Cooperation is needed
There is something badly amiss when a Government organisation such as CMAL sees fit to rubbish an island ferry committee.
There is an old saying that ‘you don’t have to be a chicken to tell if an egg is good’. The sole purpose of ferry committees is to work with all those concerned to improve services.
It must be frustrating for CalMac first to have its advice over Ferguson’s competence ignored and then to have its judgement on another project questioned by a volunteer amateur group. Even so, there should be no need or place for this sort of contretemps.
CMAL’s detailed assessment of the operational differences between the Norwegian apple and the West Coast pear will be very interesting. Much higher capital and operating costs cannot just be shrugged off. A huge amount of taxpayers’ money (more than enough to fix Argyll’s crumbling roads) has already been wasted in a perfect storm of poor decision taking, in which CMAL, as ship designers, had at least a small part.
In a rapidly changing world, experience of course has its place, providing one sheds any accumulated barnacles, which would otherwise hinder progress. Just to accept that the West Coast is a more expensive one in which to operate cannot be right. The challenge is to make the islands more economically viable and reduce reliance on taxpayer largesse too.
Over the last year or so the MIFC has come up with two half-decent proposals and CMAL/ CalMac have responded by rejecting both and replacing the smaller Mull ferry with an even smaller and slower one. Worse still, we may soon have to pay CalMac for changing our travel arrangements in a desperate and probably fruitless attempt to boost utilisation. It would be easy to despair.
The situation calls for maximum cooperation, coupled with the ability to innovate and adapt to strategies appropriate to today’s environment, including sailing frequency and different designs.
The house (the Ballachan) was delivered by ‘puffer’ and speedily assembled to become a much-loved home.
Our only link to the outside world was Ronald and the ferry – aptly named the Jacobite. It delivered supplies three times a week from Lochailort via Roshven to Glenuig and, of course, the Royal Mail faithfully delivered by Mary Tipping on her sturdy bicycle.
Her beaming smile, crushing hug and kiss were unforgettable – especially for Bruce and myself who were 12 and 13 years old!
Idyllic summers were spent cutting peat, making hay and checking the Glenuig burn for a salmon. Fish caught were always cut up and distributed in the glen. Ronald and Margaret Macdonald, Jimmy and Katie Mclean, and Jeannie Kennedy from the post office were always so kind to Bruce, my brother, myself and the whole family.
Mrs Cameron-Head was a gem and when I grew older I was allowed to fish the Ailort and Loch Eil, where salmon and seatrout were plentiful.
Major General RN Stewart and Marjory Lees allowed me to fish the Moidart where the best seatrout caught weighted 16lbs. Happy days – with grateful thanks.