If you’re reading this Donald John, WELL DONE!

http://news.stv.tv/scotland/292018-tweed-weaver-shocked-by-mbe-honour/

We had come across this rotting, but in my mind, picturesque vehicle on the Golden Road on the Isle of Harris. I was so intrigued by how a vehicle from the Scottish mainland should end up on a remote Hebridean island that I decided to do some sleuthing on the matter.

I scanned the black and white negative and made a platinum print to give it a bit of extra oldness.

Here is my story:

Article published in

Do you ever feel you have to take action about something you believe in?  In this case it’s action against the Scottish Salmon Company. Their proposed action has riled me. I clicked on the link to the campaigning group 38 Degrees, above and below, and gave my opinion:

http://38degrees.uservoice.com/forums/78585-campaign-suggestions/suggestions/2244122-call-for-moratorium-on-expansion-of-industrial-sal

The Scottish Salmon Company’s proposed action brings to mind the  1983 film Local Hero in which Mr Happer who heads an American oil company sends Mac to Scotland to buy up a remote village where they want to build a refinery. Things don’t go as planned. Mac teams up with Danny, begins negotiations and the locals are keen to get their hands on the loot. Their luck is in. But there’s a flea in the ointment in the style of  local hermit Ben Knox who lives in a hut on the crucial beach which he also owns. Happer is more interested in the Northern Lights and Danny in a surreal girl with webbed feet, Marina. Mac is used to a high-tech office in Houston but is forced to negotiate on Ben’s low-tech terms.

Think about it.

Monica Weller

I don’t do golf. The scene at Harris Golf Club from inside our car though, was good. The tournament this year, on a wild, windy, August day (sponsored by Harris Tweed Hebrides and Caledonian MacBrayne) with its white hospitality tent just visible from the road, against a backdrop of picturesque Scarista beach, did appeal. Out comes the photo gear….step outside the car confines….just…..and whoosh. A monster of a wind………………and the men are fighting to save the life of the tent. That’s more like it…..Gordon Cairns (Mail on Sunday) says of the island’s golf course: ”one of the world’s top hidden sporting gems”. Yes, he was waxing lyrical about the golf course, but I have to say, the golfers did give a sporting gem of a floor show with the tent! Unmissable…..

I was sitting in Il Gusto cafe in Bookham, Surrey, this morning, 600-odd miles from the Isle of Harris, and realised it’s been ages since I added anything to my Harris Tweed blog. I thought: “I must say something about the South Harris Agricultural Show”. It’s held in the grounds of the primary school in Leverburgh. It was blessed with sun – gorgeous to be able to sit on the ground and look up at the huge blue sky. Anmd the warmth. Quite something. Donald John Mackay  of Luskentyre Harris Tweed walked past, so I took a couple of quick photos of him with my Olympus Trip camera …from a bird’s eye viewpoint.

The teas that the ladies of Leverburgh put on each year at the show are legendary.  One of the school classrooms becomes a huge Hebridean cafe, with the din of visitors and local people chatting, and home-bakes by the ton, this is cafe society at its most unexpected and most glorious…cakes, and scones that only the Scots can do well..chocolate goodies…egg sandwiches…and tuna sandwiches…tea from giant tea pots. And the service, wow.

Yes, I know, it sounds as if I’m only happy if I’m drinking tea (or the occasional coffee), but there’s more to it. It’s about atmosphere. And the Hebrides has bucket loads. And it’s where I have space to think.

You can see more of the photos I took this year at the South Harris Agricultural Show on my Flickr site:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/copperknob2011/

On the subject of cafes, one of my favourites, anywhere (apart from Il Gusto in Bookham where there’s great coffee during the day and three evenings a week pizzas to die for) is First Fruits in Tarbert. It’s always been a busy little meeting place. This year it was more vibrant than ever. May have something to do with RET, short for Road Equivalent Tarif. You can now get on a CalMac ferry to the Hebrides, it doesn’t cost the earth and First Fruits is the place to go for your cafe-fix. But it’s more like Stephen and his gang have got it running like clockwork.

Not that far from Leverburgh, in the south of Harris, is the turning to Northton.

I noticed a hand-written sign “Croft 36, Seafood” or words to that effect on the side of the road. It sounded intriguing so we investigated.

On the right hand side of the road, heading towards the beach at Northton, one of the remotest spots in the UK, a Hebridean entrepreneur had produced a bit of food heaven. They had parked a wooden voting booth-type construction just outside their house and were selling all things fishy. And fish is my passion. Everything beautifully displayed on packed ice. What a brilliant little idea. A price list was pinned to the wall, and payment was by way of an honesty box. The whole concept was bound to appeal to anyone who loves fish (like me)and loves exploring in this part of Harris. The owner of Croft 36 displays a sign inside the booth saying they will also deliver to your self-catering cottage or camp site, if you’re within a certain radius of Northton. They deserve to be successful. And win prizes for ingenuity.I love this sort of simple idea. We bought the most delicious home-baked crab quiche. Best I’ve ever tasted and baked with local free range eggs and crab caught locally by the man of the house. What a brilliant little idea. The simplest ideas are often the best.

All photos here taken on my old Olympus Trip film camera which cost £1 in a charity shop in our village.

Had a chat on the phone with Donald John Mackay of the Luskentyre Harris Tweed Company this evening. The weather has been good today in Luskentyre but the forecast is ‘not too good at all’ .

The good news is: “Harris Tweed is on the way up …and it’s no thanks to Mr Haggas… it’s not the bloody doom and gloom as on that last ‘Tweed’ programme,” (BBC4 ‘Tweed’) he told me. “I’m weaving a huge order of Harris Tweed for the special commemorative Clarks Desert Boots (see Monica’s separate Page) – celebrating 60 years of the boots…we’ve got an ongoing order for over 5000 metres. It’s too big an order to do it all myself so I’ve got help in producing it. And the boots are being made up in Vietnam.”

DJ also has another big order for Harris Tweed for another style of Clarks boots in the ‘Lumberjack’ design, red and black and green and black, which are being made for the Japanese market.

One incident I remember from a year ago on the road to Luskentyre. We were parked this side of Morag’s late, rusty, corrugated shed, which was about half a mile before reaching weaver Donald John Mackay’s shed which overlooks one of the most gorgeous bays in the world. Even on days when a storm is raging and news in the world is depressing, the view from Donald John’s property over the silvery-white sands and sparkling water is a feast for the mind.

It was either on Friday 1st or Saturday 2nd August last year (I seem to have missed a day in my Journal) we were snoozing and reading in the car. It was an overcast day and threatening midges. In other words there was no wind. Perfect midge weather. Grumbling that someone should block our view of heaven, or something about sheep, or both, two pairs of long female legs emerged from the car that had parked slap bang next to us. One of the long blonde haired girls wore a short black pencil thin skirt, black patterned top and black stilletto heeled shoes and giggled. Her name was Alla. Very Hebridean.

 The second girl was also preceded by long legs, but wearing stiletto heeled cowboy boots as she emerged from the silver car. She was obviously too hot - as soon as she was out of the car she peeled off her skirt to reveal white, laced up hot pants and then on with a white stetson hat. Her name was Gina.

Of course a dissertation followed, about how it was going to be a repeat of something he (my partner) came across many years ago in Lincolns Inn Fields, about 1973, where they were making a calendar with naked girls standing on plinths, who threw off their coats, with snow all around, and here it is all happening again.

Well, the Luskentyre floor show was apparently the beginnings of a calendar to be called Beauty and the Beach, Lewis and Harris Calendar 2009. And it was to raise funds for local primary schools on Lewis and Harris to give children an opportunity to enjoy more class outings to places of interest and recreation.

The sight of these young ladies in the outback of Harris made my camera fingers twitch. They huddled in the road. “It’s nice to have something different in a landscape,” said one of the girls. 

Here’s  one of my pictures.

A million miles from Harris Tweed…I like the idea of the unusual…opposites.  It made me think of Harris Tweed, young island folk today….

This length of Harris Tweed is crying out to be made into a neat jacket. The fabric must have been underwraps in my home for 12 years or more. Every now and then I remove it from its wrapping and examine it to make sure moths and spiders haven’t been gorging on it. So far so good.

This was one of my first Harris Tweed purchases from the world-famous Katy Campbell’s workshop in Plocrapol which is situated on the Golden Road, the remote rocky east coast road on the Isle of Harris.