Going to the pictures
Between 1946 and 1970 an organisation called the Highlands and Islands Film Guild (HIFG) brought films to small and remote communities across the whole of the Highlands and islands including the Western Isles and Orkney and Shetland.
Many people still have memories of the Guild. Those often take the form of “a man and a projector coming to our village hall”, but it was much more than that. It is important to bear in mind there was a time when most communities being served by the HIFG had no TV reception until the 1960s. Without television, videos or DVDs, it is not surprising that screen goers would brave the cold and discomfort of their local venues to share the experience of watching a film.
My earliest memories of the HIFG go back to the time I was living with my parents at Kinlochan in Glenhurich – an isolated Forestry Commission estate lying to the north of Strontian, reached by a rough, single-track road rising to over 1,000 feet above sea level. This, our only access other than by a mail boat – which ran six days a week between Acharacle and Glenfinnan stopping briefly at Polloch before continuing up Loch Shiel to meet the London train – was frequently blocked by snow and ice during the winter months.
There were around 12-15 houses in Glenhurich, with a shifting population centred on Polloch which had a primary school, a public telephone box, a weekly travelling grocer’s van, a sub-post office in a corrugated-iron shed and not much else.
In former days the fertile glen was a prosperous 12,000-acre sheep farm carrying almost 8,000 Cheviots with seasonal let deer-stalking and salmon and trout fishing in the neighbouring lochs and rivers. Because of the topography in general, radio reception was poor to non-existent and largely dependent on the householder’s knowledge of radio waves and aerials.
We were fortunate. My father had been in Royal Naval Intelligence during the war experimenting with magnetic mines, so he had a good grounding in such matters. Not long after my parents arrived in 1947, he rigged up a radio, or wireless as they were known in these days. I may be mistaken but I have a feeling from the interest locally it was one of the first in the glen. I can see the set-up yet; there was a copper wire with china isolators strung between the chimney pots of the house as an aerial; the receiver was not much smaller than a bulky tea-chest and pretty inaudible until darkness fell, although it must have improved as I recall hearing Jimmy Shand’s popular Scottish dance music on summer evenings. Cricket less so. Father had played for Lancashire and was still bent on keeping in touch. Watching a test match is one thing – listening to it on poor quality radio is 10 times worse!
There was little community entertainment as the indigenous Highland population in the glen had disappeared with the sheep; forestry, then and now, being carried out by migrant contractors and a transient workforce, which in Glenhurich was augmented by employees mainly from the Strontian crofting townships who came and went daily by lorry.
There must have been some social intercourse around New Year as I can remember Donald MacMillan, our nearest neighbour at
Dalnaseilich and the only native of the glen, visiting. His family had come into the area from Loch Arkaig-side after Culloden and had worked in the neighbouring lead mines. Judging by Donald’s performance when he had a dram, they were pipers and exponents of fine cainntaireachd – a method of orally describing the various movements in piobaireachd music, thought to date back to the Middle Ages. Donald, who was related to Pipe Major William Lawrie (1881-1916) from Ballachulish, who served with the 8th Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, would march up and down our sitting room floor with a cushion tucked under his arm fingering a poker as he intoned the strange notes!
I have no knowledge when HIFG first came to Strontian. Motor cars being few and far between, the Forestry Commission eventually made one of their lorries available for monthly shopping expeditions to Fort William, whist drives and various other events in Strontian, including HIFG nights.
They were certainly held on week days as later, when we moved elsewhere on the peninsula and I attended Strontian Primary School, we trooped along to the village hall in the afternoon to help set up the 16mm projector and watch educational films. We found them pretty tedious but it evidently awakened an interest in me in photography.
HIFG nights were great social occasions with the little corrugated-iron village hall at Strontian often full to capacity. We sat on hard, backless, wooden benches (some old hands brought cushions). The programme was split into a first and second half, and generally followed the same pattern – cartoon, Pathe news, information film, trailer, main film and the National Anthem, of which more anon. As far as I can recall no refreshments (tea, not alcohol) were served, although I suspect a few men had half-bottles of whisky hidden outside.
When we left Glenhurich we moved to Morvern. There we renewed contact with the HIFG which visited Lochaline on a regular basis. Victor Gall, affectionately called “Vic” whom we knew from Strontian was operator, driver and projectionist, and was liked by everyone.
The Lochaline hall was somewhat superior to that of Strontian. For a while it had electricity provided by the company who owned the silica
sand mine, had film shows for their employees and everyone else in the parish every fortnight, so with the Guild coming into the village there was a film show virtually every week. I rather think the seating was better; chairs were slightly softer and they had backs to them. Deck chairs at the front and not the rear accommodated courting couples!
I am unsure why, but the Guild van continued to provide the power for the projector, as I recall the petrol generator in the back running out of fuel a number of times. Once the main film was set in motion Vic would retire to the local hostelry, but not before a “runner”, usually a boy, was identified in the audience and given half a crown to dash to the licensed social club to let him know if the generator had run out of fuel or the film had jumped the gate and was unwinding on the hall floor. The National Anthem was always played at the end of each show, which meant that the audience remained seated until the main film was rewound. When the anthem came on everyone stood up and waited until it had finished before bolting for the door. People were much more patriotic in these days!
On one occasion a short film of the Trooping of the Colour provided the anthem. For whatever reason it was spooled back to front and the wrong way up so not only were the words and music playing in reverse, but the Queen and her horse were upside down!
I remember once when Vic couldn’t be found the audience was entertained with a Gaelic song by Morvern mòd medallist Mrs Alastair Jackson, until he eventually appeared. Occasionally there were complaints from the adults about children making a noise during the main film, particularly if it was of a romantic nature. Vic took it seriously and would stand beside the screen before it began and shout, “One hoot and yer oot” – it usually worked!
Sometimes whole families would attend, but the majority of the adult men would either stay for the first half and bale out to the bar, or vice versa.
It has been said that the Guild was popular because television reception was poor. The reception had nothing to do with it, it was the lack of a public electricity supply which did not arrive until the later 1970s, early 1980s.