Meanwhile we are grateful to George Moody, who as a Nicolson maths teacher was instrumental in getting the centre going, for a pile of photos and documents from the early years. For starters, here’s a quote from the Handbook (1974/1977):

The centre can obviously be used for engagement in ‘Outward Bound’ type activities by pupils. It can, however, be used by younger pupils as a facility for their staying together for a few days in novel surroundings and for them to experience being away from hme possibly for the first time.

Camping and allied skills can be carried out very close to the centre, close enough for young pupils to be taken in to the centre itself should weather conditions so dictate.

One function of the centre is to enable all users to become familiar with settings other than their own, to et first-hand knowledge of villages such as Valtos and Kneep, to collect shells from Traigh na Beria and rocks from Glen Valtos, to undertake trips to Uig sands (Lewis Chessmen) and the cliffs and stacs at Mangersta and to link up with the tales of old Uig as found in Dr Macdonald’s book [Tales and Traditions of the Lews] and in the Morison Manuscripts.

All users of the centre are entitled to purchase a badge especially designed for the centre. These may be obtained from the Caretaker, price 50p.

A description of the badge is:-

1. The main impression is one of sea and sky hence the blue and white predominance in the badge.

2. The stars represent route finding and remind us to ‘look upwards’ and be ever aware of the wonder of nature all around.

3. The upper red segment symbolises the beauty of the sunsets of the Western Seas.

4. The three yellow canoes are symbolic of the physical activities possible from the centre.

5. The whole red disc is emblematic of the full cycle of educational experience and the warm circle of friendship which, we trust, will be forged by all who use the Valtos Centre.

The Caretaker was Shonnie Buchanan – I don’t suppose he has any badges to sell you now but if you have one, and spent some of your youth at the Valtos Centre, please leave a comment. The photos will follow and we’ll be happy to have some further contributions too.

The Parish of Rieff is an extensive Parish on the West Side of the Island of Lewis. I do not know exactly the number of the population of the parish, but the new church that was built some time before the disruption¹ was seated for 1,000 people and I am sure I saw in that same church on different occasions, listening to hear the glad tidings of the Gospel, upwards of 12 hundred people [...]

When I was born, and for the period of 23 years after, the whole inhabitants of the parish were sunk in dark ignorance of God. There was not so much as a form of Godliness in the whole place. Wickedness of all descriptions committed in broad daylight. There was no person to testify against the abominations committed in the land, ‘like priest, like people.’ The worship of God was not kept in any family, lamentable to think of all this.

The Minister² was ignorant of the Gospel and of the nature of true Godliness and therefore could not impart to others that Gospel of which he was not made a partaker himself, by the teaching of the Spirit of God in his own soul. The name of Christ was not to be heard in his sermons. He would tell the few that did go to church³ that he had good news to tell them. That the British Army gained in the battle on their enemies and that was great matter of thankfulness. Such was the ignorance of the people that they believed all that the Minister said as an oracle. When any children were to be baptised, the ceremony was performed in one of the Tennants’ houses. A good number of friends would meet there on the Sabbath evening or on a weekday. After the children were baptised, the Bottle and the Horn (an adhairc dhrama) was put on the table and for courtesy’s sake the health of the Minister and the newly baptised child or children was drunk all round about and the evening was spent in this way. But here I may observe that, as far as I know, and the accounts that I heard from others about the man, that the Minister was not a drunkard himself although the practice was very general in the Parish.

When the Sacrament of the Supper was dispensed in the Parish, every sinner was made welcome to come and partake of the Lord’s Supper. I understand that it was a general practice to have plenty of whisky provided on that occasion and to go from the Table of the drunkard to the Table of the Lord, and in that way profaning the Holy Ordinance of our Blessed Lord, and hardening sinners in their unconverted state, and encouraging them in their wicked career from day to day. Not a word of prayer in the families of these people after coming home on Sabbath evening. The Sabbath was almost in a level with any other day of the week. The Minister did not preach the great need of a man being born again. Gross darkness and gross ignorance overshadowed the whole land at this moment. [...]

It was my Father’s practice on Sabbath morn to bring all the children to the Barn and he would make us all go on our knees around him. He would pray with us there for some time. Again, before he would go to bed on Sabbath night, he would do the same, but not on week days. When any person was sick they would send word to my dear Father to go and pray with the sick person, and this was all the Godliness that was amongst the people.

It was the general practice in these dark days of ignorance and superstition, as soon as the Harvest was done, to engage a Piper or a Fiddler for dancing. Balls and rioting on each Farm once a week.  There the young men and women met for the better promotion of the Kingdom of the Devil. I was mad for dancing. Oh, Lord, I am ashamed of this wickedness and madness which I have committed in thy sight. Pardon mine iniquity for it is very great.

Compare to Rev Alexander Macleod’s letter of 1824 on a similar subject. Don’t worry; things get better.

¹Baile na Cille Church was built in 1829, in the throes of revival, to hold a thousand.
²Hugh Munro, Minister in Uig 1778 to 1823
³The old thatched church near Baile na Cille Cemetery.

The photo shows Crowlista Public School in 1937.

The following are notes from the Crowlista school log book in 1919-20. The school was located near the site of the current Uig School, a couple of miles from both of the populations it served, Crowlista and Aird Uig, which from its very conception in the 1870s was a subject of contention between the school board and the crofters.  The latter wanted it down on the sands at Crowlista, but that would have necessitated building a road across the Glebe at Baile na Cille, and this the board (which included the minister, Rev Angus Maciver) would not entertain. The first parents in Uig to be brought before the Sheriff for failing to send their children to school, in 1880, were from Crowlista and Aird, and the excuse given then was the distance.  In 1919 there were other reasons for not attending:

15 Oct 1919:  No Crowlista children in school for the past two days. Parents allege they are afraid to send them, as Mr Mackenzie Aird keeps a butting stirk on the Manse glebe.

16 Oct 1919:  Still no Crowlista children. Wired and wrote the Clerks, Education Office, Stornoway, apprising them of the situation and asking for instruction.

17 Oct 1919:  Warned Mr Mackenzie that he must keep the animal under control. He promised to do so.

20 Oct 1919:  Very stormy morning. No scholars. Reply to my letter of 16th not yet forthcoming.

21 Oct 1919:  [entry from the school manager] Visited school. Checked register and found it correct. No Crowlista children present, since the parents allege there is a dangerous animal in the Manse glebe. James Macniven, Manager.

22 Oct 1919:  Stormy and wet, no scholars.  As today’s post brought no reply to my letter of the 16th, I again wired the Clerks, Stornoway, for full instructions. Reply telegram came as follows: “Inform Mackenzie Education Authority insists on stirk being under control at once, otherwise he will be held liable for any injury to children.”

23 Oct 1919:  Informed Mr Mackenzie as above. Animal under control.

27 Oct 1919:  Crowlista children resume school.

28 Oct 1919:  Word received from the Clerk of the Management Committee asking for the name of any suitable person who would be likely to accept the post of Compulsory Officer.

1 Dec 1919:  No children from Crowlista present.

2 Dec 1919: Visited School. Checked register and found it correct. No children from Crowlista present, the excuse tendered being the want of a road, by which they can come dry-shod to school.

11 Dec 1919:  Letter from Mr Mackay, Clerk, stating that “the Management Committee and the Authority are doing everything in their power to get the responsible authority to move in the matter of constructing a road and to urge upon the parents the necessity for sending their children back to school.”

23 Dec 1919:  No Crowlista children.

22 Jan 1920:  Mr Norman Macdonald, 18 Crowlista, was appointed Compulsory Officer for this school district at a salary of £4 per annum.

The school was then closed throughout February and March due to an outbreak of chickenpox.

30 Mar 1920:  Crowlista children still absenting themselves. James Macniven, Manager.

5 Apr 1920:  Compulsory Officer called. He reports that the Crowlista parents object to sending their children to school till it is disinfected.

7 Apr 1920:  School disinfected.

8 Apr 1920: First lot of Crowlista children attend.

The road all the way to Crowlista wasn’t completed until the 1930s, and then entirely by voluntary labour.

The people of the island coming to the meeting house on winter nights, whether for the purpose of being catechised, or hearing an ordinary lecture and exposition of God’s word, is a scene that no one could ever forget who saw it even once.

The meeting-house is in a hollow, surrounded by jagged, cragged, broken hills all around. From our house could be seen blazes of light comiing from all quarters making for the meeting-house. Before starting from their homes they provided themselves with peats of fire to light them on their way fixed ot an irdon spit, or held in tongs, and a fresh supply of peats under their arms, which directed their steps on the way, for every step must be watchd with the greatest caution.

There was no road of any description, and I would defy any place to be more difficult to walk on a dark night. There were no lanterns in Bernera in those days, nor any paraffin oil. A few families had candles, but the most depended on peat fire light, and lamps in which they used fish oil.

At the beginning of winter, the people provided for the meeting-house a supply of this oil stored in large jars to replenish the lamps. The regularity with which these people came to these meetings, and in such circumstances, is something wonderful to comtemplate, and of which, I believe, there is nothing analogous at this day in Scotland. They must have been receiving real spiritual good, when they continued it all the years that I remember on that Island.

Much more on Angus Maciver to follow.

There had evidently been a small school at Mangersta in the 1820s and in the neighbouring village of Carnish in the 1840s, but when both those townships were turned into farms there was no population requiring a school, even after the Education Act of 1872 made provision for one.  The children of Mangersta Farm went to the Islivig School.

When Mangersta was broken up and became a village again in 1911, there was again need for a school, and one was built in 1912, opening on 14 November under teacher Alexander MacPhail.

From the school log:

Thursday 14 November 1912

Today the new Mangersta School opened for the first time with an attendance of 14 pupils.

10 March 1913

[From the HMI report of an inspection on 5 April of that year:]

This well-lighted and well-appointed composite school has recently been provided for the new crofter settlement at Mangersta. The roll is now 20 and a certificated teachers has been placed in charge. Progress is as yet only moderate but the pace should presently increase.

5 August 1913

[From the Religious Instruction report:]

This is a new school opened in November last. An excellent beginning has been made. The pupils are well grounded in the portions studied and under examination answered readily and well. A section of the shorter catechism had been gone over and psalms committed to memory, and in both the appearance was distinctly good.

The 14 children attending on the first day were aged between 7 and 14, all of whom had previously attended Islivig School.  In order of the register:

Angus Macaulay, born 1898, son of Donald, 3 Mangersta
Donald Macleod, born 1899, son of Finlay, 10 Mangersta
Norman Macritchie, born 1901, son of Malcolm, 5 Mangersta
Malcolm John Macritchie, born 1900, son of Malcolm, 5 Mangersta
Angus Morrison, born 1901, son of Donald Morrison, 1 Mangersta
Malcolm Macleod, born 1900, son of Finlay Macleod, 10 Mangersta
Norman Buchanan, born 1901, son of John Buchanan, 4 Mangersta
Duncan Macleod, born 1903, son of Finlay Macleod, 10 Mangersta
Donald Macaulay, born 1904, son of Donald Macaulay, 3 Mangersta
Maggie Ann Macaulay, born 1900, daughter of Donald Macaulay, 3 Mangersta
Maryann Buchanan, born 1905, daughter of John Buchanan, 4 Mangersta
Mary Matheson, born 1904, daughter of Donald Matheson, 11 Mangersta
Maryann Matheson, born 1905, daughter of Donald Matheson, 11 Mangersta
Annie Macritchie, born 1907, daughter of Malcolm Macritchie, 5 Mangersta

Thanks to Dougie Beck for the photo.

We’ve looked before at the remarkable Angus of the Mountain. The little stories surrounding his life and faith are numberous – here are a few more abridged from Macfarlane’s Men of the Lews (1924):

His mental constitution was not of gun-metal. It was weak and of the wool-gathering order. People said he just mooned around. When the great Revival came to Uig (1824) it embraced Angus, and he was cast into the deepest spiritual concern. Then he went back to his native hills and spent days and nights there in prayer… He started the new life and continued in it on an extraordinarily high level, and became as fixed as if melted into it in a liquid state.  The regard and affection that were poured out on him were more than ordinary.

Mr Alexander Macleod, the minister, had so high a regard for Angus [although he refused to allow him to become a communicant, on the grounds of intellectual capacity -Ed.] that he engaged a teacher to teach him to read. The teacher could make nothing of him. His memory for the alphabet was hopeless. He could repeat A; with much labour he succeeded in adding B, but there was no room in his mind for the third letter. With effort after effort to get C in, he had to abandon the task. Angus met all endeavour to instruct him by affirming that he did not see Christ in these letters. HE would rather be out of the hillside with Christ than filling himself up with this kind of learning.

On one occasion in Stornoway there met him a man who was gomeril enough to say to Angus, “Oh, aren’t you the Uig fool?” Angus fell aboard ofhim with the reply, “The Bible says the fool is he who trusteth to his own heart,” which the Stornoway man was evidently doing.

Angus was much in request for public prayer. His gift was remarkable, and when he prayed it felt as if the heavens opened and the Bethel Ladder came down. He did not always respond when called. “Angus! you lead us in prayer,” said the minister. “Oh no, minister, I cannot to-day.”  ”Certainly Angus, you can and you will.” “Not to-day, minister; I cannot do it.” “Yes, rise, Angus, Jonah prayed when he was worse off that you. He prayed when he was in the whale’s belly.” “Ah! but I have the whale in mine today!” When Angus rose he was like a ship in the trade-winds, he sped on with unvarying triumph, with everything right alow and aloft.

Herding cows was thought to be a simple service which Angus could easily fulfill. Again and again he failed. Once his father was angered by his letting the cattle into the corn, and he chased Angus with loud threatening. “Lord, cause my father to stumble” rose from the lips of the son, and sure enough down when the father, and Angus escaped.  The minister entrusted Angus with his cows, and the same straying into the cornfield happened. When someone said to him, “Why, Angus, did you not pray that the cows might be kept from the corn?” he replied, with an injured look, “It would never do to put cows into the prayer.”

Angus was given to soliloquy. Many of his words fell on ears in the passing, and were rehearsed eagerly through the parish. Here is a specimen: “Oh, my Saviour, the Black One came to me to-day. He was going to trouble me. Fire was in his eye. I told him You were coming and I expected You soon. Oh, You should see how he took to his heels.”

There was one bit of soliloquizing that raised many a ripple of laughter. The banns of marriage were in his time all proclaimed in church.One day he was overheard going over his own banns. “There is a purpose of marriage between Aonghas ___ and Margaret ___, etc.”

Although Angus was not one of those who spoke on Fridays of Communion, he ranked as one of the forces in the Island of Lewis. His faith, his simplicity, his warmth of love gave him rank. He found God in everything.

A picture from the early years of the new Uig School, with the closed Crowlista School in the background. Thanks to Donna for the names… please help to fill in the rest!

Back Row: 1. MA Buchanan (Bambi)
2. Cub
3. Racko
4.
5. Willie
6. Duval
7.

Middle row: 8. Meg
9. Pat
10. Donna Macaskill
11. Gina
12. KB
13. Norma
14. Lena
15. Anna
16. CB

Sitting: 17. Flora
18. Rhona Macleod
19. Dean
20. Meg
21. Maureen Mackay
22. Anchris Macleod
23. Lena Smith

Front: 24. John Tochie Macdonald
25. Sid
26. Nangie
27. Flookie
28. Duck
29. Christopher Smith
30. Ali Macritchie
31.

[singlepic id=1177  w=580]

[singlepic id=1178 w=580]

From the People’s Journal, 27 September 1958.

It’s a while now since Dr Donald Macdonald [Dolly Doctor] of Gisla in Lewis practised at his profession. But the jovial, big-hearted doctor is still a cure and a tonic for many folk not only in his native island, but in many other circles.

Take the old folk in Stornoway. He has taken them under his wing, brightens up their eventide with his cracks and joviality, and they, in turn, just dote on him.

The doctor has such a deep-rooted interest in them that he often makes a special journey from his old family homestead in Gisla, 35 miles away, to help entertain at the weekly ceilidhs arranged for them.

And he has the enthusiastic backing and support of his charming wife.

but there are times when the stalwart doctor, whose ‘hail-fellow-well-met’ disposition makes him an immensely popular personality with young and old, gets angrier and angrier. It’s when you mention the Gaelic. Then he throws out his massive chest and snorts like a grampus.  For the Gaelic to him is soemthing dear, a priceless gem to be cherished and preserved. And it makes him furious to think of the way the old language is being neglected.

“You haven’t go the Gaelic?” he asked our reporter. “And you from Inverness. Inverness is going all o pot. The capital of the Highlands and no Gaelic!”

It was the doctor who, some time ago, suggested that, in order to give it a real uplift, the young Prince Charles should be taught the language.

“But what’s happened to my proposal?” and his deep voiced boomed again in anger. “It’s been pigeonholed for good. And now,” he sighed, “the Welsh have got him, ” alluding to the Prince’s new title.

The Gaelic,” he went on, “what can we common folk do about it? Parents, even in Lewis, aren’t interested in keeping it alive. They don’t see what good it will do their children in earning their livelihood.”

“What’s the use of john Bannerman and me getting up in our Highland dress on a platform and talking about it? It’s only the converted who are there to hear us. I don’t know where its decline is going to end, probably by taking a plunge of the Butt of Lewis out into the Atlantic.”

But, whatever the fate of the old language, there’s one thing sure. So long as he can raise his voice, the doctor will champion its cause and strive to keep it alive.

The National Mod is a ‘must’ for him. He’ll be there in Glasgow next week, in full Highland array, keeping time with head and hands to the lovely lilts of Gaelic melody and music. He’s being going to the Mod off and on since 1910 and he’s loved every minute of it.

Angus MacLeod’s father was a shepherd in the hills of Uig towards the border with Harris, and this is where Angus was born. So it is not difficult to understand why everybody in the area knew his as Aonghas na Beann, Angus of the Hills. Angus was caught up in the great Revival in Uig in the Rev Alexander Macleod‘s time. He was a simpleton who could not even count his fingers, yet when he engaged in public prayer hardly any trace of lack of intellect was noticeable. What was noticeable about him was the Spirit of reverence of one who practised the Presence and whose prayers surprised, affected and moved the hearer.

He was held in high regard by the minister who engaged a teacher to teach him reading – without success. Yet when he applied to the minister for the privilege of sitting at the Lord’s Table, he was refused on account of his lack of intellectual capacity. Angus must have been deeply hurt; and it appears that the minister and Kirk-session must have relented at a later date, for the tale is told that Angus at one time dropped his communion token and could not find it. Someone seeing him searching asked:

“Na chaill thu am comharra Aonghais?”

“Cha do chaill, ach chaill me am pios luaidhe thug iad dhomh!”

[Did you lose your token Angus? No, but I lost that piece of lead they gave me.]

Tales of Aonghas nam Beann remain in oral tradition and are still related in the Parish. At a communion season in Uig a visiting minister noticed Angus talking with a group of people at the church after the service. He told Rev Alexander that he was going over to the church to see what was going on, and was advised to stay where he was. However he insisted and he arrived to hear Angus, who had noticed his approach, say:

“Bha fios agam gu robh ni math againn ‘s nach fhada gus am biodh an Satan an torr oirnn”

[I knew we had something of spiritual worth and that ere long Satan would attempt to spoil it.]

The minister beat a hasty retreat to the manse, where he was was asked how he got on. He replied, “I was castigated as an instrument of Satan.”

Angus was a frequent and welcome visitor at communions, and it is probably that his death occurred during such a visit to a communion in Skye. There he was buried in the cemetery at Uig (Skye).

In The Skye Revivals, Steve Taylor reports that once Angus discovered Skye he was rarely away from it. He also gives further stories of Angus in Skye and Lochs:

On one occasion Angus was attending communion services in Snizort in Skye when the Rev Roderick Macleod invited him to the manse. During the meal Roderick said, “Angus, has not grace greatly honoured you when it brought you to my table?” Angus replied, “And did not grace greatly honour yourself, minister, when you invited me?”

The Rev Robert Finlayson of Lochs was interviewing three women on one occasion who were seeking admission to the Lord’s Table. One had been convertedas a result of hearingAngus in prayer, the second on hearing a neighbour repeating on of Angus’s private prayers, and the third under Finlayson’s own preaching. “I see,” said Finlayson, “thatI have only one share in this work.”

It was the testimony of Rev Murdo MacAskill [Dingwall, in 1885] when speaking of Angus that “this poor witless man could claim more spiritual children in the parish of Lochs than all the ministers who had preached there in his generation.” No one who met him was allowed to walk away without an answer to the question, “Do you love the Lord Jesus Christ?” All who came into contact with Angus were aware of an indescribably power and influence.

More tales of Angus nam Beann are here.