Muckdate 13: Standing Stones and Freezing Temperatures
This week has been a chilly one: temperatures failing below zero overnight (pretty unusual for the island’s comparatively mild climate), but with little precipitation (also unusual for this time of year - all we’ve had are a smattering of hail showers and the occasional flurry of snow). Muck’s domestic water supply is piped to the houses from the island’s springs; the pipes lie on or only slightly below the surface of the ground, meaning that when rare cold snaps do come, the water in them is liable to freeze. This has been the case for the last four mornings, but Colin and Ruth at the farm reassured us that the pipes would thaw again as soon as the sun was properly up - and they did. As long as we remember to fill the kettle and a water jug the evening before, it’s not a big deal to be without water first thing (we also keep a bucket of sea water in the bathroom for flushing the toilet!)
When the water freezes, all the water freezes.
These bright mornings are as beautiful as they are chilly, and this week I’ve tried to get out for a walk each day, once all the breakfasting, dressing and general shepherding-of-children-through-the-morning-routine is done. So today I thought I’d take you with me (and baby K, gently bobbing off to sleep in the carrier), out to the headland above our house. Our house is the most northern-most on the island, tucked onto the western side of north-facing Gallanach bay. This forms part of Àird nan Uan (Lamb Point), with Eilean Àird nan Uan (Lamb Point Island) and Eilean nan Each (Horse Island) beyond. There are no other houses here, but there are several interesting ruins, four of which are believed to be burial sites. A small cairn lies not far from our house, but the most remarkable stone monument stands towards the northern end of the peninsula: a Bronze Age circle which, on clear days like these, commands wonderful views of Eilean nan Each, Eilean Àird nan Uan, Rum, and the Isle of Skye.
Spot the photographer…
Dating from almost 4,000 years ago, the outer circle has a diameter of around eight metres - burnt ashes were discovered within in it, proving that the site has long been used for burial. But within the larger enclosure lies a small circle which marks the location of far more recent internments: those of the MacEwens of Muck. Like more conventional churchyard tombstones, the grave markers of the MacEwens record the names, dates, and a little other information about those whose ashes were scattered or bodies buried here. The earliest dates from the 1920s, with the most recent placed there in 1990.
The stone on the left of the picture marks the grave of William Campbell MacEwen, Writer to the Signet, Edinburgh, who was born at Inverness 19 September 1849 and died at Achiltibuie, Ross-shire, 18 June 1939 (aged 89). Writer to the Signet refers to William Campbell MacEwen’s professional careeer as a qualified solicitor. His wife’s grave stone is shown on the right side above: Margaret, daughter of David Croall and Christian Thomson, born at Edinburgh, 2 February 1858 and died ‘returning to this island’ on 23rd May 1944 (aged 86). I do not know the circumstances of Margaret’s death, but there is something haunting about her dying on her way back to Muck. Between the two is the gravestone of their grand-daughter Margaret Dorothea Robarts. She was the daugher of Dorothy Christian MacEwen (William Campbell and Margaret MacEwen’s daughter) and James Forrest Dewar, was born at Lerags, Argyllshire, 11th August 1910, married Geoffrey Ward Robarts, and died at Uvongo Beach, Natal, on 15th September 1936 (aged just 26). Even on a small Scottish island, you are never far from the legacy of colonialism!
These MacEwens are the father, mother, and niece of William Ivan Lawrence MacEwen, laird of Muck from the 1920s until his death in 1967. His gravestone stands to the left of his father’s and shows that he was a Commander in the Royal Navy (in fact, he was generally known as ‘the Commander’); both he and his wife, Edith Alice Traquair Nicol (1903 - 1978), were ‘born in Edinburgh and died in Muck’. In fact, it was Edith (known variously as ‘Babs’, ‘Ma’, or ‘Mrs MacEwen’) who ran the farm on Muck when the Commander was stationed at Lerwick during the Second World War. She was a highly educated woman with a degree in biology who specialised in the brackish water lochs of North Uist and Orkney and who, prior to her marriage to William and the birth of their four children, lectured at the Univeresity of St Andrews. After moving to the island she was able to pursue her passion for farming and by all accounts was a remarkable, strong, and determined person who saw the island through some tough years and left her mark on Muck.
The final gravestone is that of Alasdair Nicol MacEwen, eldest son of the above and the uncle of the current laird of the island. Born in 1939 and died in 1990, Alasdair spent his childhood and early adulthood on the island, before moving first to Hardiston near Kinross and later to Somerset. He was the last MacEwen to be buried on Àird nan Uan; his brother and the island’s most recent former laird, Lawrence Traquair MacEwen (1941 - 2022), lies in the island’s main cemetary at Port Mor, alongside his fellow Muchanach where his beloved cows graze above him. If you want to learn more about Lawrence and his relationship with Muck, a snapshot of his life here has been recorded in the film Prince of Muck (available on BBC iPlayer: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0016nl1).
It was a beautiful morning to sit beside the graves of people who had known and loved this island, and I smiled to myself when I saw that a lobster claw had also found its way up here. It was a fairly fresh specimen, still smelling strongly of the sea and retaining its bright blue colour - a funny, fitting offering as Muck is known for the quality of its seafood and many of the MacEwens have (and still do) put out pots for lobster on the rocks not far from here.
Baby K was now asleep and after sitting awhile by the cairn, I climbed down the short cliff to the stony beach that, at low tide, joins Aird nan Uan to Lamb Island. The sea was so clear that I could see small fish darting in and out of the seaweed and high above me a skylark rippled the air with song. I noticed that I had a good signal here (better than in the house) so I called my aunt, who has just been released from hospital in Suffolk following, sadly, a diagnosis of advanced cancer. She was too weak to come to phone herself but I spoke to her husband and tried to paint a picture of where I was. He told me it was snowing heavily down there - hard to believe when it was so warm and still 500 hundred miles further north - and that my aunt was tired but glad to be home. As I put the phone down I found myself crying; the distance between us and our situations seemed so great. I wished I could package up my morning and send it down to my aunt, full of sunshine and skylarks and babies and sea, but as she doesn’t have a computer or mobile phone I couldn’t even send a video. But you can enjoy it instead, and I hope you feel yourself a little transported to an early spring morning in the Hebrides, wherever you are reading this:
