An Comunn Gàidhealach Publications > Sruth > Volume 2 > No. 60, 10 July 1969

Ten
Sruth, Di-ardaoin, 10 latha de’n luchar 1969
THE MYSTERY OF THE
ISLE OF SKYE
I CHIU) HELD THE KEY
A Scottish gale can tear the
closed the door of the musty
place. And that was that.
“We did not think of men¬
tioning the matter again.”
When Budge, accompanied
by his wife Eleanor, went to the
seat out of a man’s pants. And years old and an article about church this past Christmas he
when a big wind whips o’er the « appeared in “ ^ Sanford “took the oppormnity of look-
isles of the Hebrides, you’d Herald October 10, 1968. mg around, and ... fotn^
best be holding ere-thin’ down Then a national com collec- them where they had lain
what’s not hinged, else ’twill be tor’s magazine. The; Numa- throughout all these years,
. ° 55 cmrw*hirYU7
up for sure.
NORWAY
Grants to Communes
had
“The Numa- throughout all these
tidst,” somehow got hold of the still in that musty place, un-
- , c „ . „T r story and carried it in an issue touched since a curious lad
The firet tune the mystery of ^ a Presb rian elder m fi d ^ and ^
the vamshed Duintush tokens of Ca]]j&nlia read badt, and now redistivered by
Dimvegan was so te w The elder wrote to Budge en- the man six decades later,
the winds were ^ , ' quiring about tokens from the where, perhaps, they would have
mered open e o urc bjstorjc tXurinish Church on slept still, were it not for the
Skye. power of childhood memories
A hearty gale left the main jgut ^ far ^ Budge knew the whose spoons of imagination can
doors ajar, inviting two boys to tokens had vanished. These stir a man’s mind long after
tokens crossed the hands of his hands have ceased and time
, rniUTN n nnmr Scotsmen whose descendents has whitened his hair.
*)y 1*1/Will ft. dUUIi hear surnames like MacLeod, Rev. MacKenzie has now re-
McClure, McAskill, MacRailt, ceived one of the valuable
take a look inside. There, behind ^a^Crimn^n’ MfcSweens and tokens from Budge of the
„ r . guarantees of up to £75,000
Income from tax is low in the commune of the county
certain communes and the guarantees 25% of it. If it ex-
County Advisory Board distn- ceeds £75^0 ^ 5oard will
butes grants obtained from the dedde how much) £ ^ h re_
Mimstry without strings — the -d for the county If ^
amount varies with the popula- oject is sufficiently important
tion and the financial position. and k appears that the required
Migration from the less popu- share capjtal will not be taken
lated areas and the transfer ^ the Fund win itself take up
from agriculture and fishing tjlc shares.
have been slowed down by sub¬
sidies to these industries, by im-
the small low desk of the pre- McSwan. The old community church in the small town of
senter they came upon a little of Swanns gets its name from Dunvegan on Skye and it can
the last.
door.
One put his hand inside and
drew out a fistfull of pewter about the tokens of the church
tokens, tokens collected from beadle.
the faithful many years before ^ ^ beadle told him,
this day by John Shaw, pastor be had not in his many
of Duirinish Church from 1811 years seen or heard of them.
t0 1813 “No one knew anything as to
He took them from the com- what happened to them,” Budge
municants who carried them To said> They ceased to be used
signify they were prepared for 9u^e a lonS 1111X16 a8°-
the sacrament. They were irretreivably lost.
And they rested behind the Then the dint of a menmry in
obscure little door for nearly a Blldge s 1X1111(1 stirred- Soixle-
be seen on display in the Heri-
Budge had already asked tage Room of Barbecue Church,
In recent years expansion of
existing businesses has created
port controls, and grants 10 mogt 0f tbe new jobs and some
coyer transport costs. Fish djrectjon has been necessary to
prices have also been stabilised ensure that it goes to under-
oy grants. The state provides developed areas where this is
incentives and participates n necessary and desirable, particu-
establishing industries and has ]ariy jf there is unemployment,
established iron and steel works Compensation may be paid to
and some mining in north the new industry if any extra
Norway. In west Norway two expenditure is involved in mov-
large aluminium plants and in jng jnto the development areas.
other parts of the country “key”
industries have been established
various under-developed
parts.
The Regional Development
with the still older token
from Jura,
hundred years, until they de- thing f1X16 to my memory
... . . , ... T hoH r»ni- t-n/Micrht nr
lighted and confounded the two which I had not thought of
boys in the early years of 1900. smce the thing happened over
Who would have guessed that slxty years ago.
the wonder of a min in Cali- “After a severe gale, another
fornia would travel across the boy and I found the main door
seas to the Hebrides of Scot- of the Dimmish Church blown
land and to that church on the wide open by the storm. We
Isle of Skye, seeking after these went in as boys would do and
very tokens in 1968. looked around. My compamon
It was 158 years since “J.S.,” looked into a little low closet
the initials of Rev. John Shaw, next to the ground below the
were cast on the tokens that presenters box, put his hand mto
even an oldtimer at the church a box which was there and drew
couldn’t remember having seen out what he thought was a
or heard of before. handful of money.
A coincidental series of “When we looked closely, we
events beginning when Rev. decided that they must be com-
John MacKenzie of Barbecue munion tokens. Neither of us
Church read a book by another bad seen or handled such
Presbyterian minister in Scot- before. We put them back and
land brought new wonder about
the mystery of the vanished
tokens of the Isle of Skye.
MacKenzie, eager for more
information about names like
Clark, Buie, McArtan, Mc-
Dougald, Darroch, Shaw and
Black, wrote to Donald Budge,
author of “Jura—An Island of
Argyll.”
All these were names of early
settlers from Jura who came to
the Western fringe of Harnett
County and helped cut the tim¬
ber for Barbecue Church in
1757.
There were others who came,
too, from Skye. They had sur¬
names like McDonald, Mc¬
Queen and McGilvary.
A letter friendship between
the two ministers flourished and
when Harnett historian Mal¬
colm Fowler visited Scotland
last September, he spent an
evening with Budge, who gave
him a rare old Jura communion
token for MacKenzie.
The token was about 238
Forestry Schools
To Close
Island Cure-All
As part of its programme for
transferring its responsibility
for further education for for¬
estry to the public edu cation
system, the Forestry Commis¬
sion has now to close its school
at Capel Curig, Betws-y-Coed,
N. Wales. By 1872 the other
two Forester Training Schools,
one in the Forest of Dean in
Gloucestershire and the other at
Faskally in Perthshire, will also
be closed.
A decision on where future
forester training is to take place
is still to be announced by the
Education Departments; in the
meantime the Commission will
continue to turn out about 35
trained men each year for
employment in its own wood¬
lands and on privately owned
estates.
The Highlands and Islands
Development Board are to
sponsor a training scheme for
skin curing in the Outer
Hebrides with the aim of
establishing a sheepskin cur¬
ing industry in the Islands.
The scheme was launched
during the first part of this
month through a series of
public meetings in the Outer
Isles, when lectures and
demonstrations were presen¬
ted by Mr D. H. Tuck, Vice-
Principal and Head of the
Light Leather Department of
the National Leather Sellers
College, London. Assistance
with the administration of
the scheme is being given by
the Scottish Council of Social
Service and Ross and Crom¬
arty County Council.
Mr William Scholes of the
Board said “For some time
now there has been a general
interest in the possibility of
encouraging crofters and
others to augment their in¬
come by curing and selling
siheepskin. The growth of a
curing industry will help
meet the increasing demand
for quality sheepskins and,
together with the eventual
manufacture of a range of
leather products, give a con¬
siderable economic and social
stimulus to the various com¬
munities.”
RAILWAY NOTES
Fund 1960 was established to
encourage industry, increase
economic activity and income
levels, provide employment and
conditions similar to those in
well developed parts of the
country by providing finance for
establishing new activities which
would increase employment and
utilise labour efficiently.
“ The Board and the Secre¬
tariat—initiate, organise, plan
and co-ordinate . . .”
The Fund has a Secretariat,
a Board and a Council and they
do not confine themselves to
processing applications. They
examine industrial possibilities,
and point out to other bodies
problems that have to be solved
before industrial development
can take place. They give loans
and guarantees, subscribe share
capital and, initiate investiga¬
tions and planning for industry.
Loans are mainly for long
and medium terms and are
given for working capital. Guar¬
antees are made so that loans
can be obtained from banks or
credit institutions. They are
secured by mortgage or the per¬
sonal liability of the person
having the major shareholding.
Generally repayment should not
exceed 20 years, and loans are
at normal rates. Interest repay¬
ment may be deferred for 3
years—as for factories under
public management, but it ac¬
crues to principal and is repaid
with it. The government under¬
takes the liabilities of guarantor.
When the Fund grants loans or
LOVE IN ann no LOVE IN as
Chan fhaigh sibh ach Bed an'
Breakfast seo.
INSPECTION OF SEED
POTATO CROPS
Seed potato inspections by
the Department of Agricul¬
ture and Fisheries for Scot¬
land will begin on Monday,
July 14, 1969.
Due to weather conditions
and late planting some crops
may not be fit for inspec¬
tion immediately. Growers
are reminded, however, that
in order to have crops ready
for inspection, roguing sfipuld
be carried out as soon as
growth permits.
Growers will be notified in
advance of the date of in¬
spection.
The Railway Invigoration
Society has recently issued its
79th Progress Report. Among
other interesting snippets of
Railway information, the Soci¬
ety reports:
CoTvdenbeath-Perth
British Rail claims that costs
are £138,490 per annum and
that receipts are £55,300 per
annum. Our costs, based on
information supplied by the
National Council on Inland
Transport and checked by ex¬
pert consultants, amount to
£60,000. However, from this
figure must be deduaed the ex¬
tra movement costs which the
closure would cause. These
would amount to £34,500, be¬
cause the inter-city journey
between Edinburgh and Perth
would be increased by about 25
miles. Thus, net mosts are only
£25,500 per year. The alleged
receipts exclude contributory
revenue, i.e., that between
Perth, Inverness and the North,
etc., and between Cowdenbeath
and the South, etc.
We believe that this proposal
if carried out would prove to
be one of the most financially
disastrous ever conceived in
Scotland and that on the line’s
existence depends the future of
the railway network in the
north of Scotland.
British Rail has started to
run down services on the Inver-
ness-Wick/Thurso line. Tim¬
ings of trains were extended by
about 30 minutes under the
new timetable which commen¬
ced on 5th May.
The Border Union Railway
Company has been formed
with the object of running a
daily commuter service and
special summer excursions on
the Edinburgh-Hawick-Carlisle
line.
Following the decision of
Tynwald (the Manx parliament)
to grant a subsidy of £7,500 a
year for three years towards the
running of steam trains on the
Isle of Man a company has
been formed to operate a ser¬
vice between Douglas and Port
Erin. This opened to the public
on Whit Sunday, 25th May,
and the new company intends to
restrict its operations to this
line.