Seasons on Harris (23 page)

“Now, that's what y'call a man!” chuckled Roddy.

“Good to see you laughing again,” I said. “That was a rather dour funeral.”

“Och! Tha' was nothin'. Sometimes th' go on for hours.”

“Oh,” was all I could think to say (with a silent thanks in this instance for brevity).

“Aye, but y're right—it was a wee bit on the mournful side…more than usual,” agreed Roddy. “That was a surprise—reading all that stuff from Revelation. Couldn't see how it related to Peggy Ann. She didn't get much mention at all now, did she? She was such a good…a vital…person. But it was all about saving
our
souls. No relation to the deceased. Jus' giving us warnings…I suppose that's the old form, though. It's all a bit confusing nowadays. What was the Free Church a while ago is now splitting up again into even smaller churches. It's all very difficult…strange…”

Finally came the reception at Donnie and Dena MacDonald's Rodel Hotel, set cozily nearby below a rocky cliff overlooking an attractive inlet-harbor. This was once the home of an eighteenth-century island benefactor, Captain Alexander MacLeod, renowned for his vision of Harris as a focus of the west coast fishing industry (alas, yet one more failed philanthropic initiative). And what a transformation in the day!
Suddenly gone was all the earlier dark gloom and doom. People were smiling, laughing, and sharing tales of Peggy Ann, sipping tea, and eagerly devouring dainty, crustless sandwiches. Some of the men, Roddy and myself included, sidled into the adjoining bar and enjoyed a couple of stronger libations before joining in the sandwich gorging. And I looked around and smiled, glad to be reminded once again that despite religions and other differences and all the will-I-be-saved? angst that permeates so many lives here on the island, people are still people, and laughter and smiles can still work their magic here, as they do everywhere else in the world.

But apparently I was not the only one dismayed by the mournfulness of the proceedings, and during my conversations with some of the men at the adjoining bar I was intrigued to note among the various comments the following: “Even wishin' is said to be sinful in these parts,” murmured one elderly gentleman. “Acceptance, humility, passivity. These are the catchwords of our island religion. Keep y'mouth shut, y'heart pure, and pray for forgiveness and immortality!”

“How would ministers make a living,” said another, “if it weren't for original sin, constant guilt, the eternal inadequacy of man, and the inevitability of dire retribution. No wonder we drink like we do!” He laughed. “First to drown our sorrows and second because, if we're all sinners, we might as well act like sinners and stir up some real justification for forgiveness!”

One very elderly gentleman who seemed to be a permanent appendage at the bar, according to Donnie, saw things in an even longer and more depressing perspective: “It's as it's always been: the clergy on the side of the kings and the lairds and all we others must pay for our sins, scratching a life from this barren place and saying thank you, thank you to the whole lot of them—the ministers, the factors, the lairds, the royals.”

“But these lairds and factors and royals are not very significant today, surely,” I said.

He gave a sneering laugh. “Och! Nothing much has changed. We even say thank you to the tourists now for bringin'in a little new money, and oh! thank you to the government of course for givin' us wee hand
outs when the going gets too tough even for the strongest and most bloody-minded of us.”

Well, I thought to myself on the drive home, I've really seen the underbelly today of the island's religious spirit. And much as I'm reluctant to dabble too deeply in such matters, I felt that I at least owed it to my own understanding to explore the eccentricities of the spiritual underpinnings of life here.

So, later in the week I went to meet Reverend Murdo Smith, the youthful, auburn-haired Church of Scotland minister who had led the service for Peggy Ann. He had one of those open, honest faces and a beguiling smile that seemed to contrast so markedly with the mood and tone of the funeral.

During a general chat in his Scarista home on “the state of the isles” (invariably a very popular subject of conversation here), he lamented the declining population and church congregations, the dying of the Gaelic language despite a host of projects to maintain it, the outmigration of island youths, the “fading of the tweed industry,” the difficulty in attracting new ministers “to these isolated places,” and the increasing fragmentation of the Scottish churches generally.

“It's really quite ironic,” he said with a wry smile. “At a time when church members are dwindling across the board, the schisms between the churches keep growing and widening. In Stornoway today, for example, they have at least ten different churches. The Church of Scotland—my church—is still strong. Sometimes we have attendances of over fifteen hundred—actually one of the largest single church congregations in the whole of Scotland. But the Free Church is still the largest overall here, followed by the Free Presbyterian, then the APC—the Associated Presbyterian Church—and then the Free Church (Continuing)…”

“What's that last one—I keep hearing it mentioned…”

“Oh, it's another schism—they claim to be the
true
Free Church since the great split with the Church of Scotland in 1843. The doctrinal differences are very minor—but they seem to be extremely important to them.”

“But all these churches are essentially Calvinistic, right?”

“To varying degrees of rigidity. We're perhaps the least doctrinaire…”

“Well—if I can be honest—at Peggy Ann's funeral the other day, you seemed…how can I say it?…rather stern and full of threatening references to ‘the wrath of God' and suchlike.”

I watched his face to see if I'd been a little too blunt, but to my relief he smiled and gave a chuckle: “Ah—well, what you must bear in mind is that on that particular occasion we actually had two additional ministers present from the Free Presbyterian Church.”

“Were they the ones who gave those long mournful prayers?”

“Ah…yes, they were indeed. I felt duty-bound to let them lead the prayers. And in their church they do tend to keep funerals very…abstract. They don't even usually name the deceased or say anything specific about them.”

“I noticed that.”

“Y'see—the Church of Scotland is in a difficult situation. We obviously don't want to do anything to increase the rifts between all the various congregations so we occasionally accept…even adopt…some of their ‘stricter' ways. For example, there's been talk in our church of allowing organ music for the hymns and psalms, but there's a great fear that would only create larger barriers between us and the rest. Many of the more Calvinistic churches even ban hymns altogether. So, as you can understand, all this tends to inhibit what we can do. We even had problems with our Gaelic services. When I first came they were almost all Gaelic, but Gaelic speaking has declined, so now we're down to only one in every four services. It created a lot of tension and, even when our elders approved the changes, they knew we might lose some of our members to a stricter church.”

“Quite a dilemma.” I'd done some reading at the Tarbert library and had tried to make some sense out of the labyrinthine tangle of Scottish church “schisms,” but I found myself lost in a welter of secessionist names—Burghers, Auld Lichts, New Lichts, Lifters, Anti-Lifters, Evangelicals, Episcopalians, Original Secession Church, Presbyterian splinter sects, and numerous other groups all decrying one another with varying degrees of righteous indignation. It was all too much, and “dilemma” was the politest word I could think of to describe all the confusions of Calvinism.

“It is…and yet, you know, I wouldn't want to do anything else or be anywhere else. Our family has lived on Lewis since the early 1600s and I've been a minister here at Scarista for sixteen years. In my younger days, I ran a construction company with my brother, but when I was thirty-three my father died—I was very close to him—and I felt there had to be more to life than what I was doing. So I took theological training—four years in all—and joined the church. I was very moved by the great awareness of the spiritual life here on the islands. I suppose there are not so many diversions. You're in touch with nature all the time. Close up. In the crofting tradition—long generations of family living and working together—that creates a strong foundation for religious bonding. I mean, just last week I held a Communion here.”

“Don't you do that every week?”

“Oh no, no. Our Communions are very different here—different from the Anglican Church. They're held twice a year in March and October and last for four or five days. Each day has a different focus—this time, for example, the sequence was Humility, Self-Examination, Preparation for Communion, Communion, and Thanksgiving. They're wonderful occasions—a little like those American ‘revivals.' People come from all over the island. And then in the evenings we usually gather here at my home and sing hymns together. It's a real learning and bonding experience. Of course the Reformation started all that too, by giving more learning and freedom to the people.”

“I've heard some claim that the Calvinism that grew out of the Reformation—the rejection of the Catholic Church and all its sumptuous monasteries—in fact became a new instrument of fundamentalism and rigid doctrine, not a freeing of the individual. Wasn't it Sir Walter Scott who claimed that the traditional Calvinist hellfire-and-brimstone sermon was ‘the great suppressor of imagination and free thinking'? And many have real problems with ‘the Elect'—the idea that a certain privileged few in the church have already been chosen by God almost from birth for places in heaven—apparently very few places! And the rest of us can just go and…”

The reverend laughed and nodded: “Oh—you make me feel I'm back in theological school again! And it's true. Many creative people see
the church—particularly the Scottish churches—as being very suppressive. I think it was that famous Gaelic poet, Sorley MacLean, who wrote something like, ‘All is vanity, fear, and nothingness and the only valid “ism” is nihilism!' And—sadly—there are many who think like that. Many. And I empathize to some extent even though, obviously, I can't agree. I mean, some churches can get a little too carried away and doctrinaire and imply that life is all about collecting merit points for salvation and things like that.”

“But you don't?”

“No. Indeed not! In simple terms I believe that the way you try to lead your life is best guided by attempting to do what you feel Christ would have done in whatever situation you are in. Becoming a little like an extension of his eyes, his head, and…and his love. I mean—we can argue forever about doctrinal issues and a whole host of theological and ontological mind games, but in the end it all basically comes down to trying to understand and help others.”

“Just as I was told by many people that Peggy Ann used to do…”

“Oh yes. Definitely. Peggy Ann was a very fine example for us all…Listen, have you got time for a cup o' tea?”

“I don't see why not…”

It's not very often I get the chance to chat with a priest. Particularly a priest with such a friendly and apparently open-minded demeanor. So, as we enjoyed our tea and his wife's homemade shortcake, I thought I'd run a few questions past him—questions that have fluttered around the back of my head for years and for which I'm still trying to seek answers. Unfortunately, during his fascinating reply to my first question—“Are we still evolving as humans into an even higher species?”—he was called away by some domestic emergency in Leverburgh. We agreed to meet again, but so far that pleasure has not yet come to pass. However, I still have my questions, and one day I even hope to hear his opinion on the future of the poor, beleaguered tweed industry here on Harris. That's certainly something that would benefit from the benevolent intervention of a higher power…

I
T HAD TO HAPPEN.

With so many Hebridean crofts today, abandoned and overgrown, and the sad eroded turf-lumps of lazybed vegetable plots long since forgotten, it's hardly surprising that a few visionary incomers have seen opportunities here for renewal and restoration.

These once-beloved and vital smallholdings, rarely more than six acres of
inbye
grazing land close to the house and adjoining lazybeds, were for generation after generation crucial foundations for the existence of hundreds of thousands of crofters and cottars (“squatter” residents) all across Scotland. Then (that old familiar island story again) the terrible clearances from the mid-1800s led to their forced removal and relocation as far afield as Canada and Australia, and turned a large portion of these primitive homesteads into far more extensive and lucrative sheep farms or game-hunting preserves for the well-heeled lairds and the landed gentry of the south.

Fortunately, the 1883 Napier Report on the abominable conditions created by these clearances generated radical pro-crofting legislation and guaranteed at least the partial survival of this ancient subsistence way of life for almost another hundred years.

Until today—when the combination of a rapidly aging population, the wholesale outmigration of the young, declining crofting subsidies, and temptingly high land prices brought about by affluent incomers has led once again to a dramatic demise of this economy and the sad picture,
in Harris particularly, of once-fertile crofts left now weed-bound and worn out with no one to care for or about them. No one except individuals like Peter and Jane Harlington—prime examples of a “new crofting” trend. Not a particularly pronounced trend as yet and primarily evident only on Lewis—but certainly promising even in its current embryonic form.

Anne and I had read about the Harlingtons' endeavors in a brief
Stornoway Gazette
article, so we set out across the vast Barvas peat bogs and moors of central Lewis to find these hardy pioneers. Out of curiosity we decided to take the notorious Pentland Road, a recently surfaced, one-lane cart track that is, without doubt, one of Britain's loneliest and eeriest highways. Although less than fifteen miles long, it possesses an unnerving aura of bleak infinitude. As you drive across this barren, black peat plateau, you lose all sense of scale and time. Landmarks are nonexistent, beyond a few ragtag remnants of tar paper and clapboard shacks. In happier times, dairymaids from the coastal crofts would move with their cattle up to the high summer “shieling” pastures here and pass the warm months making butter and cheese and canoodling with their male admirers (if they managed to avoid the watchful eyes of protective “old maids”). For the rest of the journey our eyes scoured the flat wastes wondering if we'd ever reach the comfortable familiarity of houses, farms, and lines of wash wafting in balmy, sea-scented breezes.

Our mood, despite the fact that it was only early afternoon, became one of trepidation. We'd listened in the weeks gone by to all the tales of creatures that supposedly haunted these boggy expanses—the ghosts, the water horses,
glaistigs, gigelorums, sidheans,
and “the wee folk.” And we'd smiled, admiring the vivid imagination of the storytellers, and relegated their warnings to the “quaint and folksy” files in our heads. But as we drove on, meeting no one and nothing at all on this endlessly bleak road, such tales seemed not quite so far-fetched after all.

“What are those…things…over there?” Anne pointed to the left, across the moor. “They seem to be moving…”

I slowed down and looked. At first I saw nothing and then, way in the distance, silhouetted against an ominously stormy sky, I did see some
thing. Something like a line of strange figures, bowed and bent. And there was indeed a sense of slow, almost menacing, movement.

“Peat hags…I think,” I said, trying to exhibit more assurance than I felt. “Just a line of peat hags…they seem to be moving because we're moving.”

“Are you sure…?” said Anne in an uncertain voice. “Because they—”

“No, darling—don't worry. The moors play tricks with your head. Look—you can hardly see them now.”

“Okay,” said Anne, but she still kept peering out across the bogs, obviously not entirely convinced by my forced nonchalance.

It was with some relief that we finally reached the village of Carloway on the west coast of Lewis.

“Wow—that's quite a drive!” I gushed to Peter Harlington when we arrived at his croft, “That Pentland Road.”

Peter was a lean, sinewy young man with a great mop of ginger hair and a ragged beard. His light blue eyes sparkled with amusement and his laid-back, laconic way of speaking seemed to soften what I immediately sensed was a strong and determined nature. We also both warmed to his distinct Yorkshire accent.

“Oh, aye, 'tis. But y'shoulda traveled that before they put the new surface on. Felt much wilder then. And it had quite a reputation. People didn't like to use it except to get to the sheilings, 'specially not at night. It was definitely not a road for crossing at night…” Then Peter laughed at himself. “Well, that's what they say, anyway—you know how these superstitions used to spread around the peat fire
ceilidhs
in the old black houses on those long, dark winter nights!”

I laughed with him but Anne only grinned a little, apparently still uncertain about those strange peat hags—or whatever the eerie shapes had been.

“This looks fascinating,” I said, pointing to his small house and fenced croft, where work was well under way restoring the ancient lazybeds and the small
inbye
flower garden and grazing pastures. “How did you start all this—or more importantly, why?!”

The Harlingtons' story was one of uncompromising vision and per
severance. Peter explained that he'd been head gardener at Dunbeath Castle in Caithness for many years and that Jane was a talented artist currently giving courses in “enabling creativity” to local residents at a small gallery-classroom she rented nearby. In 2002 they were attracted by the initiatives of the Rural Stewardship Scheme, aimed at sustaining traditional lifestyles and protecting the natural environment. At first the locals were a little skeptical, but gradually, as the two of them have reformed the lazybeds, built vegetable and flower gardens, introduced such historically traditional livestock as Shetland cows and small, chocolate-brown fleeced Soay (St. Kildan) sheep, and rare island free-range chicken breeds, they have begun to bond with the community.

“I think it's because we really reach out to them. I run a few hands-on courses for livestock maintenance and ‘green fingers' garden upkeep, which seem to be quite popular,” Peter told us. “And we offer all our produce for sale—you know, flowers, especially for local weddings and family events, and fruits, vegetables—even Jane's famous baked goods, like her mince pies, Clootie dumpling, tea loaf, and her fantastic lemon cake. Oh—and our potluck suppers. For twenty-five dollars a head guests can join us around our dining table and enjoy a real traditional seasonal-food dinner with wines and sherry—everything! I usually cook these—it's a welcome break from all that digging and maintenance on the croft. And though I say it m'self, I make a great steak and kidney pudding using our own meats. Sometimes I'll try recipes from some of the locals—their old traditional dishes—flavors that many people have forgotten…”

“And is all this working?” asked Anne. “Can you both live in a sustainable, self-sufficient way—or do you find you're sneaking off every week to the co-op in Stornoway to stock up on exotic luxuries…?!”

Peter grinned. “Well—we're gettin' there. It's only been two years and, if I'm honest, we're still a bit squeamish about eating and selling our own animals, especially when our two kids give them names and regard them as individual friends. Jane does that ‘naming' thing too, so you can imagine the bother I get into when I have to let an Ernie or a Gertrude go out for processing.”

As he was speaking I looked around at the broad vistas of the Car
loway community—scores of small, whitewashed houses and crofts scattered across the green, rolling hills surrounding Loch Carloway. Just down the road, by the seashore, was the restored Gearrannan Blackhouse Village, one of the most characterful and authentic of Hebridean restorations, and to the south on a high bluff, the preserved remnants of a defensive Iron Age
broch
. Further to the northwest were ancient stone circles, a restored Viking mill, the Harris Tweed mill at Shawbost, the enormous whalebone jaw arch at Bragar, and scattered galleries and a pottery along the road to the northernmost cliffs of Ness and the Butt of Lewis. The whole coastline here contains a panoply of historic and traditional reminders of ancient island cultures dating back over five thousand years.

“You're really in the thick of it,” I said, “surrounded by so many remnants of the lifeways you're trying to restore and maintain here. And in one of the most scenic parts of Lewis too. What else could a young family wish for?”

“Y'can't beat it, can ye?” agreed Peter. “Sometimes when I'm cursing at how stubborn and hard this land of ours can be, or when I'm getting real frustrated by all the jobs left to do to get this croft the way we want it—all I've got to do is straighten up, take a few deep breaths, look around me, and I know it's all worthwhile. Money just can't buy this kind of place. And our two boys—Oliver and Jason—they love it too, so it makes it all fun. And Jane—well, of course, she'll never leave…she's set for life here!”

And, right on cue, who should emerge from the house but Jane, Peter's grinning, red-cheeked, blond-haired mate, exuding all the rural charm of a happy farmer's wife. “Instead of just standing around in the mud, why don't you all come in for a cup o' tea?” she said, laughing.

Of course, a “cup o' tea” in a Hebridean home is never merely a cup of tea. It was, in Jane's case, a cornucopia of buns, fruit pies, slices of thick, moist “boiled fruitcake,” and sandwiches layered with succulent roasted ham.

“This ham is gorgeous—where did you get it from?” asked Anne.

Jane smiled as she watched us devour her home-baked delights. “Oh. That's Bernie.”

“Bernie?” asked Anne, wondering if it was the name of her local butcher.

“Bernie—one of our pigs.”

“Oh,” said Anne hesitantly.

Jane laughed. “No, no…eat him…it…the sandwich. He had a great life here. Spoilt rotten by the kids. I'm sure he'd be really pleased you're enjoying him…it…the sandwich!”

But despite her generosity as our hostess and her beguiling grin, something seemed to be bothering Jane. Finally, at the end of a meandering conversation, she suddenly let it all out. “Look, you know, I'm sorry. It's just that I'm feeling a bit bad right now for our two boys. We've all just come back from the Perth Mod.”

“Ah, we saw bits of that on television last night,” said Anne.

“Yes—it's been on a lot. And it really was a great event. A huge celebration of the Gaelic culture: music, songs, dancing, choirs, poetry, and stories—all that good stuff. But our poor lads. They had a bit of a rough time. Oliver—he's thirteen—plays guitar and he's got this little band and they wrote some lovely Gaelic songs—all their own. They won the local Mod here. People thought they were fantastic. Giving Gaelic a bit of a boost with guitars and drums and whatnot. But at Perth, oh no—not at all! ‘Far too modern,' they said. ‘Not traditional enough. Too loud'…and other stupid things. They got praised for the songs themselves but they didn't even get a look-in because of the way they played them…I mean, you've got to keep up with the times, haven't you, for goodness sake!”

Jane looked a bit more cheerful after her outburst. “Well—I've got that off my shoulders now. Sorry. But look—have some more tea.”

I must admit, it did strike me as rather ironic that a family so determined to authentically revive and maintain the generations-old traditional crofting lifeways would be frustrated by a similar intent on the part of the Mod itself, but I didn't say that. Instead I asked about her own paintings, proudly displayed on the walls of her cozy dining room, where we all sat devouring the last of her culinary delights. They were bold works—mostly semiabstract renditions of fishing boats and harbor scenes in Stornoway.

Highland Cow

“I can't go totally abstract,” she explained. “I'm not sure I want to. It can get far too personal—too self-focused. What I try to do is use my big black marker pens to sketch some of the basic composition lines—you know, how the massings of the boats echo the verticals of the quays, and the horizontals pick up the lines of lobster creels, the harbor wall, the decks of the trawlers. I try to find patterns—geometric forms—that work as partial abstracts of color and light but still keep the essence of the actual reality. You know, the things that made me want to sketch that particular subject in the first place…things that might make people see new beauty—awareness—in everyday scenes.”