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This week’s local paper includes:
Elphin Mid-Summer Family Fun Day…
Re-love Clothing Fair…
Gino’s Cantina – please help…
Letters…
Coastal Rowing Taster Sessions
Tide Tables & Weather…
Beach Cleans April & May…
Braemore-Ardmair Walking/Cycling Route…
World Refill Day…
Memories of Harry Potter…
From Canada – Lochbroom 1918-1945…
Highland Tourism Partnership…

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CONGRATULATIONS

FINLAY PRINGLE

Winner Young Scot Award 2023 Environment Category

DELI-CA-SEA

Winner of the Scottish Chippy Awards 2023 Beach Fish & Chips of the Year category

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THE SHIP HECTOR STORY
In 1773 John Pagan made two moves on the celestial chessboard that would forever change history. He posted an advertisement in the Edinburgh Advertiser that would speak loudly to tenant Scottish farmers, and he hired John Ross as his agent to attract Scottish immigrants to settle on the land grant he had acquired in Pictou (Nova Scotia). As fate would have it, John Ross was up to the challenge of his new position. With the promise of free passage to a rich and varied land, a farm lot, and a year’s provisions, he secured a shipload of passengers in short order. Yet, the credit of this story does not lay in the efforts of John Pagan and John Ross to fill their settlement, but in the hand of the intrepid souls that answered the call.
Approximately two hundred Highland Scots boarded the ship Hector at Loch Broom in the western highlands of Scotland. Under the command of John Spiers as Master, the Hector set sail in July of 1773, her passengers bound for a new life in Nova Scotia. Committed to an uncertain future, this courageous band was aware of very little about their new home except that just anything would be an improvement over the conditions they were leaving behind.
The ship was crowded and consisted of farmers, herdsmen, war veterans, a weaver, a miller, a piper and a blacksmith. They were young and old, men and women, families, spinsters and bachelors. United by a spirit of purpose, they were intent on proving their worth by establishing new homes in Nova Scotia.
By any standard the Hector was an old ship, built to carry cargo, and well past her prime. She was outfitted for neither speed nor comfort and lacked even the simple amenities of her day. Although suffering from rot, the Hector could lay claim to the quality of durability.….For the passengers, a hold no more than 85 feet and 22 feet wide would be their only home during the long voyage.
At times it would seem all the odds were set against their heavy-hearted decision to leave their homeland. Accommodations and provisions were of poor quality, and the outbreak of smallpox and dysentery resulted in eighteen deaths. A fierce gale blew up off Newfoundland, setting the ship so far off course that it took fully two weeks for the vessel to recover its former position. The delay in their arrival necessitated the rationing of water and food; indeed, mouldy scraps that had been earlier discarded were eaten on the last two days of the journey. Only the best efforts of the piper could buoy the spirits of those on board.
Finally, following a two month ordeal at sea, the Hector dropped anchor in Pictou Harbour on September 15th 1773.
From ‘Ship Hector Launch 2000’, kindly given by Heather Mackenzie and Jamie Adam.
Transcribed by Chrissy Boyd

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It was 20 Years Ago This Month
At a quarter to midnight on Friday 20th June 2003, I briefly looked out from the well-stocked bookshop on Quay Street, just at the foot of the steps leading up to the Captain’s Cabin. There wasn’t a soul about. Oh dear!
Back in the bookshop, I kept my fingers crossed while surveying the counter-top stacked with dozens of unsold hardback books. No doubt hundreds of booksellers up and down the country were doing the same thing. Were they all having the same doubts as me? There was no chance of returning any of these books to the supplier – they were a firm order.
I had decided that I would not open until midnight, because there was just no room in the old bookshop for many people to queue. The weather, as forecast, was mild and dry, so nobody would mind waiting outside. But would anyone turn up?
With ten minutes to go, I checked outside again, and just at that moment, two young lads cycled up, parked their bikes and formed a two-person queue, money carefully clutched in their hands. Phew! Even if they turned out to be the only customers, it was now all worthwhile.
At midnight, the boys were at the counter, waiting expectantly, and other folk were behind them, the queue stretching outside. I counted down the seconds until, at one minute past midnight on Saturday 21st June, I was legally allowed to start selling Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
It was a surreal night, and not just for me, because Avril had also opened up the Ceilidh Place Bookshop. By one o’ clock, it was pretty much all over, although I stayed till 2am, just to be sure nobody else was coming along.
This was the first new Harry Potter title since 2000, so it had been a long time coming. Copies of the book had arrived earlier that day: the most exciting delivery that I ever had the privilege of receiving. The label reminded us not on any account to sell copies ahead of the set time.
Over the next few days, sales were crazy and we had to keep re-ordering. In the midst of the madness, on Tuesday 24th June the old bookshop was closed, while we shifted all the stock into the new bookshop, to be ready for opening on Wednesday. Meantime, the Captain’s Cabin continued to sell the Harry Potter stock upstairs on that Tuesday.
Wednesday 25th June 2003 was unforgettable. The brand-new bookshop looked fantastic, thanks to William and Tina, who designed it, and Ullapool Construction, Roddy (Day), John (Braes), Stewart and other skilled professionals who were involved. Bookshop staff, notably
Senga, had kindly stayed up very late the night before to have
everything looking just right.
We never forgot that the bookshop was located in the old house of the Ross family. Over the years there were many conversations about Barbara, and I was always relieved when Frances came in and seemed happy that the house was playing a good role in the community. The back door was still her old back door! There were still some beautiful carved figures in the garden which Judy had made. The new bookshop was also associated, in my mind, with another Ross from the wider family: Jean, who managed the old bookshop for many years. Sheila Didcock followed Jean as manager.
In 2005 and 2007 the Harry Potter midnight opening was repeated and the crowds who turned up each time were amazing. The other day I looked at a couple of websites which recalled those nights. Nobody commented that going to a bookshop at midnight had been over the top. Everyone happily remembered the sense of excitement and camaraderie.
To those two cheery lads (you know who you are) who turned up early that night 20 years ago, and to everybody who came along: thanks for the memories!
DS

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*** Arthur Clune, Ardcharnich: a family’s story 1918 – 1945 *** *** From Canada to Lochbroom ***

Several families in Lochbroom have connections to Canada which arose from the Canadian Forestry Corps [CFC] working in Lael Forest during the Great War. Arthur Clune’s father, Arthur Cloon, was in 138 Company CFC at Braemore from July 1918 to March 1919.
Before leaving Lochbroom for Canada in March 1919, Arthur Cloon married Isabella Maclean from Ardcharnich. Their two children were born in Ontario, Arthur in 1920 and Euphemia Rose [Effie] in 1923 but in 1927 the widowed Isabella returned to Ardcharnich with the children.
Don Maclean, Ardcharnich, supplied a lovely photo – below – of smiling Leckmelm school pupils in the 1930’s showing Arthur Clune, the tallest boy in the back row, his sister Effie 3rd from the right in the middle row, with Don’s father Colin first on the left in the front row.
Within a few years Arthur, aged 20 years, was one of many Lochbroom men [including an Ardcharnich neighbour, Hector Munro] in the 4th battalion Seaforth Highlanders who were taken prisoner by the Germans on 12th June 1940 at St Valery-en-Caux and detained in Stalag XX-B in Poland until 1945. The effect of this on the prisoners and on the community of Lochbroom must have been enormous, coming only 22 years after the many local Great War casualties.
Many of the prisoners of war returned with serious illnesses. Arthur and Hector both died in 1945 – Hector in a Derby hospital and Arthur in Raigmore hospital, Inverness- and both are buried in Clachan burial ground.
In January 2022 a Commonwealth War Graves Commission [CWGC] volunteer from Nova Scotia, Graeme Wright, got in touch via facebook to try to find a member of Arthur’s family in order to arrange for an official CWGC memorial for his grave. With help from neighbours and relatives, contact was established, and this week the official memorial stone for Arthur was erected near to the original stone provided by his family.
Friends of Clachan

 

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