BY HILL AND SHORE
Angus Martin
Part Two
George and I had our first hike out to the Inans on 10 January, a beautiful frosty, sunny day. We struck out from High Lossit across the moors to Craigaig, and followed the high ground south from there. I noticed what may be hut-circles or shielings north of Earadale Point and photographed them. We disturbed no fewer than three FOXES in the glen, and each of them took off in different directions. One of them headed north, up the coast, and we were to see him again, on our way back to the car. He was curled below a rock, sleeping in the sun, and I was able to photograph him before he realised we were there. He was no doubt enjoying a respite from wind and rain. There were two GOLDEN EAGLES at Earadale, or the same one sighted twice. I noticed on the coast something I had never noticed before - dark oval patches surrounded by frost, with blobs of dung beside them, signifying where sheep had lain during the night.
The family and I went on Hogmanay to the White Hart Hotel for a bar-meal. On the way out, I spotted Teddy Lafferty in the public bar and joined him there for a yarn. We were joined later by Gary Muir, whereupon I realised that there were three Inans-goers in a row. Still later, Alec Docherty came in and sat beside Gary, which made four in a row. I remarked to the company that such a concentration of Inans-goers was unlikely ever to recur.
It did - Teddy, Gary, Willie McMillan and I were together at the bar of the upstairs lounge of the White Hart, at Teddy's 65th birthday party on 20 February - and was exceeded, albeit briefly, when Robert Kelly and Neil McKay came to the bar. Six in a row! Willie had a tale to tell. He and his son, David, were at Leac Bhuidhe last summer, snaring crubans in time-honoured fashion from the rock-holes. They got one crab ....and a giraffe! It was a wooden ornament, however, taken by David from one of the pools. The base was gone and the feet worn to points, but Willie took it home and hopes eventually to mount it on a suitable piece of driftwood.
COCONUT IN THE GALDRANS
On 26 February, while gathering driftwood in the Galdrans, I found a large nut washed ashore. I
was puzzled as to what it was, but elucidation came several evenings later when my cousin, Tommy
Ralston, visited. He and his wife, Ina, had been on Rarotonga, in the Cook Islands, en route to New
Zealand to visit Tommy's brother Billy there. Tommy identified my find as a coconut, and was able
to show me a photograph of Ina trying out the technique of opening one, by driving it down on to a
pointed stick lodged in the ground, the purpose of this exercise being to break the outer husk. The
coconut I'd found was complete with that outer husk. It also had the remains of pelagic goose
barnacles still adhering to it, so I don't think it was just flung overboard from a passing ship.
On 7 February, I got a report from Jen McMillan in Machrihanish that there was an injured hawk beside the driveway to Lossit House. I contacted Tony Lambert, who went out to Machrihanish the following day to look for the bird. He misunderstood my message - which I'd left on his answering-machine - and thoroughly searched the wrong place. In so doing, however, he noticed jackdaws mobbing something on a nearby crag. Knowing that hawks, when injured, try to reach high ground, he thought that he had struck it lucky. On reaching the top of the crag, he saw a flash of white vanish down a hole' not three metres from where he stood. It was an ERMINE (a stoat in winter coat). He followed the rule in such instances, which is: stand still and wait. In his own words: 'Surely enough, up popped a little head, then out came the pure white creature, with a bit of black only - the tip of his tail. He was a large male. He vanished in a second, but the magical moment registered like a photograph'. Tony, disappointed, headed back home, but, by good fortune, happened to meet me and was able to clarify the exact position the hawk had been sighted. 'Back I went ... and there it was, a beautiful male KESTREL - blue-grey head and tail, chestnut back and wings'. He and his wife Trish have taken him into care, taped his wings together - one of them was broken - and report that he has 'taken to hopping out of his box in the kitchen and taking a wee walk round'. They hope that eventually he can be housed in the outside aviary. It is unlikely he can ever be restored to the wild, but they are pleased with his progress, being, as Trish put it, 'so used to having these injured birds die the first night'. He has been christened 'Mac', from Machrihanish, where his troubles began.
EARTHQUAKE
An earthquake was felt in South Kintyre about twenty minutes' past midnight on 4 February. Its
epicentre was 4 km south of Arran and it measured 4.0 on the Richter Scale, the strongest tremor to
affect the area since 1927. Since it was widely reported in the national media, no more need be said
about it here.
NAMES FROM THE PAST
While delivering mail at 8 Burnbank, Drumlemble, on 18 June, 1998, I happened to glance at an
old front door-frame which a Council joiner was replacing, and noticed a name and initials pencilled
on the inner side. The name at the head of the list was that of my old Coasting acquaintance, Teddy
Lafferty, so I 'phoned him that evening and got the story.
He had worked at the building of the Burnbank houses in the early 1950s, while serving his time as a bricklayer with the 'Scout', Neil McArthur, and was able to identify five of the seven initials: Davie Scally, Harry King, Hector McGeachy, Duncan Ferguson and Don Graham.
He recalled that, at that time, 'Wagon Wheel' biscuits had just come on the market, and that the squad used to buy them from the wee shop in Drumlemble - a hut - where McCowan's 'Highland Toffee' bars, at 3d a cake, were also a popular buy. One of the other workmen, Jock Cunningham, was dismissive of the toffee's quality, and would opine: 'Ye're wastin yer money - that's the dregs o' the barrel.' A Drumlemble native, 'Peachy' McMillan, was also employed on the job, and kept hens at the back of his house in 1 Front Row.
By coincidence, I was given, last summer, two pieces of wood-panelling by Hector Galbraith at Polliwilline, and these too had names on them. Hector's brother, Andrew, had kept them when they turned up at the demolition of the old steading at Langholm, Southend, some 20 years ago. They were much older - and, I may add, the wood remains to this day perfectly sound - and read as follows: 'Plumber - John McNaughton; Masons - Thos McCulloch, Andrew McCulloch, Robt McCulloch, John McCulloch, James McCulloch, William McCulloch; Joiners - John Urqhuart, Malcolm Bannatyne, Limecraigs [where the Duke of Argyll's joinery workshop was located - the building is now used as workshops/stores by local tradesmen]. October 1905. So long.' Jock McCulloch, who is married in Carradale, is the last male representative of that family in Kintyre.
Still in Carradale, Lachie Paterson, who fishes with Tommy Finn aboard the Gleaner, tells me that the crew sighted a leatherback TURTLE while seine-netting two miles north-west of Sellafield in September of last year. The turtle was first spotted by Hamish Wareham, who alerted his ship-mates, and Lachie was able to take several photographs of the reptile. That sighting reminded me of a report I read in a back-number of The Campbeltown Courier. This concerned the 'lifting' of a turtle, measuring 5ft 6ins long and 3ft 6ins broad, from the Kilbrannan Sound in August, 1875, by Dugald McCorkindale, master of the schooner Benmore. For some reason, the turtle was 'taken over to Mr Mathieson, manager, Bulloch Lade Distillery'. One finds this kind of account so often in 19th and early 20th century newspapers - a rare creature is encountered, therefore it must be captured or shot for proof or for identification. Thank goodness a more enlightened attitude towards wildlife prevails nowadays. Lachie has told me, too, that while seine-netting early in March on the Mermaid Bank, between Sanda and Corsewall Point, he observed two or three SEALS fishing there, and watched one surface with what was obviously a cod. I was surprised, having hitherto assumed that seals didn't venture far offshore. We're aye leamin!
Still with the sea, I had a letter in October of last year from a Mr G Ogwen-Jones in Beaumaris, Anglesey, enquiring about the burial of his great-grandfather, Captain Evan Jones of the schooner Ann, in Kilcolmkill Graveyard, Southend. I was able to provide him with a copy of the Courier report on the loss of the schooner, and also with a slide photograph of the beautiful Welsh slate gravestones of Captain Jones and the vessel's mate, John Davies. The edited report follows, as a reminder of the terrible toll which the Kintyre shores too-frequently exacted from seamen.
The Campbeltown Courier, 10 February 1883
TERRIBLE GALE: TWO WRECKS ON THE KINTYRE COAST -
THREE MEN DROWNED
'The schooner Ann of Carnarvon (Evan Jones, master and owner), with a cargo of slates (115 tons) from Port Dinorwic, for Perth, was dashed to pieces on the Kintyre coast at Colydrain, a little to the west of Macharioch House, and three of the crew - namely, John Davies, mate, David Jones, cook, and the captain - were drowned. A fourth man, Owen Parry, was taken off the wreck alive, although very much exhausted.
'The vessel left Bangor on Tuesday morning, and when off the Calf of Man encountered a regular hurricane from the south-east. Off Corsewall Point the gale was fearful, and the night so dark that the crew did not know where they were being driven till their vessel went ashore. The sea then swept the ship, and the captain and mate took to the rigging. The cook lashed himself to the foremast, and Parry hung on by the rails. About 7 A.M. the vessel began to break up, and the captain, mate, and cook were drowned.
'Parry still clung to the wreck, and by aid of a rope thrown from the shore he was landed in safety, and carefully attended to by the neighbouring farmers. Shortly afterwards the vessel went to pieces. The three bodies were recovered in the afternoon. The captain's legs were found entangled with several coils of rope, and this, no doubt, prevented him from doing anything to save himself. The captain was 40 years of age, the mate 47, and the cook 17. The two former were married.
'Owen Party, the survivor, was brought to Campbeltown on Wednesday night. We understand [that] through the kindness of Bailie McPherson, and one or two other generous persons, Parry was provided with warm clothing, and had a sum of money presented to him. The agent for the Shipwrecked Mariners' Society, Mr Henry, fishery officer, interested himself in this poor mariner and saw that he was properly lodged and cared for, as well as defraying the expenses of his voyage to Wales. The bodies of the captain, mate, and cook were interred on Thursday at Keil burying ground.'
There was a decomposing MINKE WHALE - reckoned to weigh about four tons - washed ashore below Patchen Graveyard, Bellochantuy, at the end of October of last year. Its fate was to be buried at the 'landfill site' -ie rubbish tip - north of Lochgilphead.
George McSporran and I, on a hike on Sunday 21 March from Ballymenach Brae to the back of Ben Gullion, saw FROGS both mating and spawning in a ditch beside the Old Road, and there was plenty of spawn already laid. In a pool beside the forestry track above Crosshill Loch there was spawning going on the previous week-end.
Willie Prior reports that the former shepherd's house at Arinascavach -which had been renovated as an outdoor centre - has become dilapidated again, and from a photograph he showed me of the interior it appears to be practically uninhabitable. He also reports that 'acres' of trees in the forest there have been flattened by wind, which doesn't suprise me at all.
No 45 Spring 1999
Page 2: Eighteenth Century Church Letters from Southend Parish
Page 3: The Ralston Correspondence - Part Two
Page 4: The Lowland Church of Campbeltown from its Foundation in 1654 till the Disruption. - Part One
Page 5: Heather McFarlane's Page - Dalintober
Page 6: HMS Campbeltown // Genealogy of Peter Johnson
Page 7: Betty McNiven and 'The Flight'.
Page 8: By Hill and Shore - Part Two