Morvern community was once healthy and thriving

Former residents of Morvern will surely be delighted to read in the Oban and Lochaber Times April 11, 2024, that this small peninsula has won a top Scottish planning award providing an assurance that its future is secure. Let us hope so.

However, lest it be forgotten, Morvern was not always a rural backwater bereft of key residents whose role was essential to the wellbeing and economy of the community, nor was it dependent on the largesse of government agencies.

Well within living memory and through written records, we know at one time there were; two doctors, a surgeon, nurse, pier master, registrar, four clergymen, four churches, a fever hospital, 24 public houses, 12 schools, a salmon fishing station, a chemist shop, three meal mills, three full-time millers, 34 weavers, 15 tailors, five shoemakers, three joiners, two cart-makers, eight stone wall builders, four boat-builders, two cart-wheel makers, two barrel-makers, a butcher’s shop, two cattle fairs, three blacksmiths, five post offices, a policeman, three general stores, a tobacconist shop, three shinty teams, four mines, four quarries, two undertakers, several kelp kilns, four inns and enumerable carters.

Direct (weekly and in certain places daily) boats ran to and from Liverpool, Oban, Fort William, Glasgow, most major villages round the island of Mull, Loch Sunart and the Outer and Inner Hebrides.

Not bad for an area of 200 square miles in comparison with what we are left today.

Sic transit gloria mundi – Thus passes worldly renown.