The Isle of Tiree

I’m sure my Dad won’t mind me sharing an excerpt from an email he sent me while I was traveling around Europe in 2004. My Dad is a very talented writer, especially when conjuring up memories and transferring them onto paper. While my sister and I were traveling those six months through various destinations, we received emails from him that chronicled his first impressions, in 1972, of the places we were about to visit, whether it was communist Czechoslovakia, ancient Greece or beerhaus-ed Germany.

As we were approaching Scotland, he sent us an email that included some of what you will read below. It begins on a train from London’s Paddington station to Glasgow, where he was obeying his grandmother and getting in touch with Scottish relatives he had never met before.

“… The train was old and the compartments were wooden enclosures with sliding doors. We were fortunate to have one all to ourselves which allowed us to sleep on the bench seats. At dawn I awoke to the sound and rhythmic shaking of the train and gazed out the window. Gone was the flat English countryside with the old dingy brick buildings. Before me the upland hills filled the window, steep and lined with stone fences. I could not see the sky. I had to get close to the window to look up to see the tops of it. I felt that I had been transported into another world.

We were met in Glasgow by Uncle John Brown [Pearl and Mary’s father] who insisted that, the first thing the next day, we accompany him to some place called Tiree to close down their cottage. Connie [Pearl and Mary’s mother] had gone to Ottawa to visit grandmother so we were bachelor-ing it. He claimed he needed 'hunger-as-hunter' young men to eat the food there. He flew us both over and I assumed that, since it was the Highlands and Isles and that the flight was short, it was relatively inexpensive. Later, I found out quite the opposite. I had just encountered John's brand of Highland hospitality.

My first encounter with Uncle John in Tiree 'clashing-the-pan’ opened up a new world, and vocabulary, for me. Not just Scotland but his Scotland. He would talk about the past, his past, and what it was like. Both the information and context one cannot get from history books. I learned to better appreciate oral history - history that must be told by the people who lived it and that will die with them. I found out about my family, including my grandfather, someone who I never knew except through my grandmother. From John, and later Aunt Pearl, he became more alive to me; my grandmother made him seem god-like …

… I gazed down at the clouds over the Atlantic realizing that despite all the wonderful and wondrous experiences, it was the contact with the older Scottish relatives that was the most important to me. This surprised me because, at the onset of the trip, visiting them was a mild inconvenience to satisfy my grandmother. At the end, it was one of the highlights resulting in life-long relationships.”

The way that my Dad describes learning about his grandfather is exactly how I feel when Pearl talks about my great-grandmother Bessie. She died when I was still quite young, though I do remember her. But when I hear about various episodes from her visits back to her homeland over the years, I feel like I am getting to know her a little bit better. And that amazing Highland hospitality has been passed down through the generations as well.

I’m jealous that my Dad’s very first impressions of Scotland and Tiree were at the age of 22, when he could remember it, appreciate it and eloquently describe it. I don’t really have that first memory, since I was 16 months old when I first visited. From my visit as a four-year-old, I do remember John and Connie, and that familiar Tiree scent that combines heather, the sea, sheep shit and burning peat. Strangely, it still moves me every time. Until you have smelt it yourself, you can’t imagine the unique and blissful flavour of Tiree. I also remember Lochan Ban, as the cottage is known, though it has seen many renovations in the last 14 years since my last visit.

So Lyl and I embarked from Oban on a four-hour ferry ride through the straight between the Isle of Mull and the mainland, joining rain and bumpy waters as we dropped passengers off at the small (population 65) island of Coll before docking in Scarinish, the port town of Tiree (population 700). Four (Pearl, Molly, Colin and Naomi) family members greeted us at the rainy dock, while 21 more (from London, Oxfordshire, Manchester, Yorkshire and even Norway) were back at the cottage, preparing a curry feast and a proper Scottish ceilidh (kay-lee).

We would all be living between three cottages for the next few days, a somewhat regular family reunion that Lyl and I were able to be a part of this year. While Tiree maintains the Scottish tradition of offering up a lot of rain, it is also known as the sunniest spot in the UK because of vast beaches all along its perimeter and westerly-facing views out to the sea. Also known for its windiness – it hosts surfers, kite-sailors, kite-boarders and even an international wind-surfing competition every year – the gusts can mean that the weather can change dramatically in a manner of minutes.

During our three days there we saw it all: downpours, clear blue skies, gusting winds and t-shirt weather. We spent our days hiking up Ben Hough, accompanying the kids to the beach for boogie-boarding, learning how to kite, painting finger and toenails, reading in the sunroom, drinking pints of Tennants and drams of whiskey, and spending the evenings with a family ceilidh band that had a changing cast of talented musicians.

It was a truly memorable visit, one that I could appreciate that much more because of both my previous summers here and because I am at an age now that contributes to experiencing family and places from my own perspective. I did yearn to have my parents there with me, because I know how much Tiree means to them as well, but it was enlightening to familiarize myself with the Isle with as few preconceived versions of visits to draw from.

I am grateful that the family let us gate-crash for those three days and allowed us to be a part of the reunion, sampling that Highland hospitality that my Dad described in his letters. I hope this is not the only Tiree visit I fit in while I’m living in the UK. Back in the city and back at work already more than a week, I am still craving that heathered, sea-strong Tiree scent.