JOURNAL
| Window into Scotland
Notes from the Isles
Our writer realises living in a small community comes with both advantages and (occasional) disadvantages… Words by KATE FRANCIS
ABOVE: Kate and Cronie, her faithful Border Terrier TOP RIGHT: The village of Avoch on the Black Isle BOTTOM RIGHT: Kate has become an ‘agricultural student’ based at her home on the Black Isle
10 Scotland
O
ne of the many advantages of island life is the prevailing community spirit. Being fortunate enough to divide my time between our family base in the Outer Hebrides, and my home on the Black (almost) Isle, I am part of two close-knit communities and have recently had reason to realise what that means. Stupidly, I lifted an extremely heavy sack of rubble into the boot of my car, and then up into a dustbin. This resulted in a trapped nerve in my chest, which was so screamingly painful that I couldn’t sleep and was a moaning wreck. Word of my misfortune spread round our community like a pandemic. While I was trying to get through to our surgery on the telephone to ask for advice, a neighbour marched into my kitchen, grabbed Cronie and took her for a walk. Another neighbour drove up to the back door, heaved the remaining seven sacks of rubble into his trailer and carted them down to the dump. And Maggie, next door, arrived and insisted on going to the surgery for me to collect the prescribed medicines. Since then, people drop in every day to check up on me and see what they can do to lighten my load, and my family take turns to come and boss me about, each one on their way to and from our Hebridean home. Even my fellow dog walkers seem to be in on the game and stop me constantly to ask what they can do to help.
There is one slight drawback to this close-knit mesh of instinctive kindness: local gossip. Recently, I had a handsome man in his late 60s to stay for a week, to recover from the death of his mother, Sue, who had been one of my dearest friends. Roddy has always been like an extra son to me, and I am like a loving aunt to him. A landscape gardener and tree surgeon, he insisted on singing for his supper by labouring in my wild garden – chopping and hacking and digging, in full sight of all passers-by along the track. It was a happy week and we spent hours reminiscing about the good old days when he was a boy, and his father was my Douglas’s commanding officer. In 1961, after the amalgamation of the Cameron Highlanders with the Seaforth Highlanders, to become the Queen’s Own Highlanders, the new regiment was posted to Singapore to settle down together and become a properly merged regimental family. My oldest daughter, Mary, was born that year and Sue, with four sons, became my mentor and guide in baby care. Roddy and I relived those days with much teasing laughter and I think he enjoyed his visit as much as I did. But then I noticed a few raised eyebrows among my neighbours and some references to my “good looking visitor” and I realised that word of a “toy boy up at the old farmhouse” could be spreading rapidly, so I made a point of stopping to chat with any neighbour I passed, dropping the subject of my guest into the conversation, “.... the son of one of my oldest
