Trusadh : Count Robin – Uachdaran Bheàrnaraigh
BBC ALBA, Monday 27 August, 9pm
As the community of Great Bernera starts deciding how they can control their own future after the death of Count Robin de la Lanne Mirrlees, the story of one of the Western Isles’s most memorable former lairds who died this year will feature next week on BBC ALBA. Trusadh: Count Robin – Uachdaran Bheàrnaraigh explores the life and times of Count Mirrlees, aristocratic owner of Great Bernera, who died almost penniless in June after years in the island’s tiny care home.
Count Robin in the council-run care unit on Bernera
The documentary follows journalist Iain X Maciver as he hears some of the Count’s more colourful accounts, from his early years in the European Royal set and claimant to a principality in Dalmatia, to the time he inspired one of Ian Fleming’s James Bond characters in the novel ‘On His Majesty’s Secret Service’. He even shares his own views on his luck with some of the most beautiful women of the day.
Featuring contributions from the island community where he came to live, and which he purchased ‘on a whim’ in the 1960s, it forms a fitting tribute to a man whose 87-year Riches to Rags journey never extinguished his joie de vivre.
BBC ALBA offers another chance to gain a fascinating insight into the life and times of Count Robin. Trusadh: Count Robin – Uachdaran Bheàrnaraigh was produced by MacTV for BBC ALBA.
