ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO Saturday May 5, 1923
the Torcastle Hotel, Banavie, and the Invergloy Hotel, Spean Bridge.
Reverend Jonathan Campbell, in dissenting, stated that the rights of local people relative to the peace, rest and worship of the Sabbath were wholly ignored.
“We are being robbed of the God-given heritage of the Highlands in particular, and Scotland in general, of the Scriptural Sabbath for the enrichment of a few strangers,” he said.
“It was a case of opening the floodgates to large charabanc parties from all parts of the country on the Sabbath day in order to impose upon us a Continental Sunday.
“They have no warrant from the local people for such a departure,” he said.
Four Lithuanian opera
singers took part
in a delightful concert organised by the Lithuanian Voluntary Workers settled in the Lochaber district in the town hall on Tuesday.
Sheriff Cameron-Miller voiced the opinion of the audience when he said thanked the artistes and said that it was very unusual to hear the singers of such a calibre in Fort William.
The following is a copy of the letter sent to Sir William D Mitchell Cotts MP for the Western Isles: The Manse, Saint Kilda. 17 April 1923 Dear Sir,
I beg to write to you with regard to our communication with the mainland – postal and otherwise – in respect of which Saint Kilda is left in a position one hopes has but few parallels anywhere.
Since the end of the Great War, Glasgow steamers have visited the island on six occasions each year, the first visit taking place about the middle of May, and the last about the middle of August.
From August until the ensuing May connection with the mainland is extremely precarious.
That any mails at all reach us for about threefourths of the year is owing to the goodwill and courtesy of Fleetwood and Aberdeen trawler owners and skippers, to whom we whose lot is cast on lonely Hirta are profoundly grateful; otherwise during that long period we are simply left to our fate.
It is only when fish is found in the immediate neighbourhood that we may hope to get a mail; consequently it is a common experience to be six weeks – at times even nine weeks – without a break in our isolation.
In view of these facts your sympathetic interest is confidently anticipated, and our little community must urgently solicit your assistance in securing an improvement in a situation which ought to be impossible at this time of day.
Could it not be possible without endangering the national solvency to grant the islanders’ modest request that they be provided with a monthly mail when Glasgow steamers do not ply, ie, from August to May?
Considering the want of telegraphic, and the uncertainty and inadequacy of existing means of communication, simple humanity would justify legislative provision being made for a dependable and more frequent connection with the mainland.
At the request, and on behalf of the habitants of the lonely isle, I most fervently appeal to you,