For folk who have never visited the Western Isles before,
and Uist in particular, the fact that you can’t go anywhere or do anything
without everyone knowing about it, can be a bit stressful. In fact, to me, that’s what makes South Uist
so wonderful. Within 2 minutes of getting toff the ferry in Lochboisdale, I had
been identified by the man coming to give me my hire car and asked “Now do you know how to get to Taigh Mairi Anndra”,
despite me never actually having said to the company what and where I was
going! Then 2 miles further on, I bumped into a good friend of mine, Uist poet
and actor Angus Peter Campbell who had heard I was coming to the island. I had
also finally managed to find a hairdresser who could cut my hair ( one of the
drawbacks of living on Canna is the impossibility of getting your hair done
unless you go to the mainland) . I walked in the door and the lovely lady, whom
I had never met before, said “ Oh yes, you’ll be the lady who’s staying in
Taigh Mairi Anndra this week.”.
This is one of the qualities of Uist folk which so endeared
Margaret Fay Shaw to them. She felt instantly welcomed and cherished by people
here, felt like a family member. Even if local folk harboured some reserved suspicion of her, it was never
obvious to her and they would have been horrified , had it been so. This she talks about in her papers which I
have been presenting this week in the area. Last night, I was drafted in at the last
minute to sing at the launch of a new book at Kildonan Museum, by Professor
Alan Riach of Glasgow University, on the great Gaelic bard, Alasdair Mac
Mhaighstir Alasdair’s ,epic poem, Birlinn Clanranald. One of my first ever song
tutors from Uist, Catriona Garbutt ,was unable to perform so “could I just do a
few songs to fill the gap”. Delighted to do so but as always, when singing
here, I am conscious of the need to ‘make
sure it is just right’ – song choice, gauge the audience, right words, it’s not
just a case of getting up and singing any old song. Does the audience want ‘big’
songs, do they want something light and ‘joiny-in-y’, do they have Gaelic, do I
have the right introduction information? These are all imperative, and rightly
so. Having been given some wonderful songs by the Uibhisteach over the years,
the least I can do, is make sure they are right and that folk want to hear
them.
And that, I feel is largely what Margaret felt too. She
seems to have been driven by a need to preserve
the songs and to preserve them immaculately.
To have the correct words, the
correct, metre, the correct provenance. She recognised that Peigi and Mairi
were entrusting t her, the future of their songs and heritage, that she had the
skills which they did not, to notate the songs, to record the words , correctly
for future generations, in order for us to have an accurate picture of their
lives, once they were no longer here.
Spending time with local people, looking at some of Margaret’s
pictures is a most illuminating experience and I am learning lots, the most
important being that for many of the pictures, it is too late for us. Too late
to gather the information. The people in the pictures are obviously long gone
but even family members don’t recognise their forebears. Something for us all to
remember and not to ‘leave for the young ones to do’.
However one question almost certainly answered for me. I
have recently been delving into Margaret’s diaries of her time here in North
Glendale and trying to piece together a picture of her life, that she hasn’t
put down on paper. She was having Gaelic lessons “ from the local minister” but
she never mentioned his name. She was
also very good at sprinkling her diary entries with ‘codes’ and caricatures!
She talks of lessons with ‘MM’. I find
mention in other correspondence of her friend ‘the Little Minister’. Then in
Alleghenies ( “From the Alleghenies to the Hebrides” Birlinn Press. ISBN: 9781841587707
) , she mentions ‘the young minster who was somewhat eligible”. So I put 2 and
2 together and hopefully have added it up to 4. Also in her ‘Folksongs and Folklore
of South Uist”, she mentions recordings songs from the Rev Murdo Macleod, of
Daliburgh. So unless I am very much mistaken, MM is Murdo
Macleod and he is the Minister who was
teaching Margaret Gaelic and that perhaps she carried a torch for him! Pure
guesswork of course…… But so much of this job is just that, trying to piece together
a huge jigsaw and get the whole picture!
Can anyone tell me if this the Rev Murdo Macleod of Daliburgh, c 1930?
The day ends with a fierce electrical storm and the glen is
in total darkness, much as it would have been 86+ years ago. Except now, there
is the neon glow of Televisions, coming from the odd window and the lights of
the Lochboisdale ferry twinkling in the distance. As the thunder rumbles and
the wind blows, I remember Margaret’s description of a gale:
“The wind sometimes drives the spindrift across the island
to whiten the faces of men trying to tie down the remains of a haystack. The
walls of my room would billow in and out like an accordion: the rook would
shale and flaming peat would blow out into the room. At such times there can be
no opening the door or the roof might depart. But there is more safety in a
thatched house on such a night than under the fearful noise of a tin roof which
is being lifted slightly with each terrible blast”
Such it was and still is…
