Globusz^® Publishing 

Like everyone else, I took delivery of my belongings into the Lodge and gradually made efforts to sort things out. I had allocated myself two good-sized rooms and this allowed some of the other rooms to be used by those who, as yet, had no permanent accommodation prepared for them, and for storage of those items that needed a greater degree of protection from the elements. There were sufficient rooms for anyone who needed to take one —as the rooms were quite large. James and Nick decided to share one room while Kate and Lynda shared another. Robert and Edith took a room each to themselves. The other less comfortable rooms were taken up with spare furniture that would not fit into some of the crofts because although people had measured for sufficient space, sometimes it was not possible to manoeuvre the items through narrow doors and awkward turns.

After a good, though short, night’s sleep I awoke to look, from my bed, out of my window to a completely new vista that I knew would greet me successively on every future morning. The green fields, scattered crofts and old stone walls would maybe change little other than by the nuances of varied light cast upon them by the rising sun, but the expanse of sea and sky, today dramatically enhanced by great scudding clouds being blown across from west to east, would be a panorama which each day would be a new and exciting canvas on which the artist would never repeat the same scene in exactly the same way. I mused on the contrast between this and my previous home. Even there, I thought I was fortunate to be able to look out over some Green Belt land, but I now saw that my outlook had been restricted. There, I more or less, had to go out to look up to see the sky; here it was all encompassing and so much more interesting.

Although all the deliveries from the mainland store to the island were completed, the setting-up process on the island continued both for individual and collective needs. It did not end for quite a long time. At first, some islanders experienced a conflict of needs between getting their personal accommodation ship-shape and carrying out work for the island’s general needs. However this only lasted for the first week and then people were then asking where their services would be best used.

The two large tents had been erected above earlier prepared concrete bases and on the second week. We had sufficient numbers offering to assist in getting the kitchen cum canteen organised to see real progress. Prime movers in this task were Madge, Edith and Rene, who all got on well together and soon developed a good working relationship. Their first task was to store the foodstuffs with some sense of order. Terry, the electrician, had to do some quick work to get the freezers working, and frequent calls to various men went out for the assembling and fitting of cupboards and worktops and the provision of cooking hotplates and ovens in one half of the tent. It was a very difficult working environment at first but the female trio did marvels to get the first meal available after a few days of hectic preparation. Tables and chairs were quickly set up in the other half of the tent and the canteen was declared open.

The kitchen operated on a self-service basis and as many of the islanders had been managing so far on small camping type burners in their homes, they were keen to try and test their first meal in the canteen. The trio excelled themselves, producing a thick soup to start and following this with a meat and vegetable stew that received the thumbs-up from all present. The sweet of apple pie was delicious — all in all, a great success. Morag joined the team later and they were absolutely delighted to hear that she actually enjoyed washing up — a great asset to any kitchen operation.

The other army tent was allocated for general storage and was already half full. An attempt had been made to keep some order but there was a need to reorganise everything. It occurred to me that it could be a job for Jock. I asked if he now felt better in heath and he said that just getting back on to the island had had a beneficial effect. I told him that we had a need for a storekeeper and suggested that he may like to help, assuring him that it would not involve any heavy lifting. It would, in the first place, be a case of noting where everything was and putting those things into some order so that they could be found in the future.

In the early weeks as much work as was possible was devoted to outside activities whenever the weather allowed. The two main areas of need were for the farm and for building work and all available offers of labour were seized upon for extensive fencing work for the animals and continuing building work for the unfinished crofts. There was also a great need to build the school and kitchen-cum-canteen to replace the army tents but this would have to take second place to the need to house everyone and get the farm ready to accept the animals.

The main farming contingent was made up of Gerry, Patrick, Ian and Angus, when he was not out fishing. The core group of people engaged in purely building work were Bob, James, Bill and Dafydd who, although our butcher, had little if any butchering to do in the early days.

Our teacher Miranda, with Lynda, tried to get the school operational in the third week in the spare half of the army storage tent. They called upon any person who was able to help them set up cupboards to hold the equipment. At least they were close to the store to rummage about and find other items that they needed. In the first instance they had to borrow tables and chairs from the canteen, which proved inconvenient, but at least their lunch break coincided with meal times in the canteen.

At the end of the first month the fencing of the farmland had reached the stage when the first animals could be brought on to the island. All the work on the individual crofts had been completed and work was to start on the larger buildings to replace the army tents. The school was now open during normal school hours and was now divided into junior and senior areas, Lynda enjoying her new task of helping with the juniors.

Life revolved at certain times of the day, around one of the two common water supplies in the village. As the pressure on labour became a little less, John was able to recruit the help of Paddy to dig trenches in order to get piped water to all. Paddy had already gained a reputation as a ‘Jack of all trades’ and could be relied upon to tackle any of the seemingly insurmountable problems that occurred from time to time, whether be it joinery work, an engineering problem or some difficulty on the farm. His son Shaun would always be found with him, when he was not at school, helping with whatever task was being tackled at the time.

Both cattle and sheep were eventually transferred from each of Gerry’s and Ian’s farms to stock the island. Gerry was more generally inclined to favour the large beasts and transferred all his Highland cattle, the long, shaggy hair enabling them to more easily survive the cold weather. He also brought some Hereford beef cattle to the island, whereas Ian supplied some Holstein Friesian and Ayrshire for dairy purposes and also managed all the sheep, which were mainly Scottish black-faced ewes.