The main thrust of the programme is to improve existing sub-standard carriageway throughout the Wester Isles. In this case 3.4km of single track carriageway with weak foundations and tortuous alignment was replaced by 2.4km of double track carriageway. The new carriageway is generally 6m wide with 2m wide verges with further wideing of carriageway and verges on low radius curves{…}

The finished road surface consists of stone mastic asphalt which is here used for the first time on a major scheme in the Western Isles. This material should provide increased durability and resistance to rutting while at the same time reduced noise levels and amounts of spray.

That, presumably, is the experimental surface that has proven not to be suitable. In any case it’s all very smooth now. That brae is still going to be slippery in the snow though.

Linked by Phone — After years of patient waiting, Breanish township has at long last been linked to the world outside by telephone. Up till now the nearest phone was Islivig PO (Call Office), Timsgarry 206, a mile away to the north of Breanish.

In the spring, post office telephone linesmen carried on an extension of poles and lines from Islivig right to the village centre of Breanish. there are no two homes in Breanish with phones and more to come in the future. Timsgarry 344 is the phone number of Mr and Mrs Norman Morrison, 16 Breanish, and Timsgarry 343 is the phone number of Mrs Mackinnon, 18 Breanish.

Now the good folk of Breanish feel they are more than ever before in touch with relatives and friends far and near and they wish to convey their thanks to their County Councillor, Rev Donald Macaulay, for his help.

In the Outer Isles the folk who make their living off the land can’t come to the market. So the market goes to them.  And the cattle sales may well decide whether the crofter and his family have a good year or a bad year.

In Lewis the hub for the sales is Stornoway.  It’s there that the buyers from the mainland gather. And it’s from their that the bus hired for the occasion plies its way to Harris, Uig or some other distant spot, with driver Murdo Macleod showing his magic touch, guiding his big vehicle along the narrow, twisting roads and negotiating bridges that give me only an inch or two clearance on either side.

Aboard it are auctioneers Angus Macdonald, of Stornoway, and Duncan MacCallum, Dingwall, and a company of mainland buyers – Hugh Allison, Dingwall; the brothers William and John Maclennan from Inverness; Kenneth Macrae, Ullapool; and Kenneth Munro, Evanton, just to mention a few.

And when the bus finally reaches its destination, say Uig, one of the sale centre, it comes suddenly on a scene of great activity.  The quiet, remote countryside bursts into life. Along the road appears a straggling army of crofters, young and old, women and lassies amongst them, bringing their calves and stirks to the sale.

It’s a trek of many halts and obstacles, for the calves, led by a halter – some may be the family pet – just don’t like this sudden disruption of their docile country life.  So there are ‘rodeo’ acts and incidents, with sweating crofters tugging, pulling and cajoling to get their beasts to market.  Even the parish minister is there with his calf, the product of his glebe.

But finally the gather-in for the sale is completed, and, with bidding brisk, some 60 or 70 animals go quickly through the ring, which in this case is an old stone-fank at the roadside [at Ardroil].

The mood of the crofters and country folk depends on the bidding. This year there were smiles all round, for as auctioneer Macdonald put it, “Trade was very good.”

Gone are the days when the Lewis crofters would accept any price for their stock. One turned down a £46 bid for a neighbour’s stirk that he took to the sale. His neighbour, he said, wouldn’t part for less than £55.

With one sale soon over, auctioneers and buyers set off for the next centre, where the process was repeated. And, at the end of the day, there was another commotion. Reluctant calves and stirks – one or two ‘dry’ cows amongst them – did their darndest to defy every effort to get them into the trucks that would take them to Stornoway for shipment on the Loch Seaforth to Kyle and the mainland.

A tough job, especially for the drivers, men like Angus Mackenzie, who handle their heavy, live loads along treacherous narrow roads with all the cool skill of a Lewis Stirling Moss.

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 had served in WW1 on the auxiliary cruiser HMS Orama at the Battle of the Falklands.  He was a very quiet man but on Hogmanay he sometimes sang a song about the Orama and the Falklands, but I have never heard anyone else singing it. I wonder if anyone has the words of this song?

Puff’s house was one of two houses in our village with a radio and most nights there were people from Enaclete, Ungeshader, Geshader and sometimes further afield who would visit the house for a ceilidh, listen to the BBC 9 o’clock news and wait the arrival of the Uig bus. Uig had three buses then, MacRitchie’s, Buchanan’s and MacAulay’s, all of which on their journeys to and from Stornoway would stop at the Macdonalds’ house.

The ferry sailings from Kyle to Stornoway were at that time staggered to prevent U-boats shadowing and sinking the Lochness and consequently nobody knew when the boat, and therefore the bus meeting it, would arrive. People often waited into the wee small hours and when the bus eventually arrived there was great hilarity and a hearty welcome for the servicemen coming home on leave. Today this house lies empty and my thoughts often return to the days of laughter, jokes, stories, leg-pulling and bonhomie. Next to the Post Office was a shop and a paraffin storage tank and it was very busy place with cars, buses, lorries and people on cycles and on foot coming and going all day long; indeed the area could be described as the Piccadilly of Uig.

Norman’s son John was a Quartermaster in the Merchant Navy and when he returned from the sea he used to bring me comics from New York. These American comics were full of dragons and monsters and sometimes they scared the living daylights out of me when I read them by the fire with the light from a peat.

©DJ Macleod

Many thanks to Donald J Macleod of Enaclete and Bridge of Don for his research into the fishing boats of Uig. He adds that these boats used lines and not trawls to catch white fish. It was the end of March and beginning of April that was known as the ‘Hungry month’ in Gaelic as fish did not take the bait. See the chart. I’m not sure where this leaves our Rose (above), apparently SY 47 – more research required.

The following Uig fishing boats were registered between 1900 and 1912:

Maggie SY 417, owned by W. Matheson and others, Kneep.
Clan MacAulay SY 496, owned by Donald MacAulay, Islivig.
Florence SY 750, owned by J. MacRae, Timsgarry.
Julia SY 384, owned by J. MacLennan and others, Valtos.
Pride of Harris SY 620, owned by A. MacAulay, Valtos.
Mabel Scott SY 594, owned by A. MacAulay, Valtos.
Brothers SY 754, owned by M. Buchanan, Valtos.
Maggie Jane SY 664, owned by Hector Matheson, Valtos.
Lord Lothian SY 251, owned by D. MacKay, Crowlista.
Admiral SY 492, owned by Malcolm MacLeod and others, Crowlista.
D. MacLeod SY 598, owned by D. MacDonald, Crowlista.
Stephanus SY 161, owned by J. MacDonald, Crowlista. He was drowned in the Iolaire disaster on 1 January 1919.

There were also many small family boats and though fishing they were not registered, for example Enaclete and Ungishader had eight boats between, belonging to Donald MacLeod 1 Enaclete, John MacDonald, Croft 1a Enaclete, Donald MacLeod 3 Enaclete, John MacRitchie 4 Enaclete, John MacDonald 6 Enaclete, John MacLeod 1 Ungeshader, Malcolm Morrison 1b Ungeshader, and Peter MacLean (Coll) 3 Ungeshader. These boats were not registered but fished with lines and herring nets.  During WW2 I remember herring being fished in Little Loch Roag, and Loch Drovernish had a small sweet herring that was very popular.

Some of the boats were built locally and others were bought. Before the Clearances there were a number of boatbuilders in Uig including John MacLeod, Carishader, MacDonald, Enaclete and the renowned MacLeans. Donald MacLeod, 1 Enaclete, bought his Zulu designed boat from an East Coat fisherman at the Flannan Isles and sailed the boat to Enaclete.

There were many netmakers in the parish though a number of nets were handmade in the homes from hemp yarn. These were eventually replaced by less bulky cotton machine-woven nets, which were deeper and longer. Rev Hugh Munro, states in the first Statistical Account about 1795 that there were 275 netmakers in the Uig Parish at that time. To have this number of netmakers gives us an idea how heavily populated Uig was before the ethic cleansing of the population by the Clearances.  The second half of the 18th and the first half of the 19th centuries (before the heavy Clearances) were prosperous times in Lewis when cattle, herring, dried salted fish, dogfish oil, blanketing and hides were exported to the mainland and to the European continent. Ships from Lewis used to sail directly to the continent.

Heavy losses in WW1, the Iolaire disaster and emigration resulted in the virtual demise of the Uig fishing fleet, as by 1924 there were only two fishing boats registered in Uig:

Mairidh Bheag SY 306, owned by Norman Morrison, Valtos.
Johanna Macleod SY 1159, owned by Malcolm Smith, Valtos.

In 1926 there were two other boats registered: Johanna MacLeod SY 1159 (Ex-Valtos) now owned by Malcolm MacLeod, Crowlista and the Bosta SY 1171 owned by Donald MacLeod who may also be from Crowlista.  Murdo MacSween, Valtos, also owned a boat that fished in the 1920s or 1930s.

In 1940 the only registered fishing boats in Uig were in Valtos:

Flora SY 34, owned by D. MacIver.
Annie SY 178, owned by J.MacDonald.
Annie Lowrie SY 207, owned by A. Morrison, previously owned by K. MacDonald. (possibly should be Annie Lawrie)
Rose SY 281, owned by G. MacLeod.
Mairidh Bheag SY 306, owned by Norman Morrison.
Olive SY 342, owned by N. Morrison.
Rosebud SY 552, owned by D. MacLennan and others. This was the largest of these boats at 8.17 tons.

In 1951 there was only one Uig boat fishing out of Stornoway, the Kilda SY 346 owned by Kenneth J. MacKay, Valtos, and others. Another member of the crew was Donald MacDonald, Reef. They fished for white fish. Kenneth J. MacKay, a noted footballer, later emigrated to Australia with his family.

©Donald J. MacLeod, ex 1 Enaclete, Uig.  January, 2009.

Thanks to the comments below from Dolly and Murdina, we now know that this is a joint expedition by Lochcroistean and Mangersta School to see the Bernera Bridge on 25 June 1952, before it was officially opened in 1953.  Of course, it can be seen across Loch Roag from Carishader so the children (at Lochcroistean at least) would have been well aware of its progress. More pictures of the construction period and opening of the bridge can be seen on Hebridean Connections.  See the comments for more detail – and if you were there, and have more to add, please do.

John Nicholson 3 Crowlista, Peter Angus Maclean 8 Timsgarry; and a Macdonald from 5 Crowlista.  Can anyone identify the ladies, or where this is taken?

WEST UIG MAIL SERVICE

At a meeting held in Crowlista Public School, Miavaig, Lewis, on Tuesday, 30th December 1919 presided over by Col. Lindsay, Morsgail Lodge,Lord Leverhulme’s representative here, and attended by representatives from all the townships of West Uig, it was resolved to lay before the Postmaster General, their grievances and complaints with regard to the very unsatisfactory state of the mail service to and from Miavaig and Callanish.

This is a grievance of long standing, but during the war inconveniences were borne without complaint. Now that the war is over, postal facilities should be improving, but instead, they are actually getting worse, and becoming intolerable.

In November last, the motor launch, that carried the mails between Callanish and Miavaig (being far too small and inequal to the difficulties and dangers of that passage) was disabled and cast upon a desert island, where fortunately, the men, at great risk and peril of life, were able to save themselves, but some of the mails were badly damaged. Since then the conveyance of the mails is dependant on the occasional passage which a sailing boat can effect across the dangerous sound. Owing to rough weather, with contrary winds, tides, etc. it is often unable to make the crossing, consequently great inconvenience, dissatisfaction, delays and losses are caused. 

Between the 14th and 20th Nov. no mails arrived from Callanish, and between the 14th and 21st none were despatched from Miavaig. On that last mentioned date only a portion of the mails that had accumulated there from the various townships could be removed as it was a motor car that conveyed them round by Kinloch Roag.

What mails were left behind them were not taken to Callanish till the 24th November.

It frequently happens that the boat from Miavaig does not arrive in Callanish in time to catch the mail car to Stomoway. By the present arrangement that means another two days delay. When the connection is thus lost, and with the curtailed steamer service on the Minch, south going mails take a longer time covering the first 20 miles of their than it takes to cross the Atlantic to America. That is not as it should be.

On several occasions lately, no mails passed between Callanish and Miavaig. Between the 24th and the 27th November between the 1st and 6th December, between the 15th and 19th, between the 19th and 24th and between the 24th and 27th December there were no deliveries or despatches between these offices. On all occasions, important and urgent letters and “perishables” were held up. Official letters, some of them immediately concerning the well-being of this parish were delayed until the advantages and opportunities offered were lost. Loud complaints and great discontent are envinced on every hand, especially by the young men recently demobilised, at the limited and irregular postal service in the district.

The following resolution was passed unanimously:-

“The people of West Uig, served by the Miavaig Post Office as centre, earnestly and respectfully ask the Postmaster General to consider seriously and sympathetically their grievances and complaints, with a view to remedying them; to grant a subsidy whereby a serviceable steamer or motor-boat (which can accomplish the journey in all weathers, excepting very tempestuous days) can be put on the ferry between Callanish and Miavaig; and that it be made a condition that the mail car should always wait at Callanish for the arrival of the Miavaig mails.”