The first family of castaways
Sponge cakes, shipwrecks and solitude, the remarkable story of the Brummies who battled to build a new life on Pabay
SHELTERING from the ceaseless downpour, the drenched figure crouching in the stern of the exposed dinghy did her best to shield her two young children from the worst of the spring storms.
As the outboard motor spluttered to life and the boat headed out into the rough seas, 19-year-old Margaret Whatley would have struggled to see past the sea spray to the postage stamp dot of land where she and her husband Len, then 31, had set their hearts on making their new family home.
Through the rain-lashed gloom of Skye’s Inner Sound lay the island of Pabay, newly in the possession of the Whatleys that April day in 1950. They had bought it on a whim after falling in love with this mile-wide gem of emerald green during a glorious holiday from their native Birmingham six months earlier.
Then, blue skies had lit up the north-west Highlands in a riot of autumnal colours. Where better, they surmised, to shake off the blight of post-war urban austerity and bring up their daughter Anthea and son Stuart on a selfsustaining farming idyll.
Pabay, like so many other island communities, had long since been abandoned by the few crofting families who once eked a living from its wild pastures. This family of landlubbers would be entirely alone there, separated by two-and-a-half miles of fast-flowing water from the nearest village of Broadford, on Skye.
Yet, armed with little more than boundless determination and a stack of ‘how to’ farming guides borrowed from the library, the Whatleys were certain it was the perfect base for their brave social experiment.
Len had been fired by the notion of farming his own land while growing produce as a conscientious objector during the Second World War. He met Margaret through her family, who held similar Left-wing pacifist beliefs to his own. What unfolded over the following two decades has now been documented in a powerful tale of human survival in the face of the most challenging of environments.
Written by Len and Margaret’s nephew, Chris Whatley, a retired professor of Scottish history, Pabay: An Island Odyssey recounts in vivid detail the triumphs and frequent disasters – some almost surreally comic – that dogged his relatives’ pursuit of the good life.
Professor Whatley, now 71, was a frequent visitor to Pabay throughout the period. He said: ‘They were not searching for an island, it was simply serendipity. They didn’t see the problems, but they wouldn’t. They had no experience of the unpredictability of crossing water, of the weather and the shorter season further north.
‘But Len had read a book about a character who had taken over a small island on the coast of Wales and I think it had stuck with him. Pabay looks green and fertile and lush and lowlying. They came from the Midlands, which was post-war desolation and devastation, so it must have looked rather wonderful.’ It probably looked less wonderful during the kind of meteorological battering that greeted their eventual arrival.
When the ferry hired to transport their bulkier possessions north also ran into bad weather, their furniture was offloaded quickly and left on Pabay’s rain-soaked jetty. Without a tractor, the couple had to carry everything by hand along the rough, quarter-mile-long track to their cottage. Some lighter items were lost, carried away in the near gale conditions.
THE Whatleys, who would go on to have another four children, lived in the only house on Pabay, a primitive shepherd’s cottage with no central heating or lighting, while cold water came from a tap at the back of the house.
The only toilet was a chemical Elsan commode in a lean-to shed. But the house was windproof and warm, Tilley lamps and candles gave light, while Margaret cooked on an old stove until a Rayburn cooker was fitted.
When the clouds finally cleared and they reassembled their ruined furniture, the couple ‘realised their first impression of the island and its prospects... had perhaps been overly favourable’.
Locals certainly regarded the incomers’ plans with some bemusement. Wags in nearby Broadford would enquire after the ‘Groundnut Scheme on Pabay’ – a reference to a costly and ultimately doomed Government project to cultivate vast swathes of colonial Tanganyika (now Tanzania) with peanuts in the 1950s to help plug a global shortage of cooking oil.
The Whatleys’ resilience in the face of such scepticism, however, was matched by their self-reliance and resourcefulness. They had, after all, already convinced the owners of the Scalpay estate, the Muntz family, to sell them the island for around £2,000, relying on the largesse of friends and a bank loan to fund it.
Len’s priority was planting the first crops – seed potatoes, vegetables, blackcurrants – with the aim of becoming self-sufficient one day. Cows, sheep, pigs and chickens would follow in a bid to diversify, but every plan brought with it a snag.
Crops take time to grow and as their modest stores of food dwindled, it looked increasingly like they needed a miracle to survive even the first few months.
By chance, Len had helped refloat a puffer from Irvine on the Clyde coast which ran aground on Pabay that summer. Weeks later, the owner, John Campbell, sent a large box of greengrocery and fruit, a sack of potatoes and another of coal.
It saw them through to the autumn harvest, while their diet was supplemented with fish from the sea (except Len, who was a committed vegetarian) and seagulls’ eggs, which Margaret discovered were not only edible but ‘added something to the quality of sponge cakes’.
They would also go winkle picking
and trap rabbits – anything that could earn a few pennies.
Margaret’s impressive ability to make do and mend saw bedside cabinets lost in the storms replaced with disused orange boxes covered in chintz material.
A skilled cook, she baked bread, cakes, scones and warming puddings, while Len would fashion a small wind-powered generator which gave light and powered a radio.
It afforded vital contact with the outside world, a chance to listen to the shipping forecast and a new BBC farming show, called The Archers, which featured the ‘Brummie accents’ so familiar to them from back home. Simple comforts but enough to cheer the soul.
Other familiar voices would soon follow them north when Margaret’s parents, Henry and Margaret Hild
itch, decided to retire to Broadford to be nearer to their grandchildren. They also put up the youngsters at their home through the week when they attended Broadford primary school.
While Len and Margaret may have fretted over the finances, there were no such worries for the children, who revelled in the freedom of their island idyll.
They would disappear for whole days paddling in the crystal clear lagoons, skimming stones and exploring coves.
When needed for farm work, helping out with feeding the animals and picking and packing the eggs from the growing numbers of chickens rarely felt like a chore.
The Whatleys’ brood was growing too; within five years Anthea and Stuart had been joined by Rachel, Alison, Michael and Tony and the support of the Hilditches was proving invaluable.
PROFESSOR Whatley remembers the largerthan-life character of Henry Hilditch in particular. ‘He was a very tall, commanding figure, a self-made businessman who loved doing deals and getting things done.
‘He became an essential cog in the wheel of the Pabay project. Without him, I think it would have ended much sooner. Len was a very clever, intelligent, thoughtful and committed farmer, but solving the problems to do with the water crossing often needed help.’ Henry, who once harboured political
ambitions and had stood for the Labour Party against John Profumo at the 1951 general election, relished the time-consuming administration tasks that took Len away from farming, such as writing business letters and organising transport for livestock across the water and away to Glasgow and beyond.
Len often needed to source a new boat – his lifeline to the mainland. Everything needed for the island, from animal feed and stakes and wire for fences to paraffin and cigarettes, had to be brought over water.
In good weather, a motor launch could make it in around half an hour; in bad weather, the crossing often couldn’t be made at all. The need for a boat fit for purpose, therefore, was paramount. With little spare cash, he was always chasing a bargain on a secondhand vessel and Henry was keen to haggle.
But cheap boats always bring problems. Len’s first, a converted lifeboat called Sea Otter, was bought for a song and carefully restored, only to be destroyed during another storm. More than half the boats that followed it would perish in similar circumstances.
In 1953, Len was persuaded to buy a former Second World War landing craft, the Jacqueline J, with the intention of making money by hiring it out to transport freight and livestock.
He hired a crew, but the craft mysteriously ran aground on rocks on its first trip amid rumours that the skipper had been seen selling some of the cargo – cement, diesel and tools – in exchange for drink money before deliberately trying to sink the vessel to cover his tracks. Nothing could be proved but, for once, disaster was averted as the loss of the craft was covered by an insurance payout.
In those early years, Len battled on many fronts to keep the farm going. Fences needed to be erected to prevent cows suffering untimely deaths. Five were killed falling off the cliffs at the island’s eastern side in the summer of 1953, while a similar number broke into a field of rich spring grass and gorged themselves to death.
Aided by his father-in-law’s shrewd eye for a financial leg-up, Len would shift the business from egg production to rearing chickens for the pot, to selling rabbits or seaweed, in a bid to qualify for the growing number of agricultural grants. But there was always a delay before subsidies were paid and new costs would arise. Repairs were always needed and homes for livestock fashioned from old Nissen huts, sourced by Henry Hilditch, blew away in the storms.
Professor Whatley said his uncle never made enough money to pay for the help to properly build up the business. Margaret did her bit by spinning yarn and producing hand-made ‘Pabay Tartan’ scarves and stoles, but the farm was meant to provide the lion’s share of the money and, with eight mouths to feed, it rarely broke even.
‘As children, we didn’t realise just what responsibilities lay on his shoulders. We saw him as a good, kind, fun-loving uncle, but the stress that he was under trying to keep the farm going was immense,’ the author said.
He took on other projects, including designing and building extensions to the cottage and a separate four-bedroom bungalow
nearby, persuading the Department of Agriculture to pick up almost the entire £1,690 cost.
The beginning of the end came with Len’s worsening back pain, caused by a succession of farming accidents. By 1961, he required specialist treatment in Glasgow and London.
With all but essential farm work placed on the back burner, the family dreamed up new money-making schemes to make ends meet. They moved into the bungalow and let out the cottage to holidaymakers, with Margaret stepping up her baking to supply cakes and bread.
The Pabay Knitwear brand was launched, with ties designed by Len doing particularly well – the matching socks less so.
Launched, too, were Pabay stamps. With the GPO refusing to make direct mail deliveries and collections, Len realised he could appoint himself postmaster and legally sell his own stamps, the only stipulation being they must be placed on the back of letters. They attracted collectors from as far afield as Sweden and Canada. Len also taught himself how to paint watercolours and, crucially, how to throw pots using the red clay found on Pabay.
In autumn 1963, Len survived a major heart attack but was going to need more long-term healthcare than Pabay could provide. Along with the children’s schooling requirements, it was clear a move to Skye was necessary. The Pabay project had come to an end.
BY 1970, the family found a buyer prepared to pay £14,000. Having cleared their debts, they moved to Edinbane, near Skye’s capital of Portree, where they opened the celebrated pottery run to this day by eldest son Stuart. Sadly, Len did not live to see the success, dying in his sleep shortly before Hogmanay in 1974.
‘The strain of running Pabay probably did shorten Len’s life,’ concluded Professor Whatley. ‘He smoked a lot, which didn’t help, but his brother, my late father Allan, lived to 104, so Len really should have lived beyond 55.’
Margaret later remarried and passed away after a lengthy illness in 2005.
Pabay remains in private hands and is once again uninhabited for much of the year, although the Whatleys’ old home is now run as a holiday let, popular with nature lovers.
Professor Whatley believes the couple’s legacy remains vibrant, not least in the hugely successful Edinbane Pottery.
He added: ‘The bigger story here is that the history of the Highlands was for a long time about clearance and emigration. And here you have one contribution to the re-peopling of the North-west. Skye’s population has been booming in recent decades and Margaret and Len were pioneers in a sense; they were at the beginning of a revolution that is still being felt 70 years on.’