Book ‘The Hebrides at War’ by Mike Hughes, 1998. An illustrated account of the men and women who served and lived in Oban and the Hebrides during World War II. From the belongings of the MacDonald/MacCorquodale/MacLean family of Kenovay.
Booklet ‘Domhnall Dearg’, a translation into Gaelic of the play ‘The Five Year Plan’ by Kenneth Stewart, produced by An Comunn Gaidhealach in 1950. From the belongings of the MacDonald/MacCorquodale/MacLean family of Kenovay.
Collection of articles, poems, photographs and illustrations by Alistair MacNeill of Hynish (b. 1940). Alistair recollects his experiences competing in the County Sports, Skerryvore Lighthouse, the Great China Tea Race of 1866, rock fishing with a bamboo rod, ‘The Wembly Wizards’ Scottish football team of 1928, gathering tangles (seaweed) for the kelp industry, Ben Nevis, a puffer coal boat at Hynish pier. Includes two covering letters with further information.
Photograph and sample of gutta-percha from a bale found embedded in the machair shore at Sandaig (NL 936 436) by visitor Jennie Hynd in September 2022. The extent of the lichen and vegetation on the bale suggests that it had been there for some time.
Gutta-percha is a stretchy, rubbery material, derived from the latex of the Palaquium gutta tree in Malaysia. During the second half of the 19th century, gutta-percha was imported into Britain in vast quanities and used as insulation for underwater electrical cables, golf balls, chewing gum and root canal treatment. Synthetic materials have since largely replaced it.
Bales of gutta-percha have been washed up on the beaches of western Europe for over 100 years, with many likely to have come from ships wrecked during WWI such as the Japanese liner Miyazaki Maru, which was sunk by a German U-boat off the Scilly Isles in 1917.
Two colour photographs of the front and back of a crude wooden cross, hand-carved from a driftwood branch, probably pine. The back has been fashioned to hang flat on a wall. Found in the dunes at Salum Bay in 1998, it hung in ‘The Wee Church’ at Ruaig.
As there are no pine trees on Tiree, it is likely to have drifted there from Coll or Mull.
Two original monochrome postcards showing Scarinish Harbour and Island House. These are originals of digital copies already held in the collection. See 2000.230.4 and 2013.33.2, respectively.
Scanned copies of photographs of HMS Tiree in Malta in 1957, members of Polish 304 Squadron beside their Wellington XIV and one signed by one of the aircrew, a pilot and navigator in a cockpit, a Warwick aircraft and Warwick ‘ghost’ aircraft with descriptive text. Includes the reverse sides of each photograph. *Copyright restrictions apply*
Click here to view images 2022.13.5
Boatbuilders’ wooden clamp belonging to Donald MacIntyre, Gott (1925-2020). Donald used the clamp when building his boat, the ‘Isabella’. After the planks had been steamed, they were tightened by hitting a wooden wedge in at the top of the clamp.
Copy of a page from The Times newspaper, 11 Aug 2018, with an obituary for Archie Montgomerie, Earl of Eglington (1939-2018), who bought a house in Caoles in the late 1970s. Known locally as ‘Lord Egg’, he enjoyed participating in Tiree fishing competitions.
Letter card written at Clachan Guest House at Baugh in the 1950s. Comprises a single long folded sheet containing six black & white photographs of Tiree.
