49). “This was a most fluent and exciting presentation of the passing of a traditional way of life in the Outer Hebrides symoblised by the gradual disappearance of the Black House. It was a rich, artistic and emotional experience to listen to this piece which was evidently compiled in the main by an English producer―very English, I can assure you―named David Thomson.” Special praise is reserved for Duncan MacDonald’s performance: “There were some fine individual performances by a mixture of professional and amateur artists. Noteworthy was Duncan MacDonald, the traditional storyteller. He has a powerful voice which he uses with a high sense of poetry and feeling for the past.”

Other reviews were not far behind such as the one from the Bulletin (16/3/1949): “Now that was something―“Black House Into White” on the Third Programme! This fascinating script on passing of a traditional way of life in the Outer Hebrides (South Uist and Benbecula, where the oral literature had remained unchanged for a thousand years) had a magnificent subject…Some of the recordings of the wonderful heroic tales, ancient fruit of the age-long Ceilidhs, were made for the first time a few weeks ago. You don’t need to be a genius to make recordings. Ordinary common sense should have told the local men where to find such material for their recordings.” Waxing even more lyrically was a review from the Scottish Daily Mail (17/3/1949): “These wonderful stories, told in the most poetic and fiery language, whirling the mind into a starry vast by sheer power of words and imagination, are food for our starved, drab souls…Thomson’s script, simple and well knit, was not all fairy tales. It gave a sensitive and accurate interpretation (extremely well acted by our local players) of the change which had come over the islands, and of the muddled, puzzled, wandered young folk who don’t know where they are going.” Perhaps the most realistic review was published in the Observer (20/3/1949): “…a vivid depiction…of the primitive way of life which survives in the Outer Hebrides. Instead of being exhibited as anthropological oddities the islanders were revealed, in their simple dignity, coping with elemental problems for which, in their environment, there is no solution by Wage Board, By-Law or Act of Parliament. The singers and storytellers, all natives of the islands, had me spellbound by their artless recital of legend and tradition. Too often we heard these things as folk-salvage, collected by sentimentalists and displayed in the incongruous setting of one of our lesser concert-halls. But in this stark medium of wireless we made direct and dramatic contact with Barra and South Uist.”

Calum Maclean’s diary entries, originally written in Gaelic but here given in translation, reveal the buildup to the rehearsal and recording of Black House Into White.

Monday, 14 March 1949 [NFC 1300, 118–21]

In the morning I received a message from David Thomson. He came down from London last night and he asked to go down to the hotel where he’s staying so that we could go up to the BBC. Hugh MacPhee was organising matters until David Thomson arrived. He only had one day to get everything organised. Some of the folk who were taking part in the broadcast were present. Two of them spoke Gaelic and one of the woman, Rona Sykes from the Isle of Skye, spoke Gaelic as well. The two men were called Angus MacDonald and Alexander MacKenzie. Angus MacDonald came over to speak with me and he said that he had plenty of stories and he wanted to give them to me. He gave me his address and I promised to go and visit him the next time I’d be in Glasgow. He has the story about Uilleam bi ’d Shuidhe (Willie Sit Down), he told me. He also told me that he has a friend in Glasgow who has many old songs that he got in the Isle of Skye. I thought that it was pretty amazing that I should meet a man like that at the BBC’s Broadcasting Station. Angus MacDonald speaks good Gaelic. He hails from Kilmuir in the Isle of Skye. We spent all day preparing from the evening broadcast. David Thomson called the recording Black House into White. Those that read the parts were very good. They had good voices and the right accent with their English dialects. They went on air at quarter past eight and the recording lasted an hour. David Thomson and I were quite tired when it was all over. We went back to the hotel and we had one drink there. I then went back home.

Wednesday, 16 March 1949 [NFC 1300, 123]

I set off from Glasgow around six o’clock this morning. It was a fine morning and I had a good journey coming home. I arrived about four o’clock in the afternoon and found everyone well. Our programme, Black House into White, was broadcast again tonight. I went over to the hotel to hear it. We didn’t hear it very well at all but some of it was good enough.

Later that same year, Maclean had the opportunity to listen to a repeat of the programme when in Benbecula.

Sunday, 7 August 1949 [NFC 1111, 36]

I didn’t do much worth mentioning today. I spent a while in the afternoon at the house of Janet, Angus MacLellan’s widow as I had to do some writing for her, writing about the late Angus’s money. I was pleased, anyhow, that he left her a little. I then went up to Angus MacMillan’s house. Our recording, Black House into White, was broadcast on the Scottish service tonight. We all listened to it.

Maclean’s brief stint in broadcasting had actually began five or six years previously when he was in resident in Ireland (specifically Dublin) where he wrote and presented a number of programmes about Gaelic and Irish. Such experience and his undoubted ability to write attractive prose stood him in good stead for his later (and crucial) involvement during the production of Black House Into White. David Thomson, on the other hand, continued his successful career in broadcasting and writing and would later pen a number of works such as The People of the Sea (1954), in which Calum Maclean’s assistance was acknowledged, and the novel for which he is perhaps best remembered Nairn in Darkness and in Light (1987), published a year before his death.

References:

NLS, David Thomson, Acc 10129/100

NFC 1111; 1300 [Calum Maclean’s diaries for 1949]

Image:

Alex MacKenzie during the filming of The Maggie

Angus MacMillan: A Summary of his Life Story

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.

Family History

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.

Calum MacMillan [Calum Barrach]

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.

School Days

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.

After School

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.

Isle of Rum

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.

Mallaig

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.

Militia

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.

Stories of Poaching and Other Things

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.

A Trip to Lochmaddy

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.

Marriage

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.

Stories

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.

Uist Keeps Its Own Sense of Values

Reproduced in full is the second article written by Calum Maclean that appeared in The Scotsman:

 

Recording of folklore material is a matter of immediate urgency

 

In his second article on Uist, Calum I. Maclean concludes that although the Rocket Range is not going to spell disaster to the Gaelic language and traditions the recording of the wealth of folklore material among the islanders is a matter of immediate urgency.

 

After leaving Anthony Currie I had to trudge back over the rough track to the lovely new road to Loch Carnan pier. Actually, most of the material for the range was being landed from barges which came halfway down the South Ford. At the crossroads of Gerinish, I noticed, the new tar-macadam surface does not go one inch further than is necessary to serve the purposes of the range. New bridges, however, have been built on the road all the way to Lochboisdale.

 

General opinion in Uist seems to be that the Rocket Range is not going to affect things all that much, but the era of prosperity that some hoped would result is not going to come, and the crofters will have to fall back on their land and the seaweed and tweed industries. South Uist is prosperous, but it was prosperous before the Rocket Range came and in any case its strong sense of non-money values remains unchanged.

 

English advancing

English, however, has made quite alarming inroads during the last ten years. In the summer of 1950 a very intelligent and respected Benbecula man, Donald MacPhee of Nunton, maintained that Gaelic had not receded an inch during the period from 1920 to 1950. English has now become the language of the playground in at least one of the Uist schools.

 

Local opinion also has it that the range is not going to affect the Bornish and Daliburgh parishes so very much, but there is a certain amount of uneasiness about Army buildings springing up on the machair of Cille Pheadair south of Daliburgh.

 

One can be too pessimistic and imagine that the Rocket Range is going to spell disaster to the Gaelic language and traditions. Something will survive in spite of everything. The person who is reputed to have learned Angus MacLellan’s tales and stories best of all is a young lady who is now married out in Kenya. In one of the houses I visited there were two or three young children who listened with intense interest and appeared to absorb everything that the old grandfather had to tell.

 

One of the young Catholic curates organises Ceilidhean every month. To these the old people come to tell stories, sing songs and dance Hebridean dances, while adults and children of both the Protestant and Catholic communities, attend them regularly. There everything is in Gaelic. There is still the well-known Uist passion for piping and the tremendous respect for pipers.

 

Piping schools

Pipe Major John MacDonald, late of the Glasgow Police Pipe Band, is now back home in retirement and had already started to teach pupils, while another noted piper who emigrated to Canada many years ago is due to return home soon. There is widespread regret that so many promising young pipers have to leave Uist and find work in Glasgow and the south.

 

It will be a tragedy, however, if the Rocket Range and the outside influence that come in its train do change the character of the people of South Uist. As the charming young wife of the local surgeon, herself a stranger from Cumberland: “The great beauty of life in South Uist is that people always go about with laughing, smiling faces.”

 

As has been stated already, the sense of non-utilitarian values is very strong. That has not changed much for generations, as Donald MacIntyre of Loch Eynort, a great storyteller and the son of an even greater one, the late Alasdair Mòr MacIntyre illustrates.

 

Alasdair MacIntyre was a shepherd and lived in a remote place to the east side of Ben More. It was from him that old Angus MacLellan of Frobost learned most of his tales, and old Alasdair used to walk from the back of Ben More to Ormiclate to record tales for the late Dr Alasdair Carmichael over 70 years ago. Carmichael was immensely proud of one tale he recorded and Donald himself recorded the selfsame tale a fortnight ago.

 

It is the international tale about the Clever Peasant Girl. No. 94 in the Grimm Collection. It took about an hour to relate, but Donald MacIntyre maintained that in the telling he had nothing like his father’s mastery of ornate, artistic language.

 

Old Alasdair and Angus MacLellan’s father, Aonghas mac Eachainn, were close friends. One day Alasdair Mòr called at the MacLellan home on his way to Lochboisdale. “No one went to bed in their house that night. They all remained by the fire as the two old men went on storytelling,” said Donald.

 

“Next day old Angus and two or three of the boys went down to Loch Eynort to gather seaweed. They brought Alasdair Mòr with them, as it would shorten his way, and they put in at a place where there was a track that would bring him home. Aonghas mac Eachainn got out of the boat also and accompanied Alasdair to see him safely on the track. The two old men sat down on a hillock and began storytelling, while the boys kept the boat afloat on the ebbing tide. The boys continued keeping the boat afloat for a very long time and soon twilight was upon them.

 

“Go up,” said one of the boys to another, “and separate those two devils or the boat will soon be high and dry.” One of the boys went up and the two old men parted. When Aonghas mac Eachainn came down to the shore, the boys remonstrated with him for having wasted the day and for not having cut any seaweed. Old Aonghas mac Eachainn looked up at the sky: “It will be a fine day tomorrow. We will get plenty seaweed tomorrow.”

 

Urgent need

While the academic, scholastic types who regard the tradition bearers of South Uist as “mere guinea pigs” are much more of a menace to those courteous and generous people than any Army personnel that the Rocket Range may bring amongst them, there is no doubt that the recording of folklore material is a matter of immediate urgency, for the really outstanding sources will not be with us much longer and whatever they leave with a younger generation will be inferior both in quantity and quality to what they themselves have now.

 

The refusal of a former Secretary of State for Scotland to accede to the request of the Edinburgh University authorities for funds to record the folklore and material of South Uist has been deplored by publicists and scholars both in this country and abroad. It is quite possible that, if the request had been made to the governments of Norway, Sweden or Denmark, the response would have been much more satisfactory.

 

Reference:

Calum I. Maclean, ‘Uist Keeps Its Own Sense of Values’, The Scotsman (12 August 1959), p. 6

 

Image:

Angus MacLellan, Frobost, South Uist, photographed by Calum Maclean on the 24th of June 1959. Courtesy of the School of Scottish Studies Archives, University of Edinburgh

The Blind Piper: Lachlan Bàn MacCormick of Benbecula

In Benbecula, where Calum Maclean had spent so many years collecting folklore, a ceilidh that he attended left an emotional and lasting impression upon the young collector:

 

No mention of the tradition-bearers of Benbecula would be complete, if we did not include the grand old gentleman, the blind piper Lachlan Bàn MacCormick. As well as several traditional pipe-tunes, he recorded two tales, and has more to tell. My most moving experience as a folklore collector was to have recorded from him. He is 92 years of age and his eyes have been completely sightless for the past eight years.

 

In his diary Maclean recorded the ceilidh in some detail for not only was such work part of his duties as a professionally trained ethnologist but even more so because it was such a great social occasion and one which he would later recollect with pleasure.

 

Lachlan Bàn MacCormick (1859–1951) was a native of Creagorry, Benbecula, and later joined the 2nd (later 3rd) Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders in 1889 when he was thirty years of age. He was called Lachie Bàn due to his very fair hair and complexion. While in the Camerons, he reached the rank of Pipe-Sergeant and would later serve in the Lovat Scouts. It is likely that after his demobilisation he returned to Benbecula and settled down to life as a crofter. In his day he was numbered as one of the best pipers in the Hebridean scene and was a competition prize winner as well as being a highly regarded instructor. A composer of merit, some of his tunes are still to this day part of the piping repertoire such as the catchy strathspey The South Uist Golf Club. MacCormick on more than one occasion would also take to the bench and, when not competing himself, would judge his fellow pipers in light as well as the classical music of the pipes at the games in South Uist and probably elsewhere.

 

On 28 November 1949 Maclean wrote an account of his visit in his fieldwork diary. It may added in passing MacCormick composed a reel for Calum Maclean to which the recipient of this honour was deeply moved and delighted by such a generous gesture.
 

When we arrived we found a full house as all the neighbours were in. Lachlan Bàn is an uncle of Catriona, Peter MacAlasdair’s wife, who also visited the house tonight. Lachlan Bàn is 91 years of age and was also famed as a piper. He used to pipe at weddings and funerals. He was also a piper in the Militia and rose to the rank of Pipe-Major. He learnt by ear and could compose his own tunes. Lachlan had always been short-sighted and he was grey-haired from a young age. He has now been blind for more than eight years. He sometimes recognises voices but mainly he had to ask who was speaking to him. He still has good hearing. He was very familiar with William MacLean, a famous piper who was in Creagorry and it pleased him greatly to hear that I was related to him.
 

Pipe-Major Willie MacLean (1876–1957), nick-named Blowhard, mentioned here had also been a fellow Cameron Highlander and had at one time owned the Creagorry Inn. A noted piper and composer of the reel Creagorry Blend, MacLean could trace his piping lineage back to the MacCrimmons, hereditary pipers to the MacLeods of Dunvegan, through his instructor at Catlodge, Malcolm MacPherson, styled Calum Pìobaire. Maclean then goes on to give further details of the ceilidh and how MacCormick played the pipes to the joy of the audience who were present in his house: 
 

He played on the pipes and I could see how much this pleased Lachlan Bàn. Lachlan then played as he sat on a bench with his back to the window and his fingering was a good as it ever was. If it were not for his blindness he would still be an excellent piper. He looks as if he were only 60 years of age although he was 91. He played the tunes far quicker than pipers do today. He knew that I had the Ediphone recording device and that he was being recorded playing the tunes. He played an old tune that he had heard in the army, two tunes he composed himself, and another composed by his son, Allan, who died around 1930. Lachlan Bàn heard his recording replayed on the Ediphone and he very much enjoyed this.
 

Some two months were to pass when Maclean accompanied by Donald MacPhee revisited MacCormick, on 19 January 1950, to find him in not such a good mood but as soon as MacPhee engaged him in conversation about his old Militia days then Lachlan soon perked up. Lachlan Bàn was then handed a chanter and he managed to play two tunes, one composed for the south ford and another called ‘Salute the King’. Although they were recorded they were difficult to make out. Maclean noted that MacCormick might well be past his best in order to take down his tunes and regretted not having got hold of him earlier.

 

Of only the five stories which Maclean managed to take down from MacCormick’s recitation, two of them concerned fairy lore both of which were recorded on this particular visit. A summary may be given of one of these tales which were once common stock among storytellers. MacCormick’s mother had heard the it from James MacDonald who told the tale in the presence of priest called Maighstir Dòmhnall (Father Donald):
 

He said that fairies still existed and they used to wait until Michaelmas until the corn was ripe when they would then harvest and make ready to take to the mill. They used to bake sruan, special commemorative cakes. Two neighbours on their way over to the mill heard music emanating from the fairy hillock. One of the men entered while the other stayed behind. For a year there was no sign of the man who went into the hillock and they thought he was dead by now. The year after at the very same time the other man was passing the hillock and saw a doorway open. Before entering the man placed a knife in the doorway and inside he saw his companion dancing with a sack still on his back. The man did not wish to leave so that the other man had to drag him out. The man thought that he had only been in the hill for a minute. The other man told him he had been in for a year and his relations thought that they would never see him again. Off home he went still carrying the sack from the year before.
 

Maclean remarked that he thought MacCormick as a good a storyteller as he was a piper. Many old tunes as well as his own compositions were faithfully taken down on the Ediphone and perhaps remain to this day at the National Folklore Collection in Dublin and which have probably not been heard since time they were first recorded.
 

Although having only been in the company of Lachlan Bàn on two occasions, such impressions left a remarkable touchstone in Maclean’s memory for he had never been so moved by any other tradition bearer. This by itself is even more remarkable given that Maclean had already met many tradition bearers before his introduction to Lachlan Bàn, including three others from Benbecula, South Uist and Barra respectively who he reckoned to be outstanding exponents of oral tradition.
 

Reference:

Calum I. Maclean, The Highlands (Inbhir Nis: Club Leabhar, 1975)

 

Image:

Photographic Postcard of Lachlan Bàn MacCormick, Beinn na Coraraidh, South Uist, c. 1920s.