Comb-bound report of P6/7` s conclusions from their interviews for a project for the Royal Highland Show Schools Shield 1994-5.
Report by P6/7 on what they learned from interviewing butcher Donald Archie MacLean, farmer Archie John MacLean and crofters Alasdair MacInnes and Janet Paterson.
Periodical `The Coll Magazine`, No. 1, 1983.
Stories about schooldays on Coll; a history of school transport; articles about cheese-making, poultry, bird-watching, scuba-diving, self-sufficiency; the Coll song; early travellers to Coll; camping and other local news.
Periodical `The Coll Magazine`, No. 2, 1984.
Articles about sheep and farming in Coll in 1764, livestock on the island between 1940 and 1981, peat-cutting, lazy beds, local man Neillie John MacLean, the Free Church in Coll, early travellers to Coll, bird-watching and gardening, carrrageen and wild flowers, and other local news.
Audio cassette recording of Willie and Effie Dickie of Caoles talking to Dr John Holliday in January 1999.
Willie and Effie Dickie of Caoles talks to Dr John Holliday in January 1999 about their early life and schooling, the start of World War II, Effie’s work in the NAAFI in Tiree, dances and entertainment, rationing and egg-collecting, Willie’s time in the RAF, his arrival in Tiree, the snow in 1943, servicing aircraft, air-sea rescue, 281 Squadron, life in Nissen huts, football and table tennis, the RAF station magazine, war news on the radio and censorship, discipline, church services, RAF doctors and shortages during the war.
Audio cassette recording of Donald MacIntyre of Gott talking to Hector MacPhail of Ruaig in March 1998.
Donald MacIntyre of Gott talks to Hector MacPhail of Ruaig in March 1998 and tells several anecdotes about people in Scarinish and elsewhere covering topics such as tobacco, eggs, boats and fishing.
Audio cassette recording of Margaret Green of Mannal talking to Maggie Campbell in 2000.
Margaret Green of Mannal talks to Maggie Campbell in 2000 about her childhood holidays in Mannal and playing with the other children on the shore, the people who lived in Mannal, the fishing boats and sharing the catch, fishing for sea-bream in June, her blind great-grandfather whose house was set on fire during the Clearances, a story about the curse put on the factor of the time, visiting relatives and friends, and returning to Glasgow laden with parcels of eggs, butter, cheese, potatoes and sometimes a chicken.
Audio cassette recording of Margaret MacDonald of Cornaigmore talking to Maggie Campbell in 2000.
Margaret MacDonald talks to Maggie Campbell in 2000 about buying ‘An Airigh’ in Cornaigmore in 1962 and using it as a holiday house until they took up permanent residence in 1981, the changes she’s seen in the shops, self-sufficiency, and crofting practices; Margaret also talks about how children today have less love of nature, how Mrs Campbell of Garaphail kept the Sabbath, the neighbouring croft that once belonged to novelist Alistair Maclean’s family and how milk was retailed in lemonade bottles.
Audio cassette recording of Neil MacLeod of Kilmoluaig talking to Maggie Campbell in November 1998.
Neil MacLeod of Kilmoluaig talks to Maggie Campbell in November 1998 about his schooldays, his work with the Post Office delivering mail in Cornaig at first by bike and then by pony, the general running of the Post Office, the difficulties during blackout in World War II, posting boxes of eggs and potatoes from Tiree, the introduction of the red mail vans in 1956, other postmen, the different ferries and the change in the pace of life.
At the Co-op Egg Depot, Tiree
Photograph of two women taking their eggs to a co-operative depot at Cornaigmore in the 1920s.
Courtesy of Mrs Rachel Wylie
In his ‘Crofts and Farms in the Hebrides’ published in 1883, the 8th Duke of Argyll wrote that ‘the island is admirably suited to poultry, and there is annually a very large export of eggs, amounting …to not less than 50,000 dozen.’
The Agricultural Statistics for Tiree show that in 1885 there were two thousand hens and one thousand ducks on the island. Between the wars, crofters on Tiree kept around eight thousand hens and ducks. The numbers fell to six thousand in 1955 and a decade later there were fewer than three thousand.
This photograph, titled ‘At the Co-op Egg Depot, Tiree’, was taken in Cornaigmore the 1920s. The depot was at the croft in the background, which belonged to Archie MacLean (Èairdsidh Tuairneir). A number of co-operatives were formed on the island for the purpose of collecting eggs for onward shipment to Glasgow.
Laser print of a black and white photograph of two women with baskets of eggs in the 1920s.
`At the Co-op Egg Depot, Tiree.` (From Myra Lamont’s photograph album of the 1920s.)
Cardboard egg box. Brown cardboard lidded eggbox, 242 x 190 x 73 mm, printed with `eggs with care` and lines for sender and addressee, containing corrugated cardboard insert for one dozen eggs.
Every Tiree croft had its chickens in the old days and eggs were a useful way to buy things from the shops if you had no money. In the Second World War, the airmen on Tiree were nicknamed the Royal Egg Force because of their fondness for them.
