Little brother follows in sister’s footsteps
Islanders on Tiree last week remembered eight-year-old Kayla, who died in a forestry accident near Benderloch a year ago on Sunday, two days after winning the young stockperson’s prize at the Tiree show.
This year her brother, Ruairidh, six, won the same award, the coveted Annie Cameron Cup for best young stockperson in the sheep and cattle sections.
Ruairidh also won two more cups including, appropriately, the Kayla Mary MacDonald Memorial Cup.
Tiree Agricultural Show balanced joy and sadness on Friday at Tiree Rural Centre, Crossapol.
Most importantly that day, islanders remembered eightyear-old Kayla MacDonald, who died in a forestry accident near Benderloch a year ago on Sunday, two days after winning the young stockperson’s prize at the Tiree show in 2017.
This year her brother, Ruairidh MacDonald, six, won the same award, the coveted Annie Cameron Cup for best young stockperson in the sheep and cattle sections.
Ruairidh also won two more cups: the Heylipol Farm Cup for best young handler in sheep section, and the Kayla Mary MacDonald Memorial Cup for best young stockperson’s crossbred ewe lamb suitable for breeding. ‘It is very fitting her brother won today,’ chairman Angus MacKinnon said.
Marion Burns stepped on to the podium for Brave the Shave, sacrificing her long hair for Macmillan Cancer Support. ‘I have raised loads,’ the Tiree librarian said, thanking Live Argyll for allowing her the time. ‘There is no hairdresser on Tiree, so it has been an opportunity to get it cut. I have got a bunnet with me.’
Nurse Emma Rogers volunteered to run the clippers over Marion’s scalp, after Emma’s partner, the sheep shearer, had ‘chickened out’.
‘Both my grandparents were in a Macmillan hospice, so I wanted to help,’ Emma explained.
Four fluttering flag poles set the backdrop to the field, displaying the four finalists in a public vote to find a Tiree flag, on top of online and postal votes over the next fortnight.
One flag in the shortlist, whittled from 261 designs from Switzerland to New Zealand, depicts ears of barley in a circular pattern signifying the sun, in a nod to Tiree’s Gaelic name, Tir an Eorna ‘the Land of Barley’.
Another flag intertwines Nordic and Celtic crosses from Tiree’s Viking and Gaelic heritage, in the blue
‘There is no hairdresser on Tiree, so it has been an opportunity to get it cut. I’ve got a bunnet with me.’
and white of its sea, sky and sand.
A third flag sports four horizontal bands representing the sun or ripe barley (yellow), machair (green), beaches (white), and sea or sky (blue), while the fourth flag has five representing a thin strip of land (black) sandwiched between the island’s sandy beaches (yellow) and then sea and sky (blue).
The winning flag design will