Dates: 1920s

1997.159.25

The Remembrance Service in 1921

Photograph of the Remembrance Service at the War Memorial in Scarinish in 1921.

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Courtesy of Mrs Jean Lindsay

Picture of Hugh Cameron watching the Remembrance service held on Tiree at the Scarinish War Memorial.

Black and white photograph of Hugh Cameron at the 1921 Remembrance Day service.

Hugh Cameron (right) with two pipers, Hugh MacArthur of Tullymet and Hugh Campbell of Port Glasgow, at the 1921 Remembrance Day service at the War Memorial in Scarinish.

1997.148.21

Black and white postcard of Heanish hospital.

The fever hospital on Heanish machair. Built in 1905 of corrugated iron over a wooden frame, it contained a two-bedded ward at either end with a kitchen, nurse`s room and bathroom in the centre. It was first used within months of opening when two families went down with diphtheria. By 1927, Dr Hunter reported it was only occasionally used and it was let out to a family on the condition that they vacated it at once if needed for patients. The hospital was last used in the 1940s, then let to Council roadmen and finally sold as a private house in the 1960s.

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1997.148.33

Lifting potatoes at Ruaig

Postcard of the potato harvest at Ruaig in the mid-1920s.

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Courtesy of Mr Angus MacLean

Potatoes were first grown in the Hebrides in 1743 when they were brought back to South Uist from Ireland by MacDonald of Clanranald. His tenants were unwilling to plant them and brought the crop to his house as they refused to eat them.

However, by 1800 potatoes had become the main food crop in the islands, including Tiree. They produce three to five times as many calories as grain from the same area of land. Potatoes are also a much more dependable crop than oats and barley, which can be flattened overnight by a storm.

Dependable, that is, until 1846, when the fungus causing potato blight caused widespread starvation in Europe. It is said that West Hynish was the only area of Tiree to be unaffected. This postcard shows Nancy and Alexander MacInnes in the foreground harvesting potatoes in Ruaig in the mid-1920s.

Black and white photograph of potato lifting at Ruaig.

Lifting potatoes at Ruaig, c. 1925-6, with Nancy and Alexander MacInnes in the foreground (Duncan MacInnes`s aunt and great-uncle).