Former airline pilot Bill Innes tells a humorous anecdote about Captain David Barclay, MBE, during an illustrated talk about the pioneers of Scottish aviation held in An Talla, Tiree on 5th July 2004.
The name David Barclay is synonymous with the development of aviation in the Western Isles and with the Scottish Air Ambulance Service. He flew his first ambulance flight with Northern & Scottish Airways in 1935 and at the end of his career had flown more than two thousand ambulance missions.
He was awarded the MBE in 1942 and invested with the order of St John of Jerusalem in 1950. Much loved and well respected by those who knew him, Captain Barclay retired in April 1965 with an overwhelming send-off from islanders in Barra and Tiree.
Information from the Scottish Records Office dated 1986 regarding crofter agitation on Tiree in 1886.
Letter from Murdo MacDonald, archivist at the Scottish Records Office, dated 24/2/1986 to Sandy MacKinnon of Crossapol about his query regarding crofter agitation on Tiree in 1886, detailing the action raised by the Duke of Argyll, the trial and verdict and the cost of copies of the High Court Minute Book.
Copy of 1985 proposed Nature Conservancy Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Tiree.
Map of proposed Nature Conservancy Sites of Special Scientific Interest at Hough, Balevullin and Cornaig with a list of operations likely to damage the features of special interest, dated 1985. (From the papers of the late Sandy MacKinnon, Crossapol.)
This photograph of Dr John Holliday, used with kind permission of D.C. Thomson & Co Ltd, was taken outside the surgery at Baugh in 1988 for an article in the ‘Sunday Post’ about Tiree’s GP. The island is just over eleven miles long and he very rarely used his bicycle to visit patients!
Dr. Holliday came to Tiree in 1986 from Kintore, a remote Aboriginal community in the Western Desert of Australia where he was the only doctor in an area the size of Germany. The Pintupi Homeland Health Service was controlled by the local people, and the doctor and local healer, or ngangkari, worked closely together.
As in other remote areas in Scotland, Tiree’s GPs have also worked single-handedly. A new surgery was built at Baugh in 2000 and a second half-time doctor was appointed in 2004 to help care for the island’s seven hundred and twenty patients.
Black and white photograph of Dr John Holliday in 1988 by the Sunday Post.
Dr John Holliday with his bicycle photographed outside the surgery at Baugh in 1988 by the Sunday Post.
Black and white photgraph of the Presbytery of Lorne and Mull at Heylipol Church in 1984.
The Presbytery of Lorne and Mull at Heylipol Church in the summer of 1984 at the ordination and induction of Rev. George Donaldson (centre with glasses) to the Parish of Tiree and Coll.
Colour photograph of Lachie MacLean, Druimfhraoich and Hector J C Campbell, Cornaigbeg in the 1980s.
Lachie Maclean of Druimfhraoich and Hector J. C. Campbell of Cornaigbeg binding oats at Dhruimfhraoich, Kenovay in the mid-1980s. The tractor is a Massey Ferguson.
Colour photograph of the stackyard at Druimfhraoich in the late 1980s.
The stackyard (iodhlann) at Druimfhraoich, Kenovay in the late 1980s. L-R: Lachie MacLean, Druimfhraoich, building a stack (mulan); his wife Flora; Murdoch MacLean of Kilmoluaig.
