Printed email from Archie Johnstone in response to an article about second sight on Tiree, 2015.
Extract: “My father’s mother was a great believer of 2nd sight. In 1916, he awoke and said to his mother that her brother Ian [John] was dead. She immediately went into mourning. Eight weeks later it was confirmed that he had been killed in action. The family home was no. 6 in Upper Vaul. Father was born in 1899 … His mother was Mary Flora Mackinnon and she married Thomas Johnstone and lived in Chapelhall. They had 4 children: Catherine Tommy Archie and Maxwell.”
Five copies of ‘West Highland Notes and Queries’ by the Society of West Highland and Island Historical Research: May 1973 – inhabitants of Coll; May 1977 – Donald MacLeod of Talisker’s links with Coll; January 2014 – Ua Neill pedigrees, 1467 MacEwens, first MacLeans, Breacachadh; October 2014 – article about Coll MacColl; August 2015 – the setting of rents on Tiree 1662-1716.
Photocopied report to Historic Scotland, 2003, ‘Airborne Remote Sensing and Ground Penetrating Radar survey, Coll and Tiree’ by Tom Dawson (University of St Andrews) and Sandy Winterbottom (University of Stirling) with Alistair Rennie and Jim Hansom. Testing the use of Airborne Remote Sensing to discover archaeological sites within mobile sand dune and machair areas.
One of the ceramic red poppies from the display of 888,246 from the Tower of London in 2014 commemorating the centenary of the outbreak of the first world war. Each represented one British or colonial life lost. Bought and donated by Greta Travers who was posted to Tiree as a WAAF in 1945, during the second world war. The poppy was placed in the ground in front of the RAF Halifax memorial at Tiree’s airport for a while during 2015. See also 2017.12.2
Article in Fiddler magazine, 2010, about fiddler Calum MacKinnon, Seattle, whose Gaelic parents were from Tiree. Calum taught fiddle at Fèis Thiriodh 1998, and played at A’ Bhuain – Tiree Homecoming 2016.
Article in the Scots Magazine by Peter Myres recalling his maritime adventures around Tiree in 2009. Titled ‘Boat Daft on Tiree’ he writes about the ferries and puffers and a trip to Coll. Includes colour photographs of Travee from Balephuil, the ferry Claymore in 1962, hoisting a old Alvis car from the Claymore, the puffer Lascar, and Sheena Beck, Ruaig, with her children Drew, Robin and Margaret in 1962. Pages 408-412.
Hardback book ‘The Great Book of Skye’ by Norman MacDonald and Cailean MacLean, 2014. An extensive study of the people of Skye spanning 200 years. Includes a few Tiree people who moved to Skye. See 2017.17.1 for the second volume of this work.
Softback book ‘Eilean Uaine Thiriodh / The Green Isle of Tiree’ by Margaret Bennett and Eric Rose, 2014. Signed “Presented to An Iodhalnn by Ethel MacCallum, May 2015”, it is a biography of Ethel MacCallum who, in 1942, was evacuated from an orphanage in Glasgow to the Island of Tiree. She became fluent in Gaelic and, with her natural gift for music and song, was encouraged to write her own compositions. The book includes some of her original work on a CD.
Typical crofter’s work clothing displayed during the Agriculture exhibition in 2012: blue denim dungarees, blue denim jacket, checked cotton shirt, green/grey cloth cap, green rain hat, red neck scarf, black belt, sturdy walking boots.
