Associated People: Campbell, Mrs Margaret, Kilmoluaig

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2005.151.1

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Angus MacKechnie talking about mischief at school

Sound clip in English of Angus MacKechnie talking about the mischief he and his friends got up to on the way to Heylipol School in the 1950s and 60s.

Courtesy of Mr Angus MacKechnie

Angus MacKechnie of Crossapol was recorded talking to Maggie Campbell of Kilmoluaig in October 2005 about his schooldays. He was strapped at school, deservedly so according to himself, for breaking the ceramic insulators on the telegraph poles on the road to Heylipol School.

This was a popular sport amongst schoolchildren, in Ruaig as well as Heylipol, and required accuracy in throwing stones. A boy’s reputation depended upon success, especially if the girls, who were guilty of the same activity, scored a direct hit.

Today Angus and his wife Nancy run one of the two school buses on the island and the popular Ring ‘n’ Ride service which provides transport on request. Angus also works crofts in Crossapol, Heylipol and Moss.

2005.152.1

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Minidisk recording of Hugh MacLeod of Cornaigbeg talking to Maggie Campbell in November 2005.

Hugh MacLeod of Cornaigbeg talks to Maggie Campbell in November 2005 about the family of James Galbraith who was born in Gigha, and came with his family from Rothiemurchus, near Aviemore, to Balevullin to take the position of Head of the Parochial School at Balevullin in 1874. His daughter married into the MacDonald family of Kilmoluaig.

2005.133.1

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Iain MacLeod talking about corporal punishment at school

Sound clip in English of Iain MacLeod of Kilmoluaig talking about corporal punishment at school in the 1950s.

Courtesy of Mr Iain MacLeod

Iain MacLeod of Kilmoluaig was recorded in October 2005 talking to Maggie Campbell about his schooling at Cornaigmore where he was given ‘the belt’ for various misdemeanours, including spelling mistakes in the first years of primary school and for teaching a young child swear words.

The instrument of punishment in Scottish schools was the tawse, commonly known as the belt, which was a thick leather strap split at the end to inflict maximum pain. The strap was usually applied to the palms of the hands but in some recorded cases to bare buttocks. It was banned in state schools in 1986.

Iain and his wife Fiona were for many years the managers of Brown’s shop in Balemartine. They now run their own shop at Crossapol.

2005.112.1

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John Fletcher talking about writing at school

Sound clip in English of John Fletcher of Balemartine talking about the writing materials he used at school in the late 1940s.

Courtesy of Mr John Fletcher

John Fletcher talks to Maggie Campbell in September 2005 about learning to count and write at Balemartine School in the late 1940s. There were around eighty children attending the school, which was one of five on the island.

At break-time the children were given hot reconstituted National Dried Milk in tin mugs. John drank it quite happily but some of the children hated the taste, comparing it with the fresh milk they got at home.

Toilet facilities at the school were basic: buckets with blue disinfectant, two for the boys and two for the girls. These were taken down to the shore by the cleaner at night and thrown into the sea.

2005.100.1

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Jean MacCallum talking about school clothes in the 1940s

Sound clip in English of Jean MacCallum talking about school clothes in the 1940s.

Courtesy of Mrs Jean MacCallum

In a recording made in August in 2005, Mrs Jean MacCallum of Balevullin talks to Maggie Campbell about the clothes she wore to school in the 1940s. At the age of two, Jean was sent by Glasgow Corporation to be fostered by Alexander and Catherine Kennedy of Balevullin.

When she was fifteen, Jean was taken from Tiree by Glasgow Corporation, very much against her own and her foster family’s wishes, and placed in a Salvation Army home in Pollockshields. She was only returned to the island after her foster family took the matter to court.

Growing up on a Tiree croft, Jean developed a life-long love of the outdoors and of cattle. She later discovered that crofting was in her blood; her paternal grandmother had farmed into her eighties.

2005.101.1

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Mini-disk recording of Janet Brown, Balephuil talking to Maggie Campbell in August 2005.

Seònaid Brown née MacArthur of Balephuil talks to Maggie Campbell in August 2005 about her schooling at Heylipol during World War II and afterwards at Cornaig, her school clothes, lunches, games, her classes and teachers, school discipline, evacuees and tinkers, Christmas parties, transport to school, ministers and childhood illnesses.

2005.93.1

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Packed lunches and school dinners in the 1940s

Sound clip in English of Janet MacIntosh talking about packed lunches and school dinners in the 1940s.

Courtesy of Mrs Janet MacIntosh

Janet MacIntosh was recorded in August 2005 talking to Maggie Campbell of Kilmoluaig about her schooldays in Balemartine in the 1940s. She remembers how ‘wonderful’ hot school dinners were compared to packed lunches.

When she was a child, the diet on Tiree was plain and simple. White and brown flour and oatmeal came in hundredweight bags and were stored in the ‘girnel’, a wooden chest with a lid and internal partitions, that kept the mice out. Housewives baked every day.

More fish was eaten than meat; there were few vegetables other than potatoes and no fruit. Food from the shore was also eaten: soup made with whelks (winkles) and oatmeal, or with dulse, and milk puddings made with carrageen.

2005.68.1

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Mini-disk recording of Hector and Archie MacKinnon of Cornaigmore talking to Maggie Campbell in June 2005.

Brothers Hector and Archie MacKinnon of Cornaigmore talk to Maggie Campbell in June 2005 about their primary school at Cornaig, how different Glasgow and Tiree were, and reminisce about the old school building and when it was renovated in 1934.

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