The road through the isles
In this second part of our exclusive serialisation of her book about the last drovers of Uist, Terry J Williams looks at how they took the cattle to market.
BENBECULA, Iochdar, Grogary, Stoneybridge, Carsaval, Milton, Clachan, Ahmore: the list of cattle sales was like a roll-call, repeated without hesitation and always in the same sequence wherever I went. Like the ocean and the wind, cattle were a fundamental part of life in the islands and the droving teams were as much a sign of the changing seasons as the arrival and departure of migrating birds. I had marked the location of each sale with a circle on my map and set myself the task of locating and photographing them all.
On Saturday morning, drovers, buyers and auctioneers travelled the 26 miles by bus from their lodgings in Lochboisdale to the northern end of Benbecula. Stansa na Fèille is still marked on the map but today a large sign beside the road redefines it. ‘Market Stance Waste Transfer Station’ is busy with the comings and goings of council bin lorries and loud with the rumble of machinery and engines. It’s hard to imagine the queues of men and cattle waiting to get into the sale and the bellowing of calves separated from their mothers.
When the sale finished at midday, the drovers and their dogs took to the road, trying to persuade homesick cattle to stay with the main herd. The rest of the sales team and the buyers headed off on the bus to begin the next sale at Iochdar in South Uist. The drove would gradually settle to a steady pace until they reached the southern edge of Benbecula, where the next obstacle lay in wait. Having made their sales and pocketed the money, the island’s crofters were ready for a bit of socialising at the Creagorry Hotel.
‘I remember,’ said Neil Campbell, ‘when we used to go past, everybody in there came out. They were half drunk. It was: “That’s the beast I sold!” and “That’s the beast I sold!” and “That’s the better beast!” And we were shouting them to go back. No way, no. They were just standing there, right in front of where the cattle were supposed to go. And the cattle would scatter all over.’
There would be more chaos and shouting, barking and running before order was restored. Peace was short-lived as it was less than a mile to the South Ford Bridge. The bridge was both blessing and curse for the drovers. Built in 1942 for wartime traffic, it avoided the dangerous foot crossing of the tidal gap between the Benbecula and South Uist but was viewed with great suspicion by the cattle.
‘Driving the cattle one time there,’ said Neil, ‘it was just murder. Two of us – we arrived at the bridge and it was slashing down rain and strong wind. Not a beast would go across.’
‘The ones that was coming from Benbecula,’ said Neil’s brother Simon, ‘they’ve never seen the bridge (it’s a causeway today, as you know). Oh they weren’t wanting to go on the bridge. They started scattering again, with them too scared to go on the bridge. Oh that’s how it was.’
‘By the time we arrived at Iochdar in South Uist,’ said Ian Munro, ‘the second sale was almost completed and our drove of cattle was increased. And then we went on to another sale which would be starting maybe about four o’clock. That was at Grogary and that was the last sale of the day. By then, we would have maybe two hundred and 50 cattle in total and they were put into a big fank and left there until Sunday morning.’
Up to this point, all the cattle from the sales were grouped together, regardless of who had bought them, but each beast had been marked with a daub of paint according to its mainland destination: green for Kyle of Lochalsh, orange for Oban. It would also carry the buyer’s own mark and a scissor clip.
On Sunday, the cattle boats would come to the pier at Loch Skiport on the east side of South Uist to collect beasts from the Saturday sales. At that time, Ian pointed out, ‘ninety per cent of North Uist was Protestant and ninety per cent of South Uist was Catholic’. Loading cattle on to boats on a Sunday would not have been allowed in North Uist, whereas there was no problem in the southern island.
‘See the cows from the machair in the west,’ said Neil. ‘When they got to a soft place, they were just walking right through it, because they’d never seen a bog before.’
I went to Loch Skiport. The pier, once busy with passenger ships from Glasgow, was now a skeleton. The tide was low and the drop was fearsome.
‘A lot of your loadings depended on the tide,’ said Ian. ‘A medium tide made the loadings far easier.’
So, on top of everything else, there would be the tides to consider. Tides and the boats arriving and keeping the cattle steady along the way and not getting stuck in the bogs. Then getting the first drove loaded and the boat away in time for the next boat to arrive and the next lot of cattle to be driven on board, before the water level dropped too far.
‘Loading cattle there,’ said Neil. ‘Nothing to hold them back, no pens, no nothing. Och, it was just horrible. If they broke away from the gangway, you had to watch. They would go straight for you. Hard work, hard work, aye. It was dangerous.’
Without the guidance of the drovers, I would never have found the triangle of rough ground where the Stoneybridge sale was held on the Monday, eight miles north of the overnight stance at Daliburgh. ‘While the drovers were walking with the cattle,’ said Ian, ‘the buyers and auctioneers and office staff, they went away to a place called Carsaval. The afternoon sale was held there and then that cattle were brought up to Daliburgh.’
The drovers would gather the cattle from the Tuesday morning sale at Milton and walk them to Daliburgh to join the animals from Carsaval. Now that the sales were finished in the south end of the islands, the whole team – auctioneers, buyers, clerks and all – were expected to lend a hand.
The cattle waiting in Corson’s Park at Daliburgh (named after the Oban auction company which had erected a post and wire fence along the roadside to contain the cattle) were sorted for Oban or Kyle according to their paint marks, then they were driven the remaining few miles into Lochboisdale. Loading cattle here was no easier than at Loch Skiport, said Neil. ‘At low tide, there was a slipway under the pier and loading cattle there – you couldn’t walk because of the seaweed. Well, the cattle were sliding there as well. If a beast broke away – aye, it was dangerous, it was really dangerous.’
One time at high tide, Kenny McKenzie remembered, ‘they crowded together on the Lochboisdale pier and we were all holding them and they burst out at the side and half a dozen of them went over the edge of the pier into the water’.
By late Tuesday afternoon, the laden cattle boats would be on their way to Oban and Kyle. Drovers, dealers, auctioneers and clerks said goodbye to the hospitality of Lochboisdale, then it was ‘back on the bus again, to get the ferry across to North Uist,’ said Ian.
Up through South Uist, past Daliburgh of the bogs, past the sales stances at Milton, Stoneybridge, Grogary and Iochdar, over the wartime South Ford Bridge to Benbecula and past the Creagorry Hotel.
At Stansa na Fèille, site of the Benbecula sale, the coastline of North Uist would come into sight. Down the last hill to the end of the road, a slipway and the North Ford: four miles of water or sand depending on the state of the tide, separating the two islands. Before the bridge and the causeway, the cattle used to wade across it. Little did I think that soon I would be taking my boots off and wading that channel myself.