In the winter of 1961, the Commanding Officer of RAF Aird Uig and twenty-six of his officers and men were stranded in Stornoway while returning from the first night of the charity concert organised by the camp in the Town Hall.

There are no safes for breaking in the Outer Hebrides… but we didn’t go hungry in 1972.

After the end of the Great War, dangerous materials were still washing up on the beach. All credit to Nurse Maclean for her tender care of Murdo Macleod, Cliff, in 1919.

From the Stornoway Gazette, 7 July 1959: The Commanding Officer of the R.A.F. station at Aird Uig has expressed gratitude to gamekeeper Donald Morrison of Mangersta, who on Tuesday found an airman who had been missing from the station. The man was Senior Aircraftsman Thomas Douglas, who was on Wednesday reported to be “quite alright” at the camp. The Commanding Officer, Squadron-Leader, Christopher, who took over command on Monday from Squadron-Leader Evans, said: ” I am now perfectly satisfied that this was a simple case [ » read more ]

Thanks to Donald John Macleod, Enaclete and Bridge of Don, for these memories of Enaclete during the 1940s. As a boy in Enaclete I heard many stories about the war, including the Onslow action, being discussed by Calum Iain Smith and the worthies who used to congregate at night for a ceilidh at Norman Macdonald’s (Puff’s) house, Post Office, Enaclete, and also at the Coisich’s house after the family had moved from Ungeshader. Calum Iain’s father, Donald, was one of six men from Uig who [ » read more ]

Our wedding collection is growing slowly but surely, and new in today are 1960s wedding telegrams and some lovely photos. Most will be on display in the tearoom within a week or two but meanwhile… Mrs and Mrs Kenny Maclennan, 15 Kneep (Coinneach a’ Loin and Agnes Smith, Lochcroistean – above) were married 22 Nov 1962 at Baile na Cille church, with the reception at the Crown Hotel in Stornoway. Agnes and Kenny’s wedding was also the occasion for which am Bard Bochd wrote Banais [ » read more ]

From the Stornoway Gazette supplement, 18 December 1959. Wedding bells have been ringing in Mangersta for the past year. Cupid started at one end of the village leaving a spate of marriages in his trail. The most recent of these was solemnised in the East Church, Inverness, on the 10th November when Mary Morrison, eldest daughter of the late Mr and Mrs John Morrison, 13 Mangersta, became the bride of Alexander Smith, only son of the late Mr and Mrs William Smith, 9 Kneep. The [ » read more ]

CE Uig hosted a photographer earlier this month, Gawaine Meechan, who was taking photos of as many as would stand still.  Warm thanks to Gawaine for his hard work, and to all who sat for him; there are more than these, and he will be back in the early summer. The photos will add to our archive but we hope will also make up an exhibition and/or a publication.

There is a set of spectacular photos of the marine world under St Kilda, over on the new Ionad Hiort website. Many thanks to the photographer Paul Kay.  Click on the fish to see more. St Kilda has been inscribed as a World Heritage Site under both natural and cultural criteria; in 2004 the WHS designation, at the time only for its natural attributes, recognised also the “complex ecological dynamic in the three marine zones present in the site” which was extended to included the surrounding [ » read more ]

This is the final section of an interesting and detailed piece on the Pygmies Isle (first mentioned by Dean Monro in 1549 as having been inhabited by “little people”) near the Butt of Lewis , published by WC Mackenzie in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquities of Scotland, 13 March 1905 (vol XXXIX, p257).  It’s of no particular relevance to Uig but see what you make of it, in spite of its rather dated tone (and for Lapp, read today Sami – the Sea Sami [ » read more ]

These new-to-us pictures come from the albums of the late Roberta Maclennan, whose brother Duncan was the doctor in Uig during WW2 – though the pictures date from 1926, and were taken in Glen Valtos, before the quarrying started there.  Many thanks to John J Maclennan for providing them, and others.

Miavaig; taken 29 December 2009, 9am. The bay at Miavaig is frozen, as are all the smaller sealochs, including Little Loch Roag, which doesn’t happen often. There is a story of crossing Little Loch Roag on foot, however. James Macnaughton, born 1804 and the son of a shepherd at Cleit a Thog (near Scaliscro), was courting Margaret Macdonald, the daughter of Tarmod Laghach at Gisla across the loch. Evidently, during a severe frost, James was able to walk across, pushing a stick in front of [ » read more ]

A very unseasonable picture:  a party from Reef, out at Strome for peats in fine weather.  Angus Mackay (an Gagan), James Morrison (Seumas Mhurchaidh Seumais), Christina Mackay, Peggy Macritchie (Peggy an Irish) and Murdo Macdonald (Morgan).

From The Times, 2 March 1858 (with a geographical infidelity) Enormous Shoal Of Dogfish. – From all quarters we are furnished with information regarding the appearance of a prodigious shoal of dogfish along the whole north-east coast of Scotland, and as far as to the westward of the Lewis. This circumstance, so unusual at this early period of the year, and without precedent in the memory of the oldest fishermen so far as the size of the shoal is concerned, has raised quite a commotion [ » read more ]