Flora MacLean of Balevullin was a nurse in Glasgow at the beginning of the 20th century. While working with children in the city she contracted tuberculosis. Her career finished, she left the pollution of the city for the sunshine and fresh air of her native island.
At the back of her thatched house in Balevullin she set up a tent where she lived much of the year. Her house was one of the few on Tiree with a back door which faces west, the direction of the prevailing wind. Most Tiree houses, until recently, have been built ‘back to the wind, face to the sun’.
She died in 1918 and is buried at Soroby. Her niece, Flora MacKinnon, also lives in Balevullin and is one of the island’s district nurses.
Black and white photograph of nurse Flora MacLean of Balevullin.
Nurse Flora MacLean of Balevullin who died in the 1920s, an aunt of nurse Flora MacKinnon of Balevullin.
Black and white photograph of siblings Marion, Neil and Maggie MacLean of Balevullin in the 1910s.
L-R: Siblings Marion, Neil and Maggie MacLean of Balevullin in the 1910s. Marion died of flu in 1918, Duncan became Tiree`s first vet and Maggie became a teacher and married Ernest Richardson.
Maggie MacLean of Balevullin was the Dux of Oban High School in 1925 and later graduated as a teacher. She taught locally in Ruaig School and then moved to Glasgow where she married Ernest Richardson.
Black and white photograph of siblings Maggie MacLean of Balevullin in the 1910s.
Maggie MacLean (1907-1997) of Balevullin on the day she graduated as a teacher in the late 1920s. Maggie was Dux of Oban High School in 1925, taught in Ruaig School then moved to Glasgow and married Ernest Richardson.
Black and white group photograph, possibly taken at a Tiree Association event.
Possibly a Tiree Association event in the 1940s or 50s. L-R: (back row) Piper Hugh Kennedy, Kilmoluaig; Alasdair MacFarlane, artist who painted ‘Taeping’; blacksmith Archie MacEachern, Cornaigbeg; policemen Neil MacLean, the Croft, Balevullin; unknown; boat pilot Donald Archie MacFarlane; Hugh Cameron, ‘Lochiel’, Cornaigmore; (front row, middle) Dr John Cameron, ‘Lochiel’, Cornaigmore.
Photograph of vet Duncan MacLean of Balevullin with his mother.
Courtesy of Mrs Flora MacKinnon
Duncan MacLean of Balevullin was the first veterinary surgeon on Tiree. Educated at Cornaig School, the headmaster of the time, Donald O. MacLean, recognised his potential and recommended to his family that he study at Glasgow University.
Back on Tiree after qualifying, he worked from a surgery next to the family thatched house in Balevullin. He was the first to do TB testing on the island and he introduced cobalt licks to prevent ‘pine’ in sheep grazing on the sandy, mineral-deficient machair.
He is remembered as a brilliant vet and a character. Many patients would prefer to see him than the doctor! Duncan never married and is pictured here with his mother. He died in 1955.
Black and white photograph of vet Duncan MacLean of Balevullin with an unknown woman.
Vet Duncan MacLean (1904-1958) of Balevullin on the right with an unknown woman, possibly his mother, taken in the 1930s.
Photograph of the RAF Tiree telephone exchange during WWII.
Black & white photograph of Derek Dolwin, Warrant Officer of RAF Tiree 518 Squadron, wearing headphones at (possibly) the telephone exchange at RAF Tiree around 1944. Derek was a member of the flight crew that took the metereological readings that facilitated the D-Day landing (see www.dolwin.demon.co.uk). (Original in filing cabinet 8 drawer 3)
Photograph of the G-site aircrew billets at RAF Tiree.
Black & white photograph of distant Nissen huts that housed the aircrew billets at G-site, RAF Tiree during WWII. (Original in filing cabinet 8 drawer 3)
